Market report: Tuesday close

By Mickey Clark for MailOnline
Updated: 10:57 EDT, 28 March 2006

SHARES in Alliance & Leicester were driven briefly above the 1200p by bid talk today.

The mortgage lender's shares were among the best performers in the FTSE 100 index, touching 1208p on another burst of speculative buying before seeing its lead cut to 11p at 1179p as profit-takers moved in. The rumour that it had already rejected an offer of 1300p a share from French bank Crédit Agricole continues to do the rounds.

Fewer than threem shares changed hands, suggesting something of a squeeze had developed as institutional investors began to square up their first-quarter trading positions.

Some brokers poured cold water on the talk. Panmure Gordon said that, even at current market levels, such an offer would be a 'very poor deal at a very poor price'. Analyst James Hamilton asked: 'Why would you buy at this point in the UK cycle? Why would you swap your euros for pounds at the current exchange rate?'

Speculators were hit by the drop in takeover favourite Standard Chartered, down 42p at 1482p after a large parcel of shares changed hands. Singapore government investment group Temasek has bought a near-12% stake in Standard from the Khoo family.

The stake was purchased in the Eighties by the late Khoo Teck Puat to block an unwanted takeover of Standard by Lloyds Bank. Barclays, down 4½p at 667½p, had originally been tipped to pick up the stake as the springboard to a full bid. That now seems unlikely.

Lloyds TSB slipped 7p to 555p after broker Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein downgraded its rating from hold to sell, saying it did not believe talk of an American bid.

Shares generally extended yesterday's losses following an overnight setback for the Dow ahead of tonight's meeting of the Federal Reserve, which is expected to signal the 15th consecutive rise in US interest rates since June 2004. The Footsie closed 36.5 points down at 5935.7.

Oil and gas explorer First Calgary dipped 4p to 446½p after asking shareholders to stump up almost £90m as its adviser Canaccord placed 15.67m shares at 445p. The proceeds will be used as working capital and to help develop its assets in Algeria. The shares reached a peak of almost 1000p at the start of last year but have since been in steady decline.

Playtech's stock market debut marked the biggest flotation so far this year. The company designs, develops and licenses software for the gambling industry. Broker Collins Stewart has raised £256m via a placing at 257p, valuing the company at £548m. The issue was five times oversubscribed and the price settled at 273p.

It was the first day of Aim dealings for Northbridge Industrial Services, set up to buy firms that supply industrial equipment such as generators, pumps and air compressors. Broker Charles Stanley placed 6.4m shares at 100p, valuing the company at £7.39m. They traded at 108½p.

Electronics outfit TT, down 1p to 173½p, is confident about prospects despite a 7% drop in operating profits to £32m in 2005. Chief executive John Newman expects that by the year end TT will have more than half its workforce in 'low-cost economies' from Mexico to India and China, up from 38% last year. The full-year dividend is pegged at 10.05p.