Yesterday's trading: Rankins bag £13m

By Geoff Foster for MailOnline
Updated: 03:03 EDT, 24 January 2007

The Rankin family, well known in Geordieland, yesterday made a cool £13.1m by selling a 23% stake in property developer Metnor.

Ubiquitous broker Kepler Teather & Greenwood placed 3.5m shares at 375p with various institutional clients. News of the sale knocked the stock down to 395p before it rallied strongly to close 3 ½p higher at a record 405p.

Chief executive Stephen Rankin and nondirectors John, entertainment mogul Allan and Hazell all unloaded to take the family's shareholding down below 45% from 70%. They were original investors when the company floated at £1 in 1998.

Metnor has successfully progressed from galvanising into property. It helped build Harlequins Football Club and Newcastle Falcons' stadium and is currently helping to erect a new stand for Premiership football club Watford. It has £14m cash on the balance sheet and is growing at 50%-plus per annum.

The placing proves there are still plenty of willing buyers of quality Aim stocks. Growth Company Investor reminds us that a total of 362 new companies joined Aim in 2006, raising a phenomenal £9.4bn. Amazing when you consider £10bn was raised in the five years to December 2005.

The erratic Footsie recovered an early 29 point deficit caused by the shock profits warning from Tate & Lyle (112p down at 608p) to finish 9.2 points better at 6,227.6. Wall Street came to London's rescue, opening 48 points up following solid fourth-quarter earnings figures from Bank of America.

Miners sewed a rich seam in sympathy with higher commodity prices. Rio Tinto jumped 85p to 2660p, Vedanta Resources 32p to 1125p and BHP Billiton 22p to 939p. The recent surprise early quarter percent rise in UK interest rates and fears that another increase could be on the cards for February has knocked the stuffing out of mortgage banks.

Broker Oriel Securities believes selling has been overdone and suggests banks will be supported by a robust mortgage market in 2007 and further bid speculation.

Northern Rock, which is expected to grab 10% of the mortgage market this year, rose 10p to 1164p ahead of today's figures. Bradford & Bingley, in which I am a small shareholder, added 3p at 462¼p, while Alliance & Leicester cheapened 9p to 1083p.

Perennial bid favourite BG Group gushed 11p to 662½p on revived talk of a possible bid from BP, 4p up at 545p. Replacement hip group Smith & Nephew skipped 13½p higher to 566¾p after Goldman Sachs lifted its target price to 580p from 470p.

Plans to increase the size of the Florida state catastrophe fund from £8bn to £18bn prompted sharp falls in Lloyds underwriters. Amlin lost 19¼p to 304p, Hardy Underwriting 7¾p to 266¾p and Hiscox 17¾p to 247¾p. Broker Keefe, Bruyette & Woods says that this effectively 'nationalises' up to £2bn of reinsurance premiums.

Forever rumoured to be on BAE's shopping list, defence group Chemring flew 60p higher to a record 1710p on news of a 66% leap in annual pre-tax profits to £31.8m and a 51% hike in the dividend to 16p. The order book is up 75% to £246m.

Persistent talk of an imminent cash bid worth £25 a share from Barratt Developments (5p better at 1180p) saw housebuilder Wilson Bowden touch 2337p and close 43p up at 2320p.

Recruitment company Hat Pin edged up to 86½p on a bullish trading update. Turnover soared 182% last year. Imperial Energy soared 83p to 720p following a surge in the company's proven and probable reserves. Merrill Lynch has been appointed joint corporate brokers with ABN Amro Hoare Govett, ahead of the group's planned move to the main market during the first-half of the current year.

Beowulf Mining edged forward to 3⅜p following its application for a new licence adjacent to its existing licences Ballek 2-4, in Aejeplog County, Northern Sweden.

Details of a £65m financing agreement with American broking giant Goldman Sachs lifted Urals Energy 7½p to 357¾p. Cash raised will help fund the development of its Dulisma field, located in East Siberia.

Allergy Therapeutics put on 10p to 112½p on hearing that the first patient has been dosed in the pivotal phase III grass allergy trial. The international trial is being undertaken at 96 centres in four countries, involving the enrolment of 1,000 patients. If successful, analysts say the vaccine could be filed in early 2008.

• Scrappy selling dragged Global Energy Development 5p lower to 118p. Dealers believe the Latin American oil and gas explorer is worth a closer look after the company yesterday said it has started commercial mobilisation of a drilling rig to its Primavera-Luna Llena field. It should arrive in three weeks, and GED then intends to drill and complete operations in three wells back-to-back on the contract area.