London midday: Market remains in the red

16th Mar 2011 11:50

The decline in the FTSE 100 appears to have bottomed out although there are continuing worries over the post-earthquake situation in Japan.A fire at the plant's fourth reactor sent radiation levels soaring and forced what few workers are left battling the potential disaster to retreat. Japan's Emperor Akihito made a rare public statement and said he was "deeply worried" by the situation at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant. London's leading share index had been moving towards positive territory early on after a weak start, but nerves kicked in again.In the UK, there has been a brace of executive departures in the leisure industry with the chief executives of hotels group Intercontinental Hotels and pubs group Mitchells & Butlers settling their tabs and moving on. InterContinental Hotels' chief executive Andrew Cosslett shocked the Crowne Plaza and Holiday Inns chains owner by handing in his notice. Long-serving Cosslett will stand down on 30 June to be replaced by finance director Richard Solomons, who has been on the board since 2003. Solomons is also head of Head of Commercial Development. The shares are lower.Mitchells & Butlers said chief executive, Adam Fowle, is to leave the company by mutual consent after a period of two years in the post.Elsewhere in the pubs sector, the food offering at Marston's is defying consumers' attempts at belt tightening. The company said it has "delivered an encouraging and robust performance despite the continued economic uncertainty" in the 23 weeks to 12 March, with profitability in line with expectations.The two biggest fallers in the FTSE 100 index have gone ex-dividend. HSBC has fallen by more than double its dividend of 7.66p a share. Standard Life has not declined quite as much as its final dividend payment of 8.65p a share. Tullow Oil has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Government of Uganda that should bring an end to the conflict over taxation and enable it to push ahead with developing its Ugandan assets. This has perked up the shares but no details of the agreement have been published. Associated British Foods has been upgraded from neutral to outperform by Credit Suisse. Sausage roll fans filed into Greggs in record numbers during 2010, pushing profits up almost 8%, and like for like sales growth so far in 2011 is double what it was for all of 2010. The Newcastle-based company, which runs over 1,480 value bakers shops up and down the country, made £52.5m in the 52 weeks to 1 January, a record high and up from £48.8m in 2009.It's a case of 'chips with everything' for Imagination Technologies, which continues to see growing demand for its graphics chip technology, though its Digital Audio Broadcasting division, PURE, is finding things a bit tougher. Venerable Witan Investment Trust, founded 102 years ago, showed there is still life in the old dog as it outperformed its benchmark index in 2010. Net asset value (NAV) total return in 2010 was 18.9%, compared with a return on the trust's benchmark index of 15.5%.Fashion retailer French Connection made even more in the 12 months to 31 January than the hefty increase promised at last month's trading update. Profit before tax from continuing operations leapt to £7.3m from £0.7m the year before. It had predicted "at least £6.8m" in February. Sales rose 2% to £205m.FTSE 100 - Risers Tullow Oil (TLW) 1,380.00p +2.30%Associated British Foods (ABF) 959.50p +2.07%Burberry Group (BRBY) 1,127.00p +1.53%Next (NXT) 1,930.00p +1.31%3i Group (III) 287.70p +1.05%Compass Group (CPG) 538.00p +1.03%Scottish & Southern Energy (SSE) 1,201.00p +1.01%Reed Elsevier (REL) 513.00p +0.98%Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) 41.73p +0.80%Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 4,460.00p +0.79%FTSE 100 - Fallers Standard Life (SL.) 202.90p -3.70%Man Group (EMG) 251.60p -2.71%HSBC Holdings (HSBA) 628.60p -2.69%G4S (GFS) 251.80p -2.63%Schroders (Non-Voting) (SDRC) 1,318.00p -2.59%Fresnillo (FRES) 1,398.00p -2.44%Barclays (BARC) 285.20p -2.33%Aggreko (AGK) 1,485.00p -2.30%ARM Holdings (ARM) 506.50p -2.13%InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) 1,229.00p -2.07%FTSE 250 - Risers Hansen Transmissions International NV (DI) (HSN) 50.00p +6.59%Catlin Group Ltd. (CGL) 351.30p +5.18%Greggs (GRG) 486.90p +4.51%Exillon Energy (EXI) 434.90p +4.32%Bodycote (BOY) 318.80p +4.01%ITE Group (ITE) 244.50p +3.60%Brown (N.) Group (BWNG) 261.10p +3.41%Heritage Oil (HOIL) 294.50p +3.26%Enterprise Inns (ETI) 90.90p +3.24%Avis Europe (AVE) 192.90p +3.16%FTSE 250 - Fallers Imagination Technologies Group (IMG) 441.10p -4.65%Thomas Cook Group (TCG) 165.40p -3.22%Temple Bar Inv Trust (TMPL) 838.00p -3.12%Big Yellow Group (BYG) 312.50p -2.59%JKX Oil & Gas (JKX) 301.00p -2.43%Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC) 47.86p -2.41%Cookson Group (CKSN) 633.50p -2.39%Law Debenture Corp. (LWDB) 325.50p -2.37%Meggitt (MGGT) 321.90p -2.25%Howden Joinery Group (HWDN) 101.60p -2.21%