FTSE 250 movers: G4S gains on update; Centamin drops on dowgrade

London’s FTSE 250 index was up 0.5% to 16,725.87 in afternoon trading.

Security firm G4S racked up healthy gains after saying it has made a positive start to the year despite a challenging backdrop, with no new impairments.

In a trading update for the three months to the end of March ahead of a speech to be given at the JP Morgan Cazenove European Business Services conference, the company said continuing business revenues rose 4.5% from the period in 2015 to £1.51bn.

Meanwhile, revenues from onerous contracts rose to £55m from £46m and profit before interest, tax and amortisation increased 6.5% excluding restructuring charges of £1m during the period.

Spire Healthcare was a high riser after Investec lifted the stock to ‘hold’ from ‘sell’.

Food-on-the-go group Greggs was in the black after reporting a strong start to the year with a 5.7% rise in like-for-like sales in spite of the tepid conditions on British high streets.

As it continues its investment programme, trading at its own stores rose 3.7% in the first 18 weeks of 2016.

Despite the modest footfall reported elsewhere, this was up from the 2.3% growth reported in the fourth quarter of last year, though down from the break-neck 6% in the same period last year.

On the downside, Centamin was under the cosh after Citigroup downgraded the stock to ‘sell’ from ‘neutral’ just two weeks after cutting it to ‘neutral’.

“Our sell rating does not mean that this is a not a top-quality group. It reflects that fact that we believe that the market is paying too much for that quality,” the bank said.

Restaurant Group was weaker after UBS cut its stance on the stock to ‘neutral’ from ‘buy’ and slashed the price target to 305p from 780p saying near-term uncertainty outweighs the long-term potential.

The bank said Restaurant Group's profit warning at the end of April highlighted a deteriorating like-for-like sales trend, with a 2.7% drop for the 17 weeks to 24 April indicating a LFL decline of 4.4% for the last seven weeks.

“Management appear yet to have a clear explanation for the weakness, let alone a solution. As a result, we are cautious on the near term potential for a LFL turnaround. Whilst there is some valuation support at these levels, we downgrade from buy to neutral to reflect the lack of visibility, pending details of the strategic review.”

AA was also on the back foot as Jefferies initiated coverage of the stock at ‘underperform’

“Despite high margins and strong free cash flow, we expect deleveraging will occur at an unacceptably slow pace, driven by on-going negative revisions to consensus EPS,” it said.

Risers

G4S (GFS) 196.10p 6.40%
CLS Holdings (CLI) 1,578.00p 4.57%
Spire Healthcare Group (SPI) 335.50p 3.58%
Greggs (GRG) 1,105.00p 3.46%
TalkTalk Telecom Group (TALK) 265.20p 3.19%
Polypipe Group (PLP) 289.60p 2.62%
Indivior (INDV) 155.00p 2.51%
Euromoney Institutional Investor (ERM) 963.50p 2.50%
Morgan Advanced Materials (MGAM) 237.70p 2.46%
Hastings Group Holdings (HSTG) 181.00p 2.38%

Fallers

Kaz Minerals (KAZ) 153.90p -8.23%
Centamin (DI) (CEY) 113.20p -6.83%
Interserve (IRV) 307.70p -6.56%
Vedanta Resources (VED) 362.10p -6.48%
Evraz (EVR) 122.60p -6.20%
Restaurant Group (RTN) 268.10p -5.33%
Allied Minds (ALM) 340.20p -3.95%
Acacia Mining (ACA) 315.90p -3.86%
AA (AA.) 275.90p -3.70%
Amec Foster Wheeler (AMFW) 451.30p -3.18%