FTSE 250 movers: Sirius Real Estate rallies; transport operators slide

London’s FTSE 250 was down 3.2% at 15,370.96 in afternoon trade on Thursday.

Stagecoach was under the cosh after a downgrade to ‘sell’ from ‘buy’ at Citi, which cut price targets across the peer group as it pointed to an expected shift in consumer preference away from public transport. National Express, Go-Ahead and FirstGroup were also sharply lower.

Shares of Irish convenience food company Greencore slumped as Jefferies downgraded the stock to ‘hold’ from ‘buy’ and slashed the price target to 165p from 235p.

The bank pointed to weak sandwich market data and said it now more than 30% below consensus on Greencore’s FY20. This is "still too optimistic for an operationally-geared business, seeing big negative sales impacts," it said.

"With the shares now more than 50% above their post-Covid trough (but still 30% below pre-Covid levels) we move to the sidelines, ahead of the first-half results on 19 May."

Bank of Georgia was weaker as it slid into the red in the first quarter, following the disruption caused by the Covid-19 outbreak.

The loss for first three months of 2020 was Georgian lari 99.95m (£25.6m), compared to a profit a year earlier of GEL 156.54m. Operating income rose 1.1% year-on-year, to GEL 168.77m, but fell 10.2% from the final quarter of 2019.

Going the other way, German business park operator Sirius Real Estate rallied as it said it would pay a dividend as rent and service charge collection hit 98.8% of normal levels in April despite coronavirus pandemic lockdowns.

FTSE 250 - Risers

Bakkavor Group (BAKK) 69.30p 4.21%
Sirius Real Estate Ltd. (SRE) 66.80p 2.45%
Jupiter Fund Management (JUP) 224.20p 1.82%
Marks & Spencer Group (MKS) 86.98p 0.79%
Grainger (GRI) 246.00p 0.33%
Gamesys Group (GYS) 797.00p 0.25%
Dunelm Group (DNLM) 888.50p 0.23%
3i Infrastructure (3IN) 264.50p 0.19%
VinaCapital Vietnam Opportunity Fund Ltd. (VOF) 292.50p 0.17%
Hipgnosis Songs Fund Limited NPV (SONG) 105.00p 0.00%

FTSE 250 - Fallers

FirstGroup (FGP) 43.90p -19.08%
Countryside Properties (CSP) 311.00p -15.81%
Greencore Group (GNC) 142.30p -15.40%
Stagecoach Group (SGC) 51.15p -13.16%
Bank of Georgia Group (BGEO) 768.00p -12.93%
National Express Group (NEX) 176.60p -11.96%
Hyve Group (HYVE) 12.08p -9.99%
PPHE Hotel Group Ltd (PPH) 996.00p -9.86%
TBC Bank Group (TBCG) 678.00p -9.72%
Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings (AML) 28.88p -9.64%