News

Footsie rallied strongly near the close as buyers chased miners higher and Wall Street rallied briefly.

Antofagasta, Kazakhmys, Anglo American and Vedanta Resources led the rise on hopes for higher metal prices, despite the concerns about the US economy.

Xstrata missed the rally as it raised its cash offer for Australian coal miner Resource Pacific by 12% to A$3.20 per share, or A$1.08bn in total, and declared it final. Resource Pacific advised its shareholders to take no action while it prepared its response.

Miner Rio Tinto and its joint venture partners will spend approximately $617m on two projects to modernise and extend the life of the Boyne Island aluminium smelters in Australia.

Compass was another good riser after it reported operating profit for the first three months is "running well ahead" of last year's first quarter and marginally ahead of expectations.

Elsewhere, it's another poor day for pharmaceutical firms with GSK leading the way, closely followed by AstraZeneca and Shire. GSK stunned shareholders yesterday with a warning earnings will fall in 2008.

Rolls-Royce is also down as analysts trim forecasts after yesterday's downbeat trading update. JP Morgan has cut its eps forecast to 36p for 2008, down 3.7%, and 38.5p, down 3.5%, for 2009.

The private equity consortium pursuing Biffa has agreed to pay £1.23bn for the waste company, though it says another possible bidder is mulling an offer. A new company called WasteAcquisitionco, formed by Montague Private Equity, Global Infrastructure Partners and UCIL, will pay 350p cash for each Biffa share, but Biffa added a third party was conducting due diligence and might top that bid.

Paper group Mondi says its performance in 2007 continued to improve reflecting a favourable product mix, emerging market exposure and competitive cost position. Underlying earnings per share for the year to December to be 44-48 euro cents versus 27 euro cents, on a proforma basis, last year.

Branston owner Premier Foods is in a right pickle on rumours that it is mulling a cash call to shore up its cash position. "Premier is not contemplating a rights issue," said the group in a brief statement. "Based on our expected financial results for 2007, we are not in breach of our financial covenants as at December 2007 and, based on our latest financial projections, we do not expect to be in breach on an ongoing basis," it added.

Staffing and HR consultancy firm Northern Recruitment has warned that profits in the second half could fall short of those reported during the same period the year before.

Human resources firm Hat Pin has suspended it shares after it said various accounting errors at a subsidiary are likely to cause 2007 results to be materially worse than previously indicated.

Mobile banking and payments firm Monitise saw revenue for the last six months slightly rise though admitted that uptake of its services have been slow. "Whilst consumer uptake of mobile banking & payments services has been somewhat slower than we initially anticipated, we are pleased to report that, to date, over 110,000 consumers have registered for our services," it said.
FTSE 100 - Risers
Antofagasta (ANTO) 722.50p +6.25%
Lonmin (LMI) 3,100.00p +4.98%
Kazakhmys (KAZ) 1,247.00p +4.97%
BG Group (BG.) 1,170.00p +4.65%
Compass Group (CPG) 326.50p +4.06%
Vedanta Resources (VED) 1,896.00p +4.06%

FTSE 100 - Fallers
Yell Group (YELL) 262.00p -6.34%
Rolls-Royce Group (RR.) 412.00p -4.41%
ITV (ITV) 71.00p -3.53%
Enterprise Inns (ETI) 419.50p -2.56%
BT Group (BT.A) 231.00p -2.53%
Whitbread (WTB) 1,246.00p -2.43%

FTSE 250 - Risers
Biffa (BIFF) 369.50p +12.65%
Big Yellow Group (BYG) 396.25p +6.45%
Daejan Holdings (DJAN) 3,406.00p +5.58%
Rank Group (RNK) 100.75p +5.22%
Tomkins (TOMK) 180.25p +5.10%
Ferrexpo (FXPO) 273.00p +5.00%

FTSE 250 - Fallers
Premier Foods (PFD) 108.75p -9.38%
CSR (CSR) 443.00p -6.69%
Telecity Group (TCY) 203.75p -5.23%
Carpetright (CPR) 720.50p -4.70%
Meggitt (MGGT) 260.00p -4.41%
Northern Rock (NRK) 98.00p -3.92%