FTSE 250 movers: Metro Bank tumbles, Ferrexpo rocks higher

London’s FTSE 250 was down 0.38% at almost 18,756.90 in afternoon trading on Thursday, with Metro Bank continuing to lead the fallers on the index.

Shares of the dog-friendly challenger bank tumbled after admitting that an accounting error it reported last week, which stemmed from the way in which it classified loans, had actually been identified by the Bank of England's Prudential Regulation Authority.

In a statement on Thursday, the company said: “Ongoing supervision by the PRA helped to identify potential inconsistencies in certain loans which were raised with the bank.

“Metro Bank then undertook a comprehensive review, in order to establish the full picture before our year end, which identified the need to make adjustments in our risk-weighting of some commercial and specialist buy-to-let loans.”

Short-selling funds, including Odey, Marshall Wace, Polar, CZ Capital and Connor, Clarke & Lunn, have all increased their short positions since the news of the blunder first broke as they aim to profit from a further fall further in the share price.

Meanwhile, Clydesdale Bank, Yorkshire Bank, Virgin Money UK owner CYBG and polymer specialist Victrex dropped ahead of the release of trading updates next week, with the former also revealing that more than a third of investors voted against its pay plans for its top bosses.

Greencore also fell after an oversubscribed repurchase of shares worth £509.0m, priced at 195.00 pence per share.

Wizz Air crept lower after it reported a sharp drop in profits in the three months to end-December as the budget central and eastern Europe airline's faster sales growth was met with ever mounting costs.

Iron ore pellet producer Ferrexpo racked up stellar gains, boosted by a double-upgrade to 'buy' at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and an upgrade from 'hold' to 'buy' at Deutsche Bank.

Merrill Lynch had previously rated the stock at 'underperform' due to reservations on "geography and potential governance issues" but upped its opinion of the "iron ore pellet pure play" due to a better market for pellets in the wake of the Vale mine disaster in Brazil.

Rank Group rose as it saw a 5.1% improvement in digital like-for-like revenue to £63.9m, though like-for-like revenue at venues fell 3.9% to £302.1m, while Renishaw jumped as it reported interim revenue growth across all regions except for the Far East, where trading was impacted by a slowdown in demand for encoder products.

Plastic packaging supplier RPC Group was trading up as US plastics giant Berry Global said it was thinking of making an offer for the group, which comes after US private equity firm Apollo making a long-anticipated final offer to buy the company at 782p a share in cash last week.

Finally, defence and security technology group QinetiQ crept higher after reporting third-quarter growth and further progress with international contracts.

Market Movers

FTSE 250 (MCX) 18,756.90 -0.38%

FTSE 250 - Risers

Ferrexpo (FXPO) 253.90p 9.82%
Rank Group (RNK) 161.40p 7.89%
Renishaw (RSW) 4,612.00p 5.68%
Sophos Group (SOPH) 341.40p 4.28%
Kaz Minerals (KAZ) 600.60p 3.73%
Hochschild Mining (HOC) 186.53p 3.40%
RPC Group (RPC) 791.60p 3.34%
Crest Nicholson Holdings (CRST) 379.29p 3.29%
Dechra Pharmaceuticals (DPH) 2,364.00p 3.23%
QinetiQ Group (QQ.) 303.20p 3.13%