London open: Poor start to week

10th Jan 2011 08:23

A fresh round of takeover speculation and well-received numbers from Morrisons hasn't been enough to cancel losses across the mining sector.Artificial joint specialist Smith & Nephew rallied Monday following reports it turned down a bid approach from US rival Johnson & Johnson just before Christmas.The Americans are said to have offered about 750p per share, valuing the knee joint maker at almost £6.7bn, and are considering whether to come back with a higher offer.There's also another batch of Christmas trading updates from retailers to digest. Supermarket chain Wm Morrison keeps forecasts for the full-year unchanged after growing like for like sales excluding fuel by 1% in the six weeks to January 2. In his first Christmas as chief executive, Dalton Philips reported total sales excluding fuel rose 3.1%, or 4.7% including fuel, while like for like sales were up 4% when fuel is included.December's bad weather clipped department store Debenhams' sales growth by 2.5%-3%, though underlying sales still picked up slightly thanks to strong online growth and market share gains. Online grocer Ocado said gross sales in the final quarter of 2010 increased 27.4% as it delivered nearly all its orders despite the extreme weather conditions. The group, whose main customer is Waitrose, said fourth quarter sales increased to £178.9m from £140.5m in the same period a year before. Miners feature heavily among the major fallers as floods in Australia disrupt production. That hit Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton. Xstrata, Kazakhmys, Lonmin and Antofagasta are also in the red. International recruitment firm Michael Page saw organic growth in all regions in the fourth quarter of 2010, with fourth quarter gross profit up 32.2% to £119.8m from £90.6m a year earlier. Tullow Oil had mixed news, with success on one well in Ghana but a disappointing outcome on a prospect in Mauritania.Oil explorer Soco has had its application to extend its licence on the Te Giac Den Appraisal Area (TGD), offshore Vietnam, rejected by the Vietnamese government.A joint venture in which both Balfour Beatty and Morgan Sindall own a 30% stake has won the £235m Whitechapel and Liverpool Street Station tunnels contract, which forms part of the Crossrail link. Work on the five-year project starts next month.Underlying profits at housebuilder Persimmon will be at the top end of expectations, a good send off for chairman John White who's retiring after 32 years at the company. A "significant" increase in profit before tax, goodwill charges and exceptional items has propelled the figure towards the upper end of analysts' forecast which range from £75m to £96m.