Drinks giant’s shares fall 60pc over profit warning
You can forgive the directors of Conviviality, the parent of Bargain Booze, for wanting to hit the bottle yesterday.
The tipple-seller said a ‘material error’ meant it had overestimated its forecasted earnings by 20pc, or £5.2m. However, the firm refused to explain exactly how it dropped the ball so badly.
Instead, it would only say margins in its Conviviality Direct business, which includes wine distributor Bibendum, had ‘softened’ in January and February.
It added: ‘A number of enhanced controls and disciplines have been introduced to address this and management believes that appropriate corrective actions are in place.’ Shares crashed a whopping 59.2pc, or 178.5p, to 123p.
World stock markets breathed a sigh of relief as Donald Trump softened on trade tariffs. While he is going ahead with a 25pc tariff on steel and 10pc on aluminium imports, he hinted of concessions for ‘real friends’. He tweeted: ‘We have to protect our steel and aluminium industries while at the same time showing great flexibility and cooperation toward those that are real friends and treat us fairly on both trade and the military.’
The FTSE 100 ticked up 0.63pc, or 45.4 points, to 7203.24 while the
FTSE 250 bounced 0.98pc, or 193.84 points, to 19968.01. Investors dumped Alfa Financial quicker than a bad date after the software firm disappointed with its 2018 forecasts.
While full-year results were a little ahead of analysts’ expectations, the FTSE 250 firm warned its ‘revenue growth [would be] weighted to the second half of the year’ as contract wins roll in.
Shares fell 18.6pc, or 89p, to 389p. Russ Mould, of broker AJ Bell, said: ‘ Such comments are rarely well-received as they suggest visibility is not all that it could be, and the company still needs more than a few things to drop right in the year ahead to meet, let alone beat, analysts’ estimates and justify its lofty price tag.’
Nobody likes being asked for money, least of all shareholders. So it came as little surprise that
John Laing slid as it went cap in hand to investors.
The FTSE 250 infrastructure firm hopes to raise £210m for new projects after committing to £383m of investments last year.
It plans to create one new share for every three existing ones and will offer them at 177p, which is a 29.2pc discount. Chief executive olivier Brousse said: ‘ We are launching a rights issue to take advantage of more of our pipeline of opportunities, and we hope all shareholders will support it.’
Bad news, olivier: they didn’t. Shares fell 3.9pc, or 10.6p, to 263.6p.
Stobart Group , on the other hand, gave investors reason to cheer after saying its dividend would be safe until at least 2022.
It plans on using the proceeds from business sales to cover its dividend for four years, after which it will be covered by income.
In the past year, the owner of London Southend Airport has made £27.3m selling Park Royal and London Southend Airport hotels, and its investment in a Port Talbot biomass plant. Shares rose 2.9pc, or 6.5p, to 234.5p. online gambling firm GVC Holdings won near unanimous backing for its £4bn deal to buy Ladbrokes Coral, the uK’s biggest High Street bookies. The deal, backed by 99.97pc of GVC shareholders, will create one of the world’s largest gambling groups, and is expected to close within weeks.
Shares in Foxy Bingo owner GVC ticked up 0.6pc, or 5p, to 900.5p, although Ladbrokes’ shares fell 0.5pc, or 0.85p, to 163.4p.
Shares in Britvic, the makers of Robinsons juices, leapt 6.2pc, or 42.5p, to 724.5p after analysts at Morgan Stanley raised its target price from 680p to 870p.