FTSE-in-depth: Fingers crossed for Dana sequel
Quietly spoken Londoner Tom Cross made many shareholders of Dana Petroleum a packet when he sold the company for £1.87bn to KNOC, the state-owned South Korean oil firm.
Geoff Foster: The magic 6,000 level is well within sight as the traditional pre-Christmas rally keeps dealers on their toes
He founded Dana 16 years ago and raised £185,000 to get it up and running. He walked away with more than £50m in his sky rocket and immediately made himself chairman of Parkmead.
The move sparked a buying frenzy in the oil and gas-focused investor amid hopes that Cross will replicate Dana's success.
Punters were yesterday all over the shares like a rash again and they touched 14p before closing 3p, or 29%, higher at 13.25p on hefty turnover of 8.7m. They were friendless at around a penny before Cross's elevation to the board.
Prompting the renewed enthusiasm was news that Cross has appointed a couple of old Dana colleagues to join the board.
Philip Dayer was a director at Dana from 2006 until it was sold and is a former Head of Corporate Finance at Barclays de Zoete, Citigroup Scrimgeour Vickers, ANZ Grindlays, SocGen and more recently Old Mutual Securities.
Ian Rawlinson was also a director at Dana from 2005 and has more than 20 years' experience in banking and investment with Lazard Brothers and Robert Fleming.
The two replace Brian Wilson and Faysal Hamza, who are both retiring. Dayer holds 600,000 shares in Parkmead and Rawlinson just over 5m held in a family trust.
The ubiquitous Cross has said that he intends to increase the value within Parkmead and do earnings-enhancing deals very quickly. He has got his 'A' team in place and it does look as though 2011 could be an exciting year.
One of 2010's star performers continued to live up to its name. Xcite Energy was chased up to 431.65p before closing 62.5p up at a record 381.5p after confirming the commercialisation of its Bentley Field in the North Sea.
Although up more than 800% since January, shop broker Arbuthnot Securities still rates Xcite as a 'strong buy' and has a target price of £6.
With the magic 6,000 level well within its sights as the traditional pre-Christmas rally kept dealers on their toes, the Footsie rose a further 60.19 points to 5,951.8. Wall Street rallied 30 points at the opening, boosted by a batch of strong earnings reports and bullish comments from respected Jim O'Neill, chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management.
O'Neill reckons 2011 is the year when the US returns to 'normal', Stocks will keep rising, probably by another 20%.
Mining stocks were buoyed by firmer metal prices. Anglo American jumped 131p to 3272.5p, Xstrata 51p to 1506p, Antofagasta 47p to 1594p and Eurasian Natural Resources 31.5p to 1031p.
Demand ahead of Bob Diamond's elevation to chief executive on New Year's Day helped Barclays put on 7.35p to 268.35p. Shrugging off the ongoing furore about bank bonuses, part-nationalised Royal Bank of Scotland firmed 1.72p to 40.18p.
Another bout of scrappy selling on worries about Christmas trading during the persisting arctic weather conditions left fashion retailer Next 4p off at 1964p. Nick Bubb at Arden Partners is not convinced that Next will deliver enough full-price retail sales before its Christmas Eve trading cut-off date and has slashed his target price to 2150p from 2350p. Next's post-Christmas trading update will be released on January 5.
Heavily indebted industrial transport group Wincanton motored 9.25p higher to 169.25p amid vague talk of a possible bid from iconic logistics company Stobart, 0.5p dearer at 143.5p, which has been trucking up and down the motorways for years. News that after a nine-month impasse the Iraqi parliament has finally approved the formation of a new government helped Gulf Keystone Petroleum gush 14p to 187.25p.
Gulf's exploration interests are centred in the Kurdistan region of Northern Iraq. It is currently embarking on an active appraisal and exploration drilling campaign, including work to fully understand the scale of the world-class Shaikan field discovered in 2009.
Ascent Resources improved 0.25p to 8.75p after the oil and gas explorer acquired EnQuest's interest in the Petisovci oil and gas project in Slovenia in return for EnQuest taking a 22.5% equity stake in Ascent.
Biopharma group Proximagen added a penny at 153p after signing an exclusive agreement with GlaxoSmithKline (7p cheaper at 1256p) to acquire the global rights to two drug development programmes, which both target diseases to the central nervous system.
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