Sector movers: Liberty weighs down property sector

23rd Sep 2009 12:08

Liberty International is leading the real estate sector lower the shopping centre investor announced it is placing up to 56.1m new ordinary shares to fund fresh investment plans."The group's investment plans were placed on hold approximately twelve months ago as a result of the exceptional turmoil in financial and property markets at that time," Liberty explained in a company statement.The sale represents 9.9% of Liberty's issued share capital, and based on Tuesday's closing price of 564p, would total £316.4m.About half of the placing proceeds are expected to fund asset management initiatives across Liberty's 14 UK regional shopping centres.Tobacco stocks are wanted, the day after Imperial Tobacco, best known in the UK for Lambert & Butler cigarettes, said performance in the year to end-September remains in line with management's expectations. The shares are up nearly 2%.Lucky Strike firm British American, which announced yesterday that finance boss Ben Stevens has pocketed nearly £200,000 after selling a chunk of his stake, is up more than 1%.Top performing sectors so far todayPersonal Goods 8,967.23 +2.85%Industrial Metals 4,551.27 +1.27%Health Care Equipment & Services 3,155.29 +1.23%Mobile Telecommunications 3,268.61 +1.17%Tobacco 23,757.07 +1.15%Bottom performing sectors so far todayForestry & Paper 3,468.38 -2.42%Real Estate 2,112.36 -2.21%Fixed Line Telecommunications 1,948.49 -1.27%Travel & Leisure 4,082.04 -0.92%Construction & Materials 3,811.02 -0.71%