London midmorning: Blue chips inch higher

Date: Monday 20 Dec 2010

Defensive plays have hauled London into the blue, but concern about the impact of snow on profits is hurting British Airways and many of the major retailers.

With South Korea starting live-fire exercises close to North Korea and eurozone sovereign debt issues still in the headlines, investors need little excuse to sit on their hands as the countdown to Christmas gets down to one hand.

National Grid, Scottish & Southern Energy and British Gas owner Centrica should do well if, as expected, the cold snap continues.

But British Airways, which saw many flights grounded in Britain over the weekend and is still facing severe disruption, is a notable faller.

Arctic conditions may also hurt retailers at their busiest and most crucial time of the year. Next, Marks & Spencer, Tesco, Dixons, debenhams, Mothercare and Dunelm are all sharply lower.

Banks are mixed. Lloyds, Barclays and HSBC are down a touch, though Royal Bank of Scotland has improved. RBS cut its target price on Lloyds to 105p from 120p.

But rumours that Ladbrokes is mulling a bid for internet casino firm 888 have been confirmed by the high street bookmaker.

It’s thought a price of 70p for each 888 share is being discussed, valuing the business at about £240m.

Aggreko has won a contract to be the exclusive supplier of temporary energy services at the London Olympics in 2012, the power supply and temperature control specialist has announced. The value of the contract is expected to be around £37m. It will also be the sponsor of both the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Scottish port operator Forth Ports said it is on course to achieve targets for 2010 as momentum at its ports continues. Underlying pre-tax profit for the full year is in line with company expectations, the group said in a company update. Overall trading within the ports in Scotland and Tilbury remains in line with the group's expectations despite the recent spell of severe winter weather.

Soco International has started drilling the wildcat exploration well Bayingu-1 (BYU-1) in the Nganzi Block, onshore the Democratic Republic of Congo (Kinshasa). It’s expected to take the oil explorer, which has a 65% working interest in Nganzi through an 85%-owned subsidiary, 25 days to reach target depth of about 2,520 metres.

PZ Cussons is expanding its food and nutrition business in Nigeria despite difficult trading conditions in the west African country. The company best known in Britain as a soap-maker is establishing a food ingredients business as a joint venture with the large Asian agribusiness Wilmar International.

Cambridge based bioscience firm Abcam said trading since November has continued in line with expectations after a particularly robust performance in North America. The group, which markets antibodies via its own online catalogue said, "The business has performed well, notably in our largest geographic market, North America, whilst sales growth in the UK has been somewhat restrained owing to uncertainty caused by the recent UK Government spending review."

Apart from the sale of its Swedish business earlier this month, not much has changed at Davis Service Group since November’s interims, according to the laundry and workwear firm. Then, it reported a modest improvement in interim earnings and said it was confident of posting full year results in line with expectations.

« Go back to news channel

Email this article to a friend

or share it with one of these popular networks:

• DIGG
• FACEBOOK
• STUMBLEUPON
• MIXX
• YAHOO BUZZ
• DELICIOUS
• REDDIT
• NEWSVINE