London close: Flat finish after late fightback

16th May 2011 16:33

Shares staged a fightback ahead of the close, ending the day flat.Company updates gave traders plenty to ponder, but it was electrical retailers Dixons and Kesa that were the centre of attention. Rumours that Kesa may sell its UK operation Comet, which has been struggling lately, have been doing the rounds. Dixons, which may benefit from less competition if the rumours are true, rose 12%.In company news, London Stock Exchange moves ahead after saying it remains committed to its proposed merger with its Canadian counterpart TMX despite learning that TMX has received an approach from Maple, a consortium of Canadian financial institutions and pension funds.Oilfield services group Wood Group said it is to return £1.05bn to shareholders by way of a tender offer to repurchase up to 32.1% of the issued ordinary share capital of the group. The strike price range has been set at 605p to 625p. The strike price range represents a discount of 6.1% to 3.0% to the closing price of Wood shares on 13 May, the last trading day before the announcement of the tender offer.Pork sausages maker Cranswick is also whetted investor appetite. It enjoyed a record year of sales and profitability, despite sales growth petering out in the first quarter of 2011. Pre-tax profit rose 8% to £47.1m from £43.8m the year before.Data software firm Autonomy headed skywards after saying it is to boost its cloud computing capability with a $380m acquisition of assets from assets from Iron Mountain. Cloud computing allows customers to store and retrieve their data from remote locations. Autonomy said the deal added over six petabytes of data under management and more than 6,000 customers to its customer base. Exhibitions organiser ITE was under pressure, even after it said it is now operating in a 'business as usual' environment in its main market Moscow after recovering from the global economic downturn. In the six months to 31 March, headline pre-tax profits climbed to £9.1m from £6.4m over the same period the previous year on revenues that were up to £53m from £39.2m. Education IT services provider RM fell after it swung to a pre-tax loss and said UK and US markets remain challenging amid ongoing spending cuts. Budget cuts in the UK and US have hurt demand for its services with trading conditions continuing to be very challenging, RM explained.In broker news, Dignity moved higher after UBS raised its target price on the stock to 750p from 730p. January volumes were strong as higher-than-average deaths late in December resulted in a "raised level of funeral services and cremation activity at the start of the year," said analyst Isabel Green, somewhat morbidly.FTSE 100 - RisersAntofagasta (ANTO) 1,185.00p +3.77%Autonomy Corporation (AU.) 1,780.00p +2.65%Kazakhmys (KAZ) 1,242.00p +2.39%BHP Billiton (BLT) 2,392.00p +2.22%Xstrata (XTA) 1,387.00p +2.14%Anglo American (AAL) 2,978.50p +2.09%Fresnillo (FRES) 1,351.00p +2.04%Rio Tinto (RIO) 4,171.00p +1.91%International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (IAG) 246.20p +1.57%BG Group (BG.) 1,340.00p +1.36%FTSE 100 - FallersAggreko (AGK) 1,750.00p -3.37%Intertek Group (ITRK) 2,008.00p -2.29%Invensys (ISYS) 319.40p -2.20%Weir Group (WEIR) 1,878.00p -2.19%Wolseley (WOS) 2,069.00p -1.90%ITV (ITV) 68.10p -1.87%Sainsbury (J) (SBRY) 356.30p -1.79%Serco Group (SRP) 556.50p -1.77%Kingfisher (KGF) 277.40p -1.74%Rexam (REX) 387.70p -1.72%FTSE 250 - RisersDixons Retail (DXNS) 18.42p +13.91%Kesa Electricals (KESA) 150.70p +6.88%London Stock Exchange Group (LSE) 884.00p +6.83%Gem Diamonds Ltd. (DI) (GEMD) 279.00p +3.53%Dignity (DTY) 767.00p +2.88%Cranswick (CWK) 783.50p +2.22%BTG (BGC) 256.90p +1.98%Booker Group (BOK) 64.85p +1.97%Imagination Technologies Group (IMG) 493.90p +1.84%Mothercare (MTC) 433.70p +1.83%FTSE 250 - FallersITE Group (ITE) 237.10p -4.51%Capital & Counties Properties (CAPC) 168.10p -4.27%Ferrexpo (FXPO) 439.70p -3.74%Computacenter (CCC) 453.60p -3.47%Enterprise Inns (ETI) 88.50p -3.38%Thomas Cook Group (TCG) 158.00p -3.36%Punch Taverns (PUB) 75.00p -3.23%Berkeley Group Holdings (BKG) 1,123.00p -2.85%CPP Group (CPP) 119.50p -2.85%Brown (N.) Group (BWNG) 287.80p -2.84%