WINNERS & LOSERS SUMMARY: Ferrexpo Rebounds After Deloitte Resignation

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices on Monday.----------FTSE 100 - WINNERS----------WPP, up 2.5%. Barclays raised the advertising firm to Overweight from Equal Weight. WPP on Friday said is making good progress, despite a sluggish performance in North America. The bank noted an in-line performance in the first quarter and said it has confidence in WPP's turnaround strategy.----------International Consolidated Airlines Group, up 1.9%. UBS upgraded the British Airways parent company to Buy from Neutral. ----------FTSE 100 - LOSERS----------Whitbread, down 1.0%. Shares in the hospitality firm were lower ahead of its annual results on Tuesday.----------Auto Trader, down 0.7%. The online vehicle marketplace announced the retirement of Chief Executive Trevor Mather. Mather will leave his position at the end of March next year. Current Chief Operating Officer & Chief Financial Officer Nathan Coe will become CEO-designate on Wednesday this week, before taking over as CEO once Mather leaves. Auto Trader deputy CFO Jamie Warner becomes CFO-designate on Wednesday, and will take over finance functions once Coe becomes CEO next year. He will not join the board immediately but will do so in future. "The challenge for Coe will be to continue to grow earnings in a car market which appears to be softening faster than a punctured tyre. Growth has been heavily driven by upselling higher value subscription-based packages to retailers. This could be more difficult to achieve if these clients are facing engine trouble," commented AJ Bell's Russ Mould. ----------FTSE 250 - WINNERS----------Ferrexpo, up 7.0%. The iron pellet producer said trading so far in 2019 has remained strong and has started looking for a new auditor, following Deloitte's resignation last week. Last Friday, Deloitte quit with immediate effect amid an investigation into payments made by Ferrexpo into Ukrainian charity Blooming Land. The stock lost a third of its value as a result. Deloitte highlighted Ferrexpo's refusal in January to set up a forensic investigation into the matter. At the end of that month, it said that if Ferrexpo did not do so it would be forced to consider its position as auditor. Ferrexpo did set one up, but then released 2018 annual results before the review was completed. Ferrexpo released the annual figures on Tuesday last week. Ferrexpo said the charity is not related to the company in any way, nor to Chief Executive Kostyantin Zhevago, but Deloitte has disagreed. Chair Steve Lucas said the company cannot with any certainty confirm the ultimate use of funds by the charity, and admitted there are indications some money may have been misused, though insisted no "conclusive" evidence has yet come to light.----------FTSE 250 - LOSERS----------HomeServe, down 2.5%. HSBC downgraded the home emergency repair services provider to Reduce from Hold. ----------OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS----------Edenville Energy, 57% higher at 0.040 pence. The coal project developer said it intends to raise a total of GBP510,000 through two placings, which will go towards working capital and further development of the Rukwa coal project in Tanzania. Edenville will conduct a firm placing of 500.0 million shares at a price of 0.02 pence per share, raising GBP100,000, while GBP410,000 will be raised through a conditional placing of 2.05 billion shares at the same price. Specifically, proceeds from the share issue will be for developing the Rukwa project to increase the run-of-mine coal for processing by opening up the project's northern pit area. The placing is subject to gaining shareholder approval at Edenville's general meeting on May 17, for granting authority to the company to issue shares.----------Trakm8 Holdings, up 22%. The fleet tracking services and dashboard camera system provider said it ended 2019 financial with expected but disappointing results. The company added that the value of new contracts secured during the fourth quarter of 2019 financial were 67% higher than the average of the previous three quarters, meaning value of contracts in the second half were 41% higher than the first. For the year to March 31, the company is anticipating to record revenue of GBP19.2 million, in line with market views but 35% less than the comparative year ago period, and adjusted pretax loss of GBP1.4 million. In the 2018 financial year, the company posted revenue of GBP30.1 million and adjusted pretax profit of GBP1.2 million. Net debt at period end is expected to total GBP5.6 million, up from GBP3.3 million a year ago, as a result of the loss. ----------OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS----------Nexus Infrastructure, down 31%. The infrastructure services provider warned that challenging trading in its Tamdown civil engineering business will materially reduce overall profit for the current financial year. In the financial year ended September 30, 2018, the company recorded pretax profit of GBP9.2 million. Tamdown's revenue for the first half was up 6.1% year-on-year. TriConnex, which provides utility connections, posted a 30% year-on-year increase in revenue for the interim period, with a gross margin of 31%. Nexus didn't provide a revenue result for eSmart. The company's order book at March 31 stood at GBP311 million, up 32% year-on-year, with growth across Tamdown, TriConnex and eSmart Networks. ----------