EUROPE MARKETS: H&M Slides; Air France Rises: Europe's Big Stock Movers

By Sara Sjolin, MarketWatch

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Here are some of the companies whose shares are making notable moves in Thursday's European trading session.

Gainers

Shares of Direct Line Insurance Group PLC climbed 1% after the insurer said it is selling its international unit to Spanish insurer Mapfre SA for 550 million euros ($705.62 million) and will return the proceeds to shareholders.

Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC (RBS) added 0.9% after the bank said its Chairman Philip Hampton will step down during 2015 to become new chairman at GlaxoSmithKline PLC (GSK). GSK shares were up 0.8%.

Shares of Cairn Energy PLC picked up 3.8%. The oil-and-gas company said it has agreed to sell a 10% stake in the Catcher development and adjacent area in the North Sea in an effort to reduce its capital expenditure.

Air France-KLM rose 2.3% after the airline said it has given up on plans to expand its Transavia low-cost airline across Europe, in a bid to halt a strike by its French pilots.

Decliners

Shares of Hennes & Mauritz AB slid 3.6% after the Swedish fashion retailer said sales in the fiscal fourth quarter got off to a slow start.

Hargreaves Lansdown PLC dropped 3.6% after RBC Capital Markets cut the asset manager to sector perform from outperform.

Danone SA gave up 1.7% after J.P. Morgan Cazenove downgraded the French yogurt maker to underweight from neutral. The analysts said recent data pointing to a potential slowdown in the U.S. and Russia as well as uncertainties in China led to the downgrade.

Shares of Hammerson PLC dropped 3.5% after the retail landlord said it will raise around 400 million pounds ($652.8 million) by issuing new shares to buy 40% of Highcross Shopping Centre in Leicester.

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