£4bn bid talk boosts Ferrexpo
IRON ore producer Ferrexpo was in demand amid speculation predators were eyeing up a £4billion takeover approach.
Shares in the £2.7billion mid-cap, the first Ukrainian company to be listed on the main board in London in 2007, gained 25p to 464p as traders suggested mining giants including Brazil’s Vale were aiming to tempt majority shareholder Kostyantyn Zhevago with an offer between 650p-700p.
GKN went into overdrive, up 11p to 207p, as dealers talked up improved conditions for the company’s aerospace and auto components businesses.
Broker RBC Capital Markets turned buyer of the stock with a 230p price target following a recent presentation, adding: “Earlier comments regarding the potential for 2011 to see disappointing sales of components to Boeing for the B787 were described as too cautious.”
US giant Intel’s forecast-beating quarterly update drove support for UK chip companies. Arm Holdings topped the blue chip gainers board, up 32½p to 608p, while Imagination Technologies and CSR advanced 23p to 476½p and 13p to 373¼p. With Brent crude prices pumped up 3 per cent to over $124-a-barrel, BP and Shell flowed 13¾p and 87½p north to 466¼p and 2250p following bullish comments from Morgan Stanley. JPMorgan Cazenove also threw its weight behind BP, arguing that the company’s poor share price performance in the year following the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster had opened up a “very extreme value gap”.Investors’ appetite for riskier assets increased after strong figures from corporate America and a fall in the dollar, which strengthened metals prices and boosted the heavyweight mining sector. Antofagasta and Xstrata firmed 73p to 1390p and 71½p to 1530p, while Anglo American and Fresnillo were up 122p to 3175p and 53p to 1612p. The FTSE 100 Index closed 125.39 points ahead at 6022.26. Publisher Reed Elsevier, down 9p to 528½p, life and pensions group Legal & General, 1p poorer at 115¾p, and defence giant BAE Systems, 1¼p in retreat at 325p, were among only seven top flight casualties as their shares traded without the right to the latest dividend.
A reassuring trading update buoyed Charter International 36p to 781½p and improved sentiment towards other engineers such as Fenner and Cookson Group, up 14¼p to 364¾p and 22½p to 667½p. Bullish comments from broker HSBC relating to new-build prices and Government intervention on planning and environmental issues laid the foundations for gains across the housebuilding sector. Redrow and Persimmon climbed 4½p to 126¼p and 7½p to 464½p, Barratt Developments added 2p to 104¾p and Bovis was up 7p to 422p.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones was up 187.59 points at 12454.34 by close.
