FTSE 250 movers: Currys sparks; SThree tanks

Electricals retailer Currys said on Thursday that it swung back into the black in the first half, with a solid performance in the UK and Ireland helping to offset weakness in the Nordics.

In the half year to 26 October, the company swung to an adjusted pre-tax profit of £9m from a loss of £10m in the same period a year earlier, as revenue ticked up 1% to £3.9bn. Group like-for-like revenue was up 2%.

LFL revenue in the UK & Ireland rose 5% to £2.3bn, but LFL revenue in the Nordics dipped 2% to £1.6bn amid a "difficult" consumer demand environment.

Chief executive Alex Baldock said: "We're very encouraged by our progress. Currys' performance continues to strengthen, with profits and cashflow growing significantly, and the group's balance sheet is strong.

"In the UK&I, we made big improvements to both online and stores channels, customers continued to take more of the solutions and services that are valuable to them and to us, and such growth drivers as B2B and iD Mobile performed well.

"All this showed in growing sales, market share, gross margins and profits. In the Nordics, we gained market share, increased gross margins, tightly controlled costs and grew profits in a still-tough consumer environment."

Currys also said on Thursday that some price rises were "inevitable" following changes to National Insurance contributions and minimum wage announced in October’s Budget.

Looking to next year, the retailer said the Budget is likely to add around £32m of annual cost to its business.

This includes a £9m increase in wages due to national living wage rises and a £12m increase in National Insurance contributions. There will also be a £9m impact from the pass through of these costs from some of its outsource partners and a £2m increase from the inflation-based increase in business rate taxes.

"We will seek to mitigate as much of this as possible through cost saving measures including process improvement, automation, offshoring, outsourcing and other overhead efficiencies," it said. "Some price rises are also inevitable. We will further update on this in due course."

Baldock said: "Looking ahead, we're confident of continuing our progress, and expect to grow profits and cashflow as promised this year. This is despite new and unwelcome headwinds from UK government policy. These will add cost quickly and materially, depress investment and hiring, boost automation and offshoring, and make some price rises inevitable."

Recruiter SThree tumbled after it posted a slide in net fees and warned that the ongoing challenging market conditions would hit profits. Updating on full-year trading, FTSE 250 firm - a specialist in the science, technology, engineering and maths sectors - said group net fees were down 9% year-on-year.

Auction Technology rallied after private equity firm TA Associates said it had agreed to sell its entire 12.6% stake in the company for £85.3m.

Investec was hit by a downgrade to 'neutral' at JPMorgan.

Market Movers

FTSE 250 - Risers

Currys (CURY) 89.65p 13.48%
Wizz Air Holdings (WIZZ) 1,550.00p 9.00%
Raspberry PI Holdings (RPI) 478.60p 5.79%
NCC Group (NCC) 140.20p 4.47%
Auction Technology Group (ATG) 589.00p 4.25%
Bloomsbury Publishing (BMY) 696.00p 3.88%
Pennon Group (PNN) 616.50p 3.70%
Watches of Switzerland Group (WOSG) 582.50p 3.46%
Indivior (INDV) 924.50p 3.07%
Greencoat UK Wind (UKW) 129.50p 2.78%

FTSE 250 - Fallers

SThree (STEM) 264.50p -26.73%
Hochschild Mining (HOC) 225.50p -5.65%
Domino's Pizza Group (DOM) 306.60p -5.08%
Hays (HAS) 79.25p -4.17%
Sirius Real Estate Ltd. (SRE) 82.35p -4.13%
Investec (INVP) 566.00p -4.07%
Pagegroup (PAGE) 361.60p -3.62%
Trustpilot Group (TRST) 296.00p -3.58%
Alpha Group International (ALPH) 2,255.00p -3.22%
Bytes Technology Group (BYIT) 442.20p -2.94%