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London afternoon: Morning's gains consolidated
Wed, 08 Feb, 2012
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London afternoon: Morning's gains consolidated
Wed, 1 Sep 2010, 13:45:00
Leading shares moved sideways over the lunch time session, consolidating the morning's gains. In the battle of the "bid speculation" stocks, package tour operator <b>TUI Travel </b>leapfrogged over <b>Cable & Wireless Worldwide</b> (CWW) to claim the prize as best performing blue-chip. <b>TUI Travel </b>is higher on hopes that majority shareholder TUI of Germany will buy up the 42.5% of shares in the UK operator that it does not already own, taking advantage of the weak share price after TUI Travel's underwhelming trading update last month. The rumours were started in the German press but counter-claims have emerged that that TUI AG will want to clear the decks and sell its stake in container shipping firm Hapag-Lloyd first before considering taking out the rest of TUI Travel. <b>Cable & Wireless Worldwide</b>, the demerged part of Cable & Wireless that is predominantly comprised of the telecoms giant's UK business, is being touted as a possible target for US telecoms titan <b>AT&T</b> . CWW's shares lost about a fifth of their value since the company announced on 20 July that proposed public spending cuts in Britain could put a brake on earnings growth this year. The gossip-mongers think that the share price fall has put the company in the price range of its US rival. Outside of this pair the chunky gains are mostly to be found in the mining sector where <b>Fresnillo, Kazakhmys, Antofagasta </b>and <b>Xstrata </b>lead the way after China's official purchasing managers' index rose to 51.7 in August from a 17-month low of 51.2 in July, causing an improvement in commodity prices and overall sentiment. In company news, <b>Soco International</b> has discovered oil at the Te Giac Den appraisal well, TGD-2X, offshore Vietnam. Testing will take about three weeks. Insurer Standard Life is sacking as many as 600 staff in an effort to create efficiencies and bring down costs. Troubled oil giant <b>BP</b> has raised more than $400m (£260m) through the sale of two of its interests in Malaysia to help meet its bill for the Gulf of Mexico disaster. Wealth management firm <b>Hargreaves Lansdown</b> has had a record year despite tough market conditions, lifting profits by 18%. Global business media company <b>United Business Media</b> (UBM) has bought Astound, a privately owned US virtual career fairs business. Technology-focused holding company <b>Emblaze</b> is in advanced negotiations to sell its holdings in Formula Systems (1985) Limited, the information technology global solutions provider. The Nasdaq-listed company was purchased by Emblaze in November 2006. <b>Mouchel</b>, the support services group, has increased the size of its cost cutting programme to £25m as it awaits the government's public spending review. The firm said the medium and longer term outlook is becoming "increasingly positive" as the new government's policies are implemented. The order book has also held steady at £2bn. Sales in the second half of 2010 are expected to be ahead of previous expectations at <b>IQE</b>, the supplier of advanced wafer products and wafer services to the semiconductor industry. Dry cleaning to workwear hire group <b>Johnson Service</b> reported a 17% increase in half-year profit and said it is well placed for a successful second half. A day after the company lost a quarter of its stock market value , cash-strapped vehicle replacement firm <b>Accident Exchange</b> share price fell by almost two-thirds after the company said that a debt for equity swap deal is likely to leave the company with too few shares held by the public to maintain a stock market listing. Mobile content software <b>2ergo</b>'s trading has been in line with management's expectations and the board anticipates strong returns on the investment made the business in the coming financial year. "As reported in the group's interim statement, the scale of this overhead increase will be significantly less than the £7.1m initially forecast for the year, the statement added.
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