FTSE 250 movers: Moneysupermarket surges but BTG slumps on downgrade

London’s FTSE 250 was flat at 17,550.91 in afternoon trade.

Moneysupermarket was the standout gainer as it said it was on track to meet forecasts for a record year after a resurge in insurance offset a flat period for credit card and loan switching in the third quarter.

Bovis, Rightmove and Crest Nicholson were boosted by a report that China’s second-biggest property developer is in talks to buy privately-owned UK housebuilder Cala in a deal that could be worth as much as £700m.

According to Sky News, Evergrande has been in talks with Cala’s shareholders for several months.

It was understood the two parties were still some away from a formal deal, but a source told Sky there were “serious and credible”.

The move by Evergrande comes ahead of a government push to deliver one million new homes by 2020.

On the downside, BTG was under the cosh after RBC Capital Markets downgraded its rating on the pharmaceuticals company to ‘sector perform’ from ‘outperform’ and cut its target price to 790p from 910p.

“We remain long term fans of BTG but we are growing increasingly cautious on the delivery of early stage assets and the impact this could have on estimates,” it said.

Segro was on the back foot after Liberum downgraded the stock to ‘hold’ from ‘buy’ and trimmed the target price to 460p from 475p as it took a look at the UK real estate sector.

Virgin Money was weaker despite reporting a rise in gross mortgage lending for the nine months to the end of September as it expressed confidence that the Brexit vote would not affects its full-year performance. Traders noted the shares had been strong in the run-up to the numbers and put the decline down to a case of it being “better to travel than arrive”.

Weir was in the red after it said full-year profits were likely to come in below market expectations following difficult trading in the third quarter.

Risers

Moneysupermarket.com Group (MONY) 285.20p 8.90%
Hill & Smith Holdings (HILS) 1,068.00p 6.37%
Vedanta Resources (VED) 752.50p 5.47%
Supergroup (SGP) 1,411.00p 4.83%
Bovis Homes Group (BVS) 791.50p 4.49%
AO World (AO.) 163.40p 3.68%
Rightmove (RMV) 3,867.00p 3.53%
Inmarsat (ISAT) 724.50p 3.28%
Acacia Mining (ACA) 535.50p 3.28%
Crest Nicholson Holdings (CRST) 419.40p 3.07%

Fallers

BTG (BTG) 630.00p -4.26%
Savills (SVS) 668.50p -3.67%
SEGRO (SGRO) 425.40p -2.70%
Virgin Money Holdings (UK) (VM.) 320.20p -2.67%
Rotork (ROR) 198.90p -2.50%
Aggreko (AGK) 782.00p -2.43%
Weir Group (WEIR) 1,660.00p -2.35%
Pennon Group (PNN) 815.00p -2.34%
Derwent London (DLN) 2,370.00p -2.03%
Hunting (HTG) 493.70p -1.95%