News

Footsie has surged ahead during the morning session with financials leading the index higher.

Banks recovering some of this week's losses has helped. Lloyds TSB and HBOS are the best performers. Insurer Prudential and Aviva are also up while other financials such as Man Group and Schroders have bounced as well.

Oil and oil services stocks were lower. Petrofac, BP, BG, John Wood Group and Tullow Oil were all heavily down.

WPP is weaker despite a strong first half, which beat most estimates. The advertising giant said prospects for 2009 remain less certain due to the financial crisis and commodity price increases.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has singled out iron ore as a likely sticking point in the path to regulatory clearance of BHP Billiton's bid for Rio Tinto.

Pest control group Rentokil posted a 55% fall in first half underlying profit to £39.3m. Revenues rose 11% to £1.18bn. Pre-tax profits fell 72% to £18.3m. "We have made a solid start with strong improvement in customer service over the past four months, but we are on a three to five-year journey to profit recovery," chief executive Alan Brown said.

Insurance giant Aon has made an agreed £844m bid for insurance broker Benfield. The agreed price of 350p per share values Benfield's existing issued share capital at approximately £738m and the entire issued and to be issued share capital of Benfield at approximately £844m.

Bus and rail firm Arriva's interim profits surged, despite the sharp increase in fuel costs. Pre-tax profit in the first half of 2008 rose to £66.3m from £47.3m a year earlier on revenue that grew from £909.2m to £1,443.4m.

Precision instrumentation firm Spectris reported a 16% rise in first half pre-tax profit and said orders to date continue to be encouraging. Adjusted pre-tax profit rose to £42.6m in the six month ended 30 June compared with £36.8m last year on sales up 8% to £358.5m.

Bradford & Bingley's underwriters have been stuck with the rump of 597m shares, 72.16% of its recent rights issue.

IT training group Xpertise has received a bid of 150p per share from QA-IQ Investments, a premium of 95% to the share price yesterday.

Oil and gas exploration and production company Dragon Oil is confident of delivering on its promises for 2008 after posting sharply higher profits at the half-year stage.