FTSE 100 movers: Taylor Wimpey loses ground; Prudential rallies
London’s FTSE 100 was down 0.6% at 6,216.24 in afternoon trade on Thursday.
Housebuilder Taylor Wimpey fell sharply after saying that its share placing had raised £515m to take advantage of coronavirus lockdown-related disruption to the market for development land. The placing, announced on Wednesday night, was completed at 145p a share. The shares were also hit by a downgrade to ‘hold’ at Jefferies.
Cruise operator Carnival was weaker after saying it plunged into the red in the second quarter and warning of more losses to come, after the Covid-19 pandemic halted its cruise operations. The owner of the Carnival and Princess brands reported second-quarter net losses of $4.4bn, compared to profits of $451m profit a year earlier.
The shares were also knocked lower by a downgrade to ‘sell’ at Berenberg, which said Carnival’s capital structure was unsustainable and in need of a fresh injection of equity, the valuation highly unattractive and the shape and extent of the recovery of the industry far from certain.
Going the other way, Prudential was a high riser after saying it has reinsured $27.6bn (£22bn) of US liabilities with Athene Holding, which has made a $500m equity investment in the company's US Jackson business. The deal will strengthen the balance sheet of Jackson, Prudential's US division, and give Athene an 11.1% stake in the common equity of the business.
Nicholas Hyett, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "The deal is particularly welcome since there were concerns the current market conditions would make a disposal difficult - the inherently unpredictable nature of Jackson’s large variable annuity portfolio isn’t exactly the reliable income model investors generally expect from a life insurer.
"The deal does raise some interesting questions though. In particular we wonder what Jackson plans to do with its now sizeable capital surplus (always assuming it’s not needed to offset recent market movements)."
FTSE 100 - Risers
Flutter Entertainment (FLTR) 11,200.00p 4.09%
Prudential (PRU) 1,206.00p 2.33%
Whitbread (WTB) 2,408.00p 1.90%
SSE (SSE) 1,408.00p 1.66%
Bunzl (BNZL) 2,116.00p 1.34%
Severn Trent (SVT) 2,500.00p 1.01%
Compass Group (CPG) 1,132.00p 0.98%
Rentokil Initial (RTO) 505.40p 0.92%
Scottish Mortgage Inv Trust (SMT) 779.00p 0.91%
easyJet (EZJ) 799.20p 0.88%
FTSE 100 - Fallers
Taylor Wimpey (TW.) 142.60p -6.06%
Intermediate Capital Group (ICP) 1,229.00p -5.90%
Evraz (EVR) 285.50p -3.90%
Carnival (CCL) 1,234.00p -3.22%
BHP Group (BHP) 1,608.80p -2.38%
Schroders (SDR) 2,915.00p -2.31%
Centrica (CNA) 41.93p -2.17%
Next (NXT) 5,172.00p -2.12%
3i Group (III) 805.60p -2.11%
AstraZeneca (AZN) 8,410.00p -2.10%