London midday: Footsie back in the blue

15th Nov 2010 12:07

Footsie is in positive territory now after an impressive rally that has been mostly powered by miners, though there's takeover talk in the oil sector.Premier Oil is doing its bit for the mid-cap index, racing to a new all-time high on talk that state-controlled KNOC, the Koreans who recently paid £1.9bn for Dana Petroleum, also have the North Sea oil giant in their sights.The UK company, sitting on a massive find in the Catcher field, has apparently denied the rumour, but its oil would go some way to helping Korean politicians achieve their target of doubling production by 2012.It expects to produce 44,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) this year and about 75,000 boepd in 2012.Among today's best performers is platinum miner Lonmin, which bounced back into profit and recommenced dividend payments as higher metals prices offset the ongoing technical problems at its main furnace. Profits in the year to September came in at $240m, compared to a loss of $272m last time. Revenues rose from $1.06bn to $1.59bn. A final dividend of 15c is proposed.Kazakh miner Kazakhmys, which was earlier one of today's worst performers, is now among the best performing stocks in the FTSE 100.BHP Billiton is higher after its decision to end its battle to buy Canada's Potash Corp for around $40bn and sweeten shareholders with a $4.2bn share buyback instead.Earlier this month, Canadian Minister of Industry Tony Clement said he wasn't satisfied the offer for the world's largest fertiliser maker was likely to be of net benefit to Canada and gave the company 30 days to prove otherwise. Today, BHP decided it couldn't satisfy the politicians and has withdrawn the offer, but not before racking up $350m worth of costs.Shares in Invensys are higher despite the engineering firm denying press reports that it has received an approach. The company's chief executive Ulf Henriksson told the Telegraph that China Southern Rail has agreed in principle the possibility of acquiring Invensys.The trimming of the BP empire continued Monday morning with the oil giant completing the sale of five southern African marketing businesses. The company has agreed to sell its fuels marketing businesses in Namibia, Botswana and Zambia to Swiss company Puma Energy, a subsidiary of Trafigura Beheer. Autumn did not bring the usual increase in visitor numbers for Persimmon but the housebuilder said sales volumes have remained stable in the second half of the year. The company reiterated its previous guidance of an increase in full year sales revenues of around 10% more than last year, but said total borrowings at the end of the year are expected to be less than £80m, lower than previous guidance.Serco, the outsourcing company that recently got a telling off for asking suppliers to subsidise the group's contribution to the government's spending cuts, is on track to deliver on its financial guidance for 2010. At the half year Serco had an order book of £16.7bn, since when it has been awarded £2.3bn of contracts, bringing the total for the year to date to £4.5bn, comprising signed contracts valued at £3.7bn and preferred bidder appointments valued at £0.8bn.Online bookmaker Sportingbet has confirmed it is in merger talks, rumoured to be with Swedish rival Unibet in a deal that could be worth up to £600m.Pork specialist Cranswick served up a 12% increase in half year pre-tax profit, hiked its dividend and said it was confident for the second half. Pre-tax profit rose to £23.8m in the six months ended 30 September 2010 from £21.3m in 2009 following increased demand for its pork products. Turnover for the period rose 8% to £384.3m. Underwriter Beazley has again been rejected by rival Hardy despite upping its indicative takeover offer by 10% to 330p. Beazley said the board of Hardy would not recommend an offer of 330p per share and would not even be prepared to meet to discuss it. A previous offer of 300p per share got similar short-shrift.FTSE 100 - RisersInvensys (ISYS) 340.90p +6.93%Lonmin (LMI) 1,823.00p +3.17%Serco Group (SRP) 572.50p +1.69%Petrofac Ltd. (PFC) 1,516.00p +1.54%Weir Group (WEIR) 1,670.00p +1.52%BP (BP.) 452.55p +1.48%Tullow Oil (TLW) 1,254.00p +1.46%ICAP (IAP) 476.00p +1.36%Intertek Group (ITRK) 1,942.00p +1.30%Burberry Group (BRBY) 1,017.00p +1.29%FTSE 100 - FallersRolls-Royce Group (RR.) 602.00p -1.47%Legal & General Group (LGEN) 98.80p -1.30%Centrica (CNA) 336.10p -1.21%AstraZeneca (AZN) 3,004.50p -1.05%Inmarsat (ISAT) 669.00p -1.04%Investec (INVP) 505.50p -0.69%National Grid (NG.) 583.50p -0.68%Royal Dutch Shell 'B' (RDSB) 1,998.50p -0.67%GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) 1,215.00p -0.65%International Power (IPR) 421.90p -0.61%FTSE 250 - RisersYell Group (YELL) 11.69p +8.34%Kenmare Resources (KMR) 25.83p +5.43%Sportingbet (SBT) 61.60p +5.39%Premier Oil (PMO) 1,893.00p +5.28%Cranswick (CWK) 827.00p +5.22%PartyGaming (PRTY) 221.00p +3.71%Salamander Energy (SMDR) 238.20p +3.16%Punch Taverns (PUB) 68.85p +2.68%Ferrexpo (FXPO) 388.90p +2.56%Restaurant Group (RTN) 287.20p +2.53%FTSE 250 - FallersImagination Technologies Group (IMG) 349.10p -3.64%Aquarius Platinum Ltd. (AQP) 371.00p -3.23%Taylor Wimpey (TW.) 25.18p -3.04%Big Yellow Group (BYG) 320.80p -2.61%Barratt Developments (BDEV) 77.25p -2.59%Berkeley Group Holdings (BKG) 814.00p -2.46%Sports Direct International (SPD) 130.90p -2.17%Hansen Transmissions International NV (DI) (HSN) 50.20p -2.14%Supergroup (SGP) 1,393.00p -1.83%Savills (SVS) 363.60p -1.57%