FTSE 100 risers and fallers: Vodafone climbs higher, while Sage slides

The FTSE 100 edged higher this week, rebounding on its final trading session with it climbing 45 points on Friday, hovering at 7,535 levels as of 15:10 GMT, representing a 0.25% increase from last week’s close.

FTSE 100 Risers

The blue-chip index avoided ending the week on a down beat with the help of Vodafone on Friday, with the British telecoms company seeing its share price rally more than 10% to 145p after it unveiled plans to spin off its mobile masts business.

Vodafone CEO Nick Read said that the newly formed tower business will become Europe’s largest, boasting 61,700 masts in 10 countries.

The telecoms company hopes to have new, independent unit setup within 18 months, with it expected to have an EBITDA of around €900 million (£802 million), Vodafone said in a statement.

‘Given the scale and quality of our infrastructure, we believe there is a substantial opportunity to unlock value for shareholders while capturing the significant industrial benefits of network sharing for the digital society,’ Read said.

Other notable blue-chip stocks this week include British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and UK homebuilders Persimmon and Taylor Wimpey, with them all seeing their stocks climb 7.28%, 6.12% and 6% respectively.

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FTSE 100 Fallers

Sage Group did its best to drag the index lower this week, with its share price tumbling more than 8% after recording a 10% fall in revenue derived from licencing its software on Thursday.

The share price decline is the steepest fall the software company has seen in the last 16 years.

Despite the decline in sales from the licencing of its software, investors may have overreacted somewhat to the news, with the group’s overall revenue climbing 5.3% to £476 million in Q3 and up 5.9% to £1.4 billion over the last nine months.

Meanwhile, British energy company SSE, hospitality group Whitbread and UK mining business Anglo American also had a tough week, with them all seeing their share prices tumble 6.7%, 6.5% and 6.5% respectively.