Sirius soars on hopes of £2.5bn funding deal

AS crunch time approaches for Sirius Minerals, the fertiliser company boring a massive tunnel underneath the North York Moors, investors have been eagerly snapping up its shares.

Sirius is trying to thrash out a financing agreement worth more than £2.5bn with an unnamed major financial institution, which should secure the construction of its Yorkshire polyhalite mine.

Though the firm is unlikely to announce any progress on whether it has secured a deal with the new lender before the end of April, the market is already getting excited.

The new cash should allow Sirius, which is a favourite with retail investors, the opportunity to turn its hole in the ground into a functional fertiliser mine and remove most of the risk from the project.

Shares shot up 5.5pc, or 1.22p, to 23.3p yesterday, – even as US conglomerate The Capital Group Companies, a major shareholder, revealed it had sold down a stake worth around £22m on Friday.

Such a large sale would usually flood the market, pushing down their price, but instead the stock has been eagerly snapped up.

The FTSE 100 ended the day in the red – down 0.35pc, or 26.32 points, at 7425.57 – as little news came from Theresa May’s talks in Berlin with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Packaging heavyweight Smurfit

Kappa pulled the FTSE 100 down, falling 3.9pc, or 91p, to 2275p. Travel company Tui was close behind, just days after it released a profit warning prompted by the grounding of Boeing’s 737 Max planes, dipping again by 3.1pc, or 23p, to 715.8p. Investors in drugs giant Glaxosmithkline were largely unmoved by US medical regulators’ approval of a new HIV treatment, created by GSK and Pfizer.

The drug, Dovato, is the first ever once-daily single tablet containing two drugs, rather than three, to help treat HIV. GSK’s shares edged down 0.4pc, or 6p, to 1582.2p, suggesting investors were largely expecting the approval.

Fund manager Neil Woodford was able to provide investors with some cheer, as Reneuron – a company which he owns 35.5pc of – shot up by 29.8pc, or 51p, to 222p.

The firm is developing new types of stem cell treatments for diseases such as blindness-causing retinitis pigmentosa, and revealed it was licensing the rights to some of its programmes to Chinese pharmaceutical giant Fosun.

In return, it will be paid up to £80m if all milestones are met. Though Reneuron accounts for 0.9pc of the stock market-listed Woodford Patient Capital Trust, the trust’s shares slipped 0.4pc, or 0.3p, to 82.3p.

Meanwhile N4 Pharma, another specialist pharmaceutical company which is developing a new way to deliver vaccines and cancer treatments to patients, crashed 43.1pc, or 3.45p, to 4.55p.

The results of its tests with the University of Adelaide have so far not been positive and its Nuvec treatment has not been effective on living organisms.

Model train company Hornby, which has been trying to put issues surrounding late orders and lack of stock behind it for over a year, came further off the rails as it conceded revenue for the year ending March 2019 was still lower than the previous 12 months. The company said it was progressing with its turnaround, but the shares fell 4.1pc, or 1.5p, to 34.8p.

There was little fun to be had among the stock market’s gaming companies. Video games developer Sumo Group fell 4.2pc, or 6p, to 137p, despite growing revenues and profitability.

Meanwhile Stride Gaming, which develops online bingo and fruit machine games, slumped 8.9pc, or 11.5p, to 117p, as it warned regulatory changes would push revenues down 5pc.