BTG, easyJet and AFH

“Blue-chips made a downbeat start to the week following a mixed performance on markets in Asia this morning and with ongoing geopolitical and Brexit concerns continuing to weigh on sentiment,” says AJ Bell Investment Director Russ Mould.

“Healthcare group BTG was the FTSE250’s biggest faller in early trading after a US court ruled that it breached the distribution agreement with Wellstat Therapeutics on the commercialisation of Vistogard. The distribution deal has now been terminated and all rights to Vistogard will be returned to Wellstat. BTG is mulling appeal options but it will take a £53.5m hit on its first half results to cover damages and estimated interest plus costs. BTG’s shares were down by more than 5.2%.

“Low-cost airline easyJet continued to increase passenger figures in October. The airline carried 7,519759 passengers in October, which was 9.9% up on year ago, and also improved the load factor from 90.2% to 92.5%. easyJet faced a big increase in cancellations with 434 flights hit compared with 164 a year ago. Around 200 cancellations were due to a strike by French air traffic controllers while about 100 cancellations were due to adverse weather conditions. On a 12-month rolling basis, easyJet’s passenger figures are up by 10% at 80,926,732. The airline’s shares were down by over 0.6% in early trading.

“Financial services group AFH was an early riser after a bullish year-end update. The group expects full-year revenues to top £33m, which would be a 35% increase on last time. The increase has been had been driven by the integration of acquisitions made during the year and higher average levels of revenue generated by advisers. AFH has continued to attract new funds throughout the year saw double-digit organic growth in funds under management which now exceed £2.7bn.”

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