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Yesterday's trading: Pressure on LSE rival

By Geoff Foster for MailOnline
Updated: 02:30 EDT, 21 June 2007

Clara furse's London Stock Exchange has galloped ahead in the City share trading stakes. Tradelect, its new £40m trading system, went live on Monday.

It cuts the time taken to process an order to about 10 milliseconds from 140 milliseconds and more importantly, enables the LSE to handle much higher volumes while lowering fees.

It leaves the competition several lengths behind and increases the pressure on Project Turquoise, an army of seven heavyweight investment banks, to come up with a viable, rival trading platform.

Recent reports said Turquoise, which includes US broking giants Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley, hopes to announce soon a technology partner to run their system.

Maybe, but a sexy jackanory doing the rounds yesterday suggests the Turquoise bosses have become impatient and decided to buy PLUS Markets (unchanged at 2914p) for around £156m or 50p cash a share. If true, that would make Furse & Co really sit up and take notice.

PLUS already provides a successful lowcost trading system and Turquoise has held joint venture discussions with PLUS management in the past. Turquoise would have a mountain of cash to invest in the business and upgrade PLUS's systems as it strives to make good its promise to undercut the LSE in all share trading by the end of the year.

LSE lost a 20p gain to close 21p cheaper at 1366p following late confirmation of merger talks with the Milan Stock Exchange, Borsa Italiana. It was also announced ABN Amro holds 11.6m or 5.75% of the LSE which earlier this year staved off an unwelcome bid from 30% shareholder Nasdaq.

Up 42 points by lunchtime, the Footsie retreated on profit-taking and higher interest rate fears to close 0.9 points easier at 6,649.3.

Early strength owed much to takeover speculation in the banks where Lloyds TSB was excited by vague talk of a possible bid from French bank Societe Generale. Shares touched 590p but closed only 2p dearer at 576½p.

Wall Street rose 39 points at the outset after DIY giant Home Depot said it will buy back as much as £11bn in stock after agreeing to sell its contract supplies business for £5.1bn.

Copper miner Vedanta Resources jumped 53p to 1624p on a Goldman Sachs recommendation and increased target price of £17. Lonmin advanced 75p to 4254p as the same broker lifted its target price to 4415p from 3549p. Hedge fund giant Man Group rose 13½p to 625½p on hefty turnover of 55.6m after reporting the net asset value of its core AHL fund rose by 3.6% last week.

Hard on the heels of the 51p rise which greeted news of its first big discovery in Ghana, offshore in deep water, Tullow Oil gushed 57&frac;12p more to 504&frac;12p. Merrill Lynch added the group to its Europe 1 list and increased its net asset value based price objective by 35p to 560p per share.

Nosy buyers chased software group Intec Telecom Systems 2p higher to 52&frac;34p amid rumours of a bid approach from private equity or a trade buyer.

Speculative buying helped property development manager Northacre add 312p to 6212p. Eyebrows were raised when it was announced chairman Klas Nilsson had sold 450,000 at 7712p, a significant premium to the prevailing market price. He retains 4.5m, or 20%.

Cape Diamonds lost some sparkle when trading was resumed after a six month suspension. The close was 36p down at 64p after the loss-making company said it was looking to raise further capital.

Vyke Communications edged up 0.05p to 2.3p after signing an agreement that will plug it into wi-fi hotspots in London, Manchester and Amsterdam.

i-mate, the Windows Mobile specialist, buzzed 1412p higher to 78p after unveiling plans to offer the devices and solutions to customers throughout Asia.

FTSE INFORMATION

Check out the latest data and updates from the stock market.

SectorGuard closed steady as a rock at 358p following its acquisition of Euro Security Systems, which installs and maintains electronic security systems, for £232,000 cash.

Earlier-than-expected regulatory approval of its £900m acquisition of K&F Industries saw defence group Meggitt touch 327&frac;12p before closing 12p dearer at 323¼p.

Innovision Research & Technology fell 2p to 57p on news of a £6.2m placing at 45p a share.

A sickly Phytopharm fell 512p to 53p on the appointment of Alistair Taylor as non-executive chairman to replace Dr Paul Whitney.

• Punters went potty for Creative Entertainment Group, 12p better at 338p, after it signed an agreement with Simon Cowell's SYCO Television to represent, as exclusive agents, the contestants from ITV's hit show Britain's Got Talent. The agreement should be extended to 20 other countries.

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