Comments from Russian giant Gazprom over the weekend set light to Centrica's shares today.
At an economic conference in St Petersburg yesterday, Gazprom deputy chief executive Alexander Medvedev said the company was close to signing a deal to increase its presence in the UK.
Traders immediately pointed to British Gas owner Centrica as a possible target. Gazprom has hinted in the past it is interested in the company, although on this occasion it may well be that Mr Medvedev had a smaller deal in mind.
Some believe the announcement — due around the time of the Wimbledon tennis tournament, according to Medvedev — may in fact relate to NGSS, a gas supply company where Gazprom already holds a stake.
And a spokesman for Gazprom later said it did not have Centrica — or indeed another suggested target, Scottish & Southern Energy — in its sights "at the moment". However, that does seem to leave the door open for Gazprom to make a move at a later date.
So Centrica shares jumped 7.75p to 367.25p while Scottish & Southern was 24p better at £14.72.
Elsewhere leading shares regained some ground after last week's falls, and despite a nervous start on Wall Street the FTSE 100 closed 62.4 points higher at 6567.5.
Barclays climbed 10.5p to 733p after US hedge fund Atticus Capital — a 1% shareholder — urged the bank to drop its bid for ABN Amro.
Evolution Securities analyst Cormac Leech said: "Atticus and many other Barclays investors are hoping a failed bid for ABN would lead to a takeover of Barclays itself. This is unlikely, given the limited number of likely bidders for Barclays, the capital considerations for a US bidder and, more importantly, the greater attractiveness of other potential takeover targets. "We suggest taking profits on any material spike in the Barclays share price."
Meanwhile, the rival ABN bidder, Royal Bank of Scotland, was 2.5p better at 659.5p.
Still with the banks, Lloyds TSB added 4.5p to 572p on hopes it would raise its dividend for the first time in five years. Merrill Lynch said in a note that it was increasingly confident the bank would hike the payment to shareholders when it reports first half figures in July.
The leisure group Whitbread added 35p to £17.89 after it withdrew from the auction for Jury's Inns hotels, which were sold to Irish real estate investment firm Quinlan Private.
Panmure Gordon said the withdrawal, on top of the recent £925m sale of David Lloyd Leisure, would allow the company to return more money to shareholders.
"Due to this and further potential to crystallise shareholder value, we reiterate our buy stance," said Panmure.
It said the best move for Whitbread to make next would be to sell or float its Costa Coffee business and return these proceeds to shareholders as well. This would leave Premier Inns, which could be put into a tax-efficient real estate investment trust, and pub restaurants, which have scope for being turned around successfully.
Cadbury Schweppes was also a winner today, up 21p to 703p after analysts at Bernstein suggested a bid was increasingly likely for the confectionary division once Cadbury's beverages business is split off.
Sports retailer JJB added 8.25p to 257.75p after founder Dave Whelan sold the last of his shares for £190m on Friday after the market closed. Analysts said the sale — to the Icelandic financial group Exista and Chris Ronnie, an associate of Sports Direct's Mike Ashley — could leave the business vulnerable to a full takeover.
Traders pointed out that the only non-Icelandic member of Exista's board was property entrepreneur Robert Tchenguiz.
Teather & Greenwood repeated its reduce recommendation on the shares, while Shore Capital was unimpressed by the news.
"We had viewed Mr Whelan as an effective 'seller' for some time now, although January's statement, when Mr Whelan sold 8.6% of his family holding, indicated to us that there was no active bid interest in the business," said Shore analyst John Stevenson.
"We had also mistakenly misinterpreted the phrase 'Mr Whelan has undertaken to not make further disposals of his shares for at least 12 months' to mean that we would not see any further stock sales."
Elsewhere engineering group GKN was steady at 373p after reports it is a frontrunner to take an equity stake in Airbus's wing components factory at Filton near Bristol.
Among the fallers, packaging group Rexam continued its recent weakness, down another 17p to 494.5p. It has agreed to pay $1.83bn in cash for the plastic packaging business of Owens-Illinois, and is placing 58m new shares at 490p each to raise around £300m to help pay for the deal.
Mobile phone giant Vodafone lost 2p to 157.9p after activist investor ECS seemed to gather little support for its proposal for the company to return £38bn to shareholders.
Office rental group Workspace fell 28.75p to 398.5p after Cazenove cut its recommendation from in line to underperform, in the wake of a 24% fall in annual profits to £112.5m.
Lower down the market shares, in Bionostics, the medical diagnostics group, reacted to Friday evening's statement that it was in bid talks, climbing 4.5p to 31p.
Aim-listed garden centre group Dobbies, subject of a £15 a share bid from Tesco, rose 30p to 1522.5p on suggestions that 10.6% shareholder Sir Tom Hunter was trying to line up partners for a rival offer.
Speaking of Sir Tom, his West Coast Capital vehicle is investing in renewable energy for the first time, taking a 20% stake in Sigma Capital Group. Sigma, down 2.25p to 54.75p, is an asset managment firm which specialises in investing in early stage renewable companies.
Finally, Birmingham City, the football club which has just been promoted to the Premiership, added 5p to 45p after it revealed it had received a takeover approach. Dealers believe the interest has come from a far eastern bidder.