FTSE 250 movers: Centamin slips, Finablr flies higher

London's FTSE 250 was down 0.89% at 19,302.96 in afternoon trade on Thursday, with Centamin leading the index lower.

Synthomer

160.60p

16:45 23/12/24

4.02%

6.20p

Shares of the gold miner fell as it announced the retirement of chief executive officer Andrew Pardey and said gold production is expected to be at the lower end of full-year expectations.

Fellow precious metals miner Hochschild followed close behind after analysts at UBS cut the stock's price target from 260p to 250p, arguing that they saw the company's new acquisition of the BioLantanidos rare earth deposit as an "incremental negative".

Synthomer was lower after analysts from Canaccord reduced its estimates the polymer supplier's second half earnings by 6% due to a slowdown in its European end-markets over the past few months.

"Despite this, we are making no change to our 2020E+ EPS forecasts, reflecting what we believe will be a successful integration of the Omnova acquisition - completion date still to be announced - the better prospects going into next year, and the opportunity at Synthomer for significant earnings enhancement as further specialty capacity is introduced," said analysts.

Synthomer also took a hit as its stock went ex-dividend alongside that of Hays.

3i Infrastructure was down after announcing a placing of up to 81m shares to pay down debt, with the price to be determined via a bookbuild.

Up at the other end of the index, payments platform provider Finablr led the risers after it announced the launch of a money transfer feature in Samsung Pay on Thursday, alongside Samsung Electronics America.

Greggs continued its recovery, with the high street bakery chain having fallen earlier in the week after it reported sales in line with expectations but slowing momentum.

Finally, Big Yellow Group was also on the up after having its price target hiked from 1,000p to 1,050p by analysts at Jefferies.

Market Movers

FTSE 250 (MCX) 19,302.96 -0.89%

FTSE 250 - Risers

Finablr (FIN) 157.00p 4.67%
Airtel Africa (AAF) 50.50p 3.48%
Greggs (GRG) 1,886.00p 3.06%
Syncona Limited NPV (SYNC) 219.89p 2.28%
Apax Global Alpha Limited (APAX) 158.00p 2.27%
FDM Group (Holdings) (FDM) 733.00p 1.95%
The Renewables Infrastructure Group Limited (TRIG) 128.00p 1.75%
IG Group Holdings (IGG) 595.80p 1.71%
Big Yellow Group (BYG) 1,053.00p 1.54%
Sports Direct International (SPD) 282.00p 1.44%