London close: Footsie ends with losses
London closed the day in the red after a weak start on Wall Street, despite having spent most of the session in positive territory.
Reports this morning suggested Alliance & Leicester's held talks with Abbey owner Santander last month. Those discussions are not active, although Santander has been careful not to rule out another approach, the Times said. The reports mentioned a price of about £2.7bn. Bradford & Bingley was up in sympathy.
Hopes of more interest rate cuts lifted property groups, Liberty and Savills were doing well.
Brokers gave their view on likely winners and losers among the retail sector over Christmas. Goldmans Sachs reckons Marks & Spencer will be one of the winners given its defensive strengths. Next was also going well on hopes of a better than expected end to 2007.
Scottish and Southern Energy completed the acquisition of an integrated energy business from SEGRO, giving it control of the UK's largest dedicated biomass energy facility.
Bookmaker Ladbrokes signed a deal with Turf TV - after its 2,300 betting shops were left without pictures of the first two races from yesterday's Cheltenham meeting. Turf TV is a consortium of 31 of the UK's racecourses and Alphameric, which was up strongly today. Talks are under way with William Hill and Betfred according to reports.
Fund manager New Star rallied after a tough few months over worries over the decline in value of its property fund.
Defence group QinetiQ has boosted its presence in Australia with the acquisition of two consulting businesses for a total of A$20m.
Business publisher Informa rose as Panmure Gordon to "buy" from "hold" and lifted its price target to 550p from 530p. The broker said Informa's business-to-business arm operates in similar areas to Emap and a line through the sale price of Emap implies that Informa should be valued at 680p.
On Aim, property group Delek confirmed that Jelmoli has started arbitration proceedings against a consortium led by the property group after it backed out of the acquisition of the Swiss group's real estate portfolio.
FTSE 100 - Risers
Alliance & Leicester (AL.) 754.00p +16.36%
Next (NXT) 1,666.00p +2.59%
Severn Trent (SVT) 1,561.00p +2.29%
British Airways (BAY) 316.75p +2.26%
Experian Group (EXPN) 404.75p +1.95%
Vedanta Resources (VED) 2,077.00p +1.52%
SABMiller (SAB) 1,434.00p +1.27%
Compass Group (CPG) 312.00p +1.13%
Kingfisher (KGF) 146.70p +0.76%
Royal Dutch Shell 'A' (RDSA) 2,125.00p +0.66%
FTSE 100 - Fallers
TUI Travel (TT.) 281.50p -4.17%
Cairn Energy (CNE) 2,951.00p -4.00%
Whitbread (WTB) 1,350.00p -3.57%
G4S (GFS) 236.50p -3.37%
InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) 858.50p -2.88%
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Shire (SHP) 1,119.00p -2.61%
Thomas Cook Group (TCG) 275.00p -2.48%
Xstrata (XTA) 3,465.00p -2.39%
Home Retail Group (HOME) 320.25p -2.36%
Yell Group (YELL) 392.25p -2.18%
FTSE 250 - Risers
DSG International (DSGI) 107.25p +8.06%
ITE Group (ITE) 165.50p +7.82%
New Star Asset Management Group (NSAM) 189.00p +6.18%
Xchanging (XCH) 296.00p +5.71%
Savills (SVS) 292.75p +4.55%
WH Smith (SMWH) 340.75p +4.52%
Rightmove (RMV) 483.00p +4.09%
Bradford & Bingley (BB.) 278.75p +4.01%
Brown (N.) Group (BWNG) 246.00p +3.91%
Connaught (CNT) 355.25p +3.87%
FTSE 250 - Fallers
Imperial Energy Corporation (IEC) 1,459.00p -5.87%
Ultra Electronics Holdings (ULE) 1,301.00p -5.38%
Daejan Holdings (DJAN) 2,851.00p -4.97%
William Hill (WMH) 499.50p -4.77%
PartyGaming (PRTY) 27.75p -4.31%
Game Group (GMG) 240.00p -4.00%
Galliford Try (GFRD) 99.50p -3.40%
Derwent London (DLN) 1,366.00p -3.39%
Collins Stewart (CLST) 167.25p -3.32%
COLT Telecom Group S.A. (COLT) 161.00p -3.01%
