LONDON (ShareCast) - M&A fever was driving media stocks higher on Monday with sports rights owner Perform Group surging and broadcaster ITV on the rise.

Perform, which commercialises multimedia sports content across digital platforms, saw its shares rise 26.5% after the company confirmed it had received a takeover bid from investment group Access Industries.

Access Industries, which already owns 42.5% of Perform, made an offer of 260p per share for the rest of the company, valuing the entire business at £701.6m.

Perform's board reiterated its confidence in its prospects as an independent company and urged shareholders to "take no action at this time".

Larger sector peer ITV, which has a market capitalisation of £8.8bn at Monday's prices (+3%), was rising on renewed speculation that Liberty Global could be preparing to launch a full-scale bid.

According to The Telegraph over the weekend, Liberty, which already owns a 6.4% stake in ITV through its investment in July, is "forming alliances" with the latter's major institutional shareholders, such as Fidelity and Blackrock.

Liberty, which paid £481m to BSkyB for its holding in ITV, is thought to be looking to build its exposure to the pay-TV in Europe.

Analyst Garry White from Charles Stanley said that Liberty would have to "dig deep" and pay a substantial premium for the UK group to convince shareholders.

Media peers BSkyB, Daily Mail & General Trust, Motive Television and Minds + Machines were also registering gains on Monday.

Meanwhile, marketing group XLMedia jumped more than 9% after buying social and mobile gaming advertising company ExciteAd Digital Marketing for $19m, beefing up its media division.


Top performing sectors so far today
Aerospace and Defence 4,968.70 +1.60%
General Retailers 2,778.60 +1.32%
Personal Goods 23,185.98 +0.94%
Media 6,289.32 +0.83%
Chemicals 10,401.03 +0.69%

Bottom performing sectors so far today
Forestry & Paper 10,943.70 -1.65%
Food & Drug Retailers 3,095.57 -1.58%
Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology 13,110.01 -0.79%
Banks 4,539.55 -0.58%
Construction & Materials 3,916.22 -0.51%

BC

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