Market report: Yesterday's trading
Robbie Williams' rousing hit 'Let me entertain you' would be an appropriate anthem for his record label EMI.
Shares of the world's third largest music company have moved up and down the City charts over the years and were dancing to the takeover beat again yesterday.
They boogied 13¾p higher before closing 11½p better at 281¾p on hefty turnover of 22m amid revived gossip of a £2.9bn, or 365p-a-share cash bid, from Dubai government investment agency Istithmar.
Istithmar, which has already splashed out £530m for a 2.7% stake in international bank Standard Chartered (20p better at 1495p) has £4bn-plus to spend on acquisitions.
Chief executive David Jackson is believed to have targeted the UK media sector and knows that EMI's long-suffering shareholders would be highly receptive to any cash offer at a significant premium to the current price.
EMI's chairman Eric Nicoli could not complain if shareholders voted with their feet seeing as he has failed more than once to arrange a merger, most recently with Warner Music.
A warning last month that underlying halfyear profits will fall by almost a third to £27m after margins shrank at its recorded music arm increased speculation that a foreign bidder would soon come along and put Nicoli and his board out of their misery.
The admission by the world's largest record company, Vivendi, that it has held exploratory takeover discussions with US break-up specialist Kohlberg Kravis Roberts helped EMI's cause.
Dealers said there must surely be a chance that KKR could eventually turn its attention to the UK record group should the French group continue to spurn its advances. Further mouthwatering evidence that the urge to merge has become an international epidemic helped markets advance on both sides of the Atlantic.
The Footsie jumped 76.4 points to a 5½p year high of 6224.5 while Wall Street traded 84 points up soon after the opening bell.
New York was lifted by news of the £1.9bn proposed buy-out of the Four Seasons Hotel group by a consortium which includes Microsoft chairman Bill Gates and Abbott Laboratories' £1.9bn purchase of Kos Pharmaceuticals.
KKR and Goldman Sachs have also agreed to buy a subsidiary of German group Linde for £2.4bn. Costa Coffee-to-David Lloyd Leisure and TGI Friday's group Whitbread jumped 35p further to 1454p amid reports that US property group Starwood Capital has amassed a near-3% stake.
Many players still believe there is a mega bid pending in the financial sector. Prudential, which is strongly rumoured to be on HSBC's shopping list, gained 14½p at 649p.
LloydsTSB improved 3p to 561p on prevailing hopes that its Scottish Widows offshoot will soon be offloaded for around £8bn and then the Black Horse bank will be sold to a European suitor.
Events at Four Seasons sparked revived hopes that private equity bidders could check in at Intercontinental Hotels, 22½p better at 1038½p. US takeover talk helped Scottish Power fizz 13½p higher to 667½p.
Struggling broadcaster ITV rose 2¼p to 106p amid renewed optimism that a successor to departed boss Charles Allen will finally be named this week. Stephen Carter, departed chief executive of Ofcom, remains Cantor's favourite at 5/2 with Channel 4 head Andy Duncan at 3/1.
Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday publisher Daily Mail & General Trust 'A' lost 8½p to 649½p after Morgan Stanley placed 7.53m shares at 650p with institutional investors.
Rumours of a profits warning left investment banking minnow Bridgewell 3p off at 104½p. Rival Evolution Group (unchanged at 120p) recently warned of a drop in forecast corporate finance revenues for the final quarter of the year due to 'some indigestion' in the AIM market. Bridgewell must be feeling the pinch too.
Supporta, which provides white collar outsourced services to the public sector, gained 3p to 79½p following the £2.36m acquisition of Bay Associates Consulting, a firm of civil and structural consulting engineers based in Cardiff.
Cambridge Mineral Resources added 1⅛p at 3⅝p after announcing it has made 'substantial progress' in Colombia. It has finished development of its Quintana gold mine ahead of schedule and bought two high grade gold mines in the Frontino gold belt.
Aim dog of the day was telecoms group Gilat Satcom. It crashed 30p to 58½p on a warning that full-year results will not meet expectations.
• Keep an eye on Aim-listed Flightsore, unchanged at 0.085p. Former Winterflood Securities and Evolution Group marketmaker Chris Potts and two investors from his previous shell, Readybuy (now Avacta), are to take control of the company. They will be investing £200,000 for a 95% stake in the shell and Potts will own 24%. The plan then is to acquire a company involved with solar technology.
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