MARKET REPORT: Pharma firm Okyo tumbles as it quits City for New York

Shares of Okyo Pharma plummeted after it became the last company to leave the London stock market for New York.

The British biopharmaceutical group, which went public in July 2018 in London, said its shares will be delisted on May 12 pending shareholder approval.

“The trading volume of the common shares on the Grand Place is negligible and does not justify the associated costs,” said a spokesman.

Okyo Pharma, which focuses on dry eye treatments, is dual-listed between the US and UK.

The company’s proposal would transfer its London-listed shares to Nasdaq, but would not affect those already trading in New York.

Chairman Gabriele Cerrone owns 33.73 percent of the shares, mainly through his company Panetta Partners. Shares fell 14.6 percent, or 0.3 pence, to 1.75 pence.

Okyo Pharma’s decision to prioritize New York puts even more pressure on Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, who has vowed to make the UK a “more attractive place to list.”

The London stock market took a big hit earlier this year when Arm, the Cambridge-based chip designer, chose to list on Wall Street over the City.

The £30bn building materials group CRH (-0.8 per cent, or 31p, to 4021p) has outlined plans to leave London for New York.

Meanwhile, gambling group Flutter (0.7 percent, or 100p, to 14430p) and education publisher Pearson (0.3 percent, or 2.4p, to 839.4p) are among those looking at adding a Wall Street listing.

The FTSE 100 had been up over the past six sessions but was down 0.5 percent, or 38.48 points, to 7634.52 and the FTSE 250 lost 0.3 percent, or 64.37 points, to 18815.04. After a sharp rally on Monday after OPEC announced plans to cut production, oil prices fell back below $85 a barrel.

BP was down 1 percent, or 5.5 pence, to 527.2 pence and Shell was down 1.9 pence, or 46 pence, to 2,359 pence.

US private equity group Apollo has made a fifth and final bid for engineering group John Wood worth £1.66 billion. The 240p per share offer came after Wood rejected four previous offers. But Wood shares fell 2.3 percent, or 4.6 pence, to 200 pence, leaving them well below the bid price, a sign that investors don’t believe a deal will go through.

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Pawnbroker Ramsdens shone after raising its profit forecast and cashing in on watches, necklaces and bracelets.

The group, which has 150 branches, said its mortgage brokerage loans hit an all-time high in the six months to March 31 as customers looked for access to money amid higher living costs.

Jewelery retail profits rose more than a fifth from the previous year.

It expects profit for the year to September 30 to be “no less than £9.5 million”.

Shares rose 5.8 percent, or 12.5 pence, to 230 pence.

Drax gained 2.1 percent, or 12.4p, to 605.4p after city broker Liberum issued a buy recommendation, saying the energy company still has a role to play in bioenergy with CO2 capture and storage ( BECCS) proposal from the UK.

The government rejected the group’s proposal last month to capture emissions from its biomass power station near Selby in North Yorkshire.

At Renishaw, Jefferies started coverage of the engineer with an underperform rating and a target price of 3270p. Shares, which closed at 4040p on Monday, fell 5.1 percent, or 206p, to 3834p.

Pennon Group sank after Morgan Stanley downgraded the owner of South West Water from ‘overweight’ to ‘equal weight’ and cut the target price from 1060p to 940p. Shares fell 0.4 percent, or 3 pence, to 854.5 pence.

Gooch & Housego warned that its business was suffering from rising inflation and some customers buying more inventory than they needed.

The maker of parts for satellites, medical devices and the manufacturing sector said it has also increased salaries to ensure it remains “competitive in the job market.”

Turnover appears to have come in at around £71 million for the six months to March 31, it said. This would be higher than the £54.1 million it reported in the same period a year ago. Shares lost 2.8 percent, or 13p, to 447p.

Argo Blockchain fell 7.4 percent, or 1 pence, to 12.6 pence after the cryptominer said its output in March was 10 percent lower than the amount it produced in February due to “the increase in network problems.”