London midmorning: Shares in the red

Date: Wednesday 21 Jan 2009

London’s leading shares are well in the red as financials continue to hamper the Footsie.

Barclays is leading the slide, down over 22%, the lowest level since 1985 as concerns persist that it may need more funding or be nationalised. The newly formed Lloyds Banking Group is also a major slider but Royal Bank of Scotland is bucking the trend and leads the risers.

Inter-dealer brokers ICAP is also a loser as it emerged that founder Michael Spencer used shares worth £300m as security against a loan. Other financials posting bid losses include Aviva, Schroders, and Friends Provident.

Data search and archiving specialist Autonomy was higher after a number of positive broker comments.

Oil explorer Tullow Oil has hailed its best ever year in 2008 and said it has made a strong start to 2009. The group also announced plans to increase its share capital by some 9.1% through a placing of 66.9m shares.

Mining giant BHP Billiton has slashed 6,000 jobs and shut down a key nickel mine though its iro ore operations are holding up.

Pub group Mitchells and Butlers is to revise its management structure in the wake of the decision of Mike Bramley to retire from his role as managing director of the Pubs and Bars division.

Mail and parcels group Business Post grew revenues by 3% in the last three months of 2008 as mail growth outstripped a slowdown in parcels.

Struggling fund manager RAB Capital's assets under management tumbled to $1.9bn from $7.2bn a year ago, with the firm also to take a hit this year for asset write-downs.

Car component maker TT Electronics said it will slash a further 700 jobs in 2009 and focus on niche components markets as it weathers a sharp slowdown in the auto sector. In a company statement the group said, "Trading conditions remain very difficult, although actions taken in 2008 and planned for 2009 will partially mitigate the impact of the economic slow-down."

Abcam, a biosciences firm that markets antibodies online, said weakness in sterling contributed to strong trading in the six months to December 31 and expects full-year results to be ‘materially ahead of expectations.’

Polymer engineering company Avon Rubber said it returned to profit in the three months to 31 December 2008 and is confident that it will return to full year profit.

Sliding copper prices and a lack of working capital forced miner African Copper to suspend activities at its Mowana mine in Botswana.

Seafood restaurant group FishWorks has become the latest victim of the crisis in consumer confidence and has called in the administrators

Begbies Traynor reported a 31% rise in half year pre-tax profits thanks to strong growth in its core insolvency and restructuring division.

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