FTSE 250 movers: Pinewood Tech plunges after Apax withdraws from deal

(Sharecast News) - FTSE 250 (MCX) 23,452.46 0.11% Shares in Pinewood Technologies tanked on Monday after private equity firm Apax Partners withdrew its £575m offer for the automotive service provider on Friday, citing prevailing challenging market conditions.

A statement from Pinewood, which offers a cloud-based platform for car dealerships and manufacturers, saying it was well-positioned to continue executing its strategy and to achieve medium-term 2028 guidance of underlying EBITDA of £58m - £62m, failed to reassure investors, with the shares down 30% in early London trade.

It added that the £33m acquisition of automotive artificial intelligence platform Seez in February 2025 "further strengthens the company's AI and customer engagement capabilities".

"Taking full ownership of Pinewood North America LLC, together with a new contract with Lithia expected to generate approximately $60m of annual revenue by the end of 2028, represent significant milestones that put the company in a strong position to grow its share of the North American automotive dealer software market," Pinewood said in a statement.

Previously part of Pendragon, in 2024 Pinewood became an independent entity following the sale of Pendragon's UK motor and leasing divisions to Lithia Motors, a North American automotive retailer.

London-listed renewable energy investment company The Renewables Infrastructure Group (TRIG) said it would keep its dividend unchanged this year after reporting a 5.2% fall in net asset value (NAV) per share over the fourth quarter.

The company, which said it remains committed to a progressive dividend policy, said it would only raise payouts "when it is prudent to do so".

As announced earlier this month, the fourth quarterly interim dividend was 1.8875p per share, taking the full-year dividend to 7.55p, representing net dividend cover for the year of 1.0x.

"The 2026 dividend target is maintained at 7.55 pence per share. In setting the dividend target for 2026, the vboard has prioritised restoring net dividend cover to the range 1.1x - 1.2x and future growth of the NAV," TRIG said in an update on Monday.

NAV totalled 104.0p per share by 31 December, down 5.7p over the final three months of the year.

The quarterly decline reflected a reduction in revenue forecasts (-1.8p), low power prices in Sweden, grid outages and operational updates (-1.8p), increased discount rates for UK offshore wind projects (-1.2p), the impact of the UK government's change in indexation basis from RPI to CPI for Renewable Obligation Certificates and Feed-in-Tariff (-0.6p), and the impact of the Autumn Budget (-0.3p).

Energy generation across the portfolio was 5% below budget for the quarter, as a good performance from TRIG's offshore wind portfolio was more than offset by below budget generation in Sweden and TRIG's UK onshore wind portfolio.

FTSE 250 - Risers

Princes Group (PRN) 424.75p 5.79% Ithaca Energy (ITH) 195.30p 3.22% Wizz Air Holdings (WIZZ) 1,413.00p 3.14% Applied Nutrition (APN) 243.50p 2.53% Helios Towers (HTWS) 195.80p 2.30% Harworth Group (HWG) 164.00p 2.18% Oxford Instruments (OXIG) 2,645.00p 2.12% QinetiQ Group (QQ.) 500.50p 1.98% Bridgepoint Group (Reg S) (BPT) 270.20p 1.96% Breedon Group (BREE) 358.00p 1.94%

FTSE 250 - Fallers

Pinewood Technologies Group (PINE) 297.50p -31.84% Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) 129.70p -4.63% The Renewables Infrastructure Group Limited (TRIG) 67.20p -2.89% Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings (AML) 62.00p -2.05% Hochschild Mining (HOC) 682.50p -2.01% Spire Healthcare Group (SPI) 201.00p -1.95% Ocado Group (OCDO) 220.30p -1.56% Softcat (SCT) 1,126.00p -1.49% Diversified Energy Company (DI) (DEC) 963.00p -1.43% Taylor Wimpey (TW.) 114.85p -1.42%