London close: Sage fronts rally
Strong gains on Wall Street this afternoon gave punters this side of the pond an excuse to get stuck in to bombed out stocks, while further bid speculation and positive results also cheered.
Sage stormed ahead after full year pre-tax profit climbed 14% to £221.2m from £193.6m a year earlier on revenues up 22% to £935.6m. Swiss broker UBS maintained 'buy' advice as the numbers topped its forecasts.
Building supplies group Wolseley was also in the blue following news that trading profit for the three months to end-October had risen 9%. It expects further progress this year.
Insurer Legal & General joined the advance as market watchers talked of a possible bid from Dutch insurer Aegon, while HSBC is said to be studying mortgage bank Bradford & Bingley.
GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca were on investors' shopping lists, with both up among the leaders. Dealers hope for possible cost cuts following Pfizer's decision to slash its US sales force by 20%.
Corus reversed initial losses as figures showed a 133% rise in third quarter underlying earnings to £168m as rising prices outweighed higher raw material costs.
The steel maker, which has received a bid from Tata and could face one from CSN of Brazil, said that the commercial environment in the fourth quarter remains stable.
Meanwhile, gold miner Peter Hambro slumped on reports that it could lose five of its Russian mining licences after failing to exploit them. Russia's environmental watchdog is looking to crack down on resource projects that lay idle.
Associated British Foods, National Grid and SABMiller all began trading ex-dividend today.
Irish airline Aer Lingus today confirmed reports that Ryanair has increased its stake in the airline, although it looks set to lose its hostile €1.48bn takeover attempt.
EMI added ground after a host of papers identified Permira and Apollo Management as the private equity groups that have together approached the music group with a bid of more than £2.5bn, or £3.5bn including debt.
Compass said it has decided to sell its Selecta vending business as the caterer lifted underlying full year profits by 5.5% to £363m. "At this early stage of the new financial year, the business is trading as expected overall," it added.
Pubs firm Mitchells & Butlers served up 10.1% rise in full-year pre-tax profit, adding that its new financial year had started well. Like-for-like sales in the seven weeks to 18 November rose 4.5% compared with last year.
Sportswear group Umbro's full-year results are likely to be marginally below its expectations owing to challenging UK market conditions.
Tom Hunter, the mercurial Scottish retail entrepreneur, has snapped up a 29.9% stake in home shopping group Flying Brands, it emerged Wednesday.
Lloyd's insurer Amlin said today it expects full year results to come in well ahead of expectations as it enjoyed its lowest level of claims on record.
Beleaguered logistics solutions provider Business Direct plunged again, confirming it is in late stage talks with equity providers about raising essential new funds.
FTSE 100 - Risers
Sage Group (SGE) 259.00p +7.47%
Compass Group (CPG) 290.00p +7.01%
Wolseley (WOS) 1,180.00p +3.96%
Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) 422.75p +3.43%
Shire (SHP) 1,041.00p +3.43%
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) 1,371.00p +3.01%
Persimmon (PSN) 1,420.00p +2.90%
Enterprise Inns (ETI) 1,232.00p +2.84%
BAE Systems (BA.) 397.75p +2.84%
Bradford & Bingley (BB.) 459.25p +2.74%
FTSE 100 - Fallers
Carnival Corporation (CCL) 2,511.00p -2.03%
Next (NXT) 1,773.00p -1.23%
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Associated British Foods (ABF) 859.00p -1.04%
Kingfisher (KGF) 248.25p -1.00%
Amvescap (AVZ) 555.00p -0.89%
Kazakhmys (KAZ) 1,156.00p -0.77%
Land Securities (LAND) 2,114.00p -0.66%
British Land (BLND) 1,526.00p -0.65%
Scottish and Newcastle (SCTN) 536.50p -0.56%
Slough Estates (SLOU) 729.50p -0.48%
FTSE 250 - Risers
BSS Group (BTSM) 416.00p +7.84%
Rank Group (RNK) 272.50p +6.45%
Rightmove (RMV) 343.75p +6.26%
Amlin (AML) 306.50p +5.69%
Savills (SVS) 644.00p +5.31%
Caledonia Investment (CLDN) 2,107.00p +4.41%
British Empire Trust (BTEM) 448.25p +4.12%
Aggreko (AGK) 397.75p +4.12%
LogicaCMG (LOG) 177.50p +4.11%
JP Morgan Fleming Japanese Inv Trust (JFJ) 241.75p +4.09%
FTSE 250 - Fallers
PZ Cussons (PZC) 151.00p -3.82%
Pendragon (PDG) 504.00p -3.08%
QinetiQ Group (QQ.) 174.25p -1.97%
Brixton (BXTN) 541.00p -1.81%
Halfords Group (HFD) 352.75p -1.47%
Wetherspoon (JDW) 645.00p -1.38%
Woolworths Group (WLW) 36.00p -1.37%
Debenhams (DEB) 187.50p -1.19%
Renishaw (RSW) 732.50p -0.95%
Mitchells & Butlers (MAB) 645.00p -0.92%
