Shares slip back in early trading
MORNING REPORT: After a reasonable start, shares slipped back to trade slightly lower, losing momentum from Fridays gains.
The FTSE 100 was down 6.19 points at 5890.06 in early trading, with the FTSE 250 rising 35.7 points to trade at 11,568.4.
Those seeing early losses on the London Market included RBS, off 2.67% at 43.74p, with fellow banker Lloyds down 1.5% at 66.36p. Invensys was down just under 2% in early deals at 328.4p.
Burberry, was of 0.87% at 1022p, with Johnson Matthey down 0.85% at 186p.
On the flip side, shares seeing gains included Cable and Wireless, up 1.43% to 70.9p, with the London Stock Exchange up 1.42% at 859p.
Brewer Whitbread was up 1.4% at 1744p, followed in the gainers table by British American Tobacco, up 0.83% at 2301.5p
British Airways and Iberia’s merger makes its market debut today, with trading commencing on both the London and Madrid stock exchanges, under the banner of International Consolidated Airlines Group. Shares were trading at 284.3p in early deals.
Northern Foods has agreed to recommend a 73p a share cash offer from West Bromwich chicken tycoon Ranjit Boparan’s Boparan Holdings, trumping the previously agreed merger deal with Ireland’s Greencore Group.
The offer, by Boparan Holdings subsidiary BH Acquisitions, values the group at around £342m.
Northern said the price represents a premium of about 84.1% to the value of 39.6p per share implied by the Greencore deal at November 16, before the start of the offer period, and 51.6% to the implied share price at January 20.
The group confirmed it has withdrawn its recommendation of the Greencore merger.
London Mining’s total iron ore resources have risen to more than 2.2bn tonnes.
It says the increase follows last week’s announcement of a new resource of 906 million tonnes grading 31.7% Fe at the Marampa project in Sierra Leone.
Information and communications technology group Datatec’s international subsidiary, Logicalis, has agreed to acquire Direct Visual, a Tandberg platinum partner based in the UK.
Direct Visual is one of the UK’s leading independent suppliers of video communications with a strong audio-visual and managed service offering.
