FTSE 100 movers: Shell gains on Woodside sale; Babcock, BAE and RR drop
London’s FTSE 100 was down 0.1% to 7,424.98 in afternoon trade on Monday amid mounting political uncertainty.
Royal Dutch Shell gushed higher as it said that following strong demand from institutional investors, it has now agreed to sell its entire holding in Woodside Petroleum.
The oil giant said earlier in the day that it had agreed to sell 71.6m shares in Woodside to two investment banks, cuttings its holding to 4.8%.However, it announced later that a total of 111.8m shares were agreed to be sold, representing subsidiary Shell Energy Holdings Australia Limited’s entire interest in Woodside, for total pre-tax proceeds of $2.8bn.
On the downside, Babcock International, BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce were all under the cosh following a warning from Ultra Electronics. Ultra said on Monday that it expects a tougher second half, as it announced that Rakesh Sharma has stepped down as chief executive with immediate effect.
Pointing to mounting pressures in the funding of UK defence programmes which have resulted in the UK Ministry of Defence pausing, cancelling or delaying a number of programmes, the group said it now expects full year total revenue to be around £770m, down from £785m last year, and for organic revenue to drop by around 4%. It expects profit for the full year of approximately £120m versus Bloomberg consensus of £128m.
Coca-Cola HBC was also weaker as JPMorgan Cazenove cut the stock to ‘neutral’ from ‘overweight’.
“Fundamentals remain strong but CCBA could be less accretive than initially expected,” it said.
Distribution and outsourcing company Bunzl was in the red. Shore Capital noted that the stock fell noticeably on Friday in response to published market analysis suggesting that the company’s business model might be undermined by the ramp-up of Amazon’s activities in ‘B2B’ distribution activities: potentially taking revenue and undermining margins.
Risers
AstraZeneca (AZN) 4,940.00p 1.44%
British American Tobacco (BATS) 4,959.50p 1.01%
Carnival (CCL) 4,911.00p 0.97%
United Utilities Group (UU.) 839.50p 0.78%
Royal Dutch Shell 'B' (RDSB) 2,476.00p 0.75%
Royal Dutch Shell 'A' (RDSA) 2,436.00p 0.74%
Relx plc (REL) 1,730.00p 0.58%
Worldpay Group (WPG) 406.20p 0.54%
Unilever (ULVR) 4,246.00p 0.52%
Prudential (PRU) 1,854.00p 0.46%
Fallers
Babcock International Group (BAB) 756.50p -6.89%
Coca-Cola HBC AG (CDI) (CCH) 2,480.00p -4.06%
NMC Health (NMC) 2,804.00p -3.91%
Kingfisher (KGF) 299.00p -3.49%
BAE Systems (BA.) 538.00p -3.24%
Rolls-Royce Holdings (RR.) 905.50p -2.42%
Bunzl (BNZL) 2,108.00p -2.27%
St James's Place (STJ) 1,120.00p -2.27%
GKN (GKN) 313.20p -2.13%
International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (CDI) (IAG) 584.50p -2.09%