ITV merger twins Carlton Communications and Granada enjoyed some big gains, with Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt expected to give her blessing to the 4 billion deal this week.<\/p>\n
Granada led the top 100 companies higher with a rise of 61\/2p to 1041\/4p, while Carlton was the best performer among second-liners, up 171\/2p to 1833\/4p. Hewitt is expected to approve the deal so they can compete head-to-head with satellite broadcaster BSkyB, off 6p at 634p and valued at 12.4 billion.<\/p>\n
Traders say the Government may impose limits on how much they can charge advertisers, or may even force them to sell their ad sales divisions, which could scupper the merger altogether. Carlton and Granada own 12 of the 15 ITV broadcast franchises, but they have been poor performers in recent years, reflecting the advertising downturn. Carlton has seen its share-price slump from 900p three years ago, while Granada is down from a peak of 270p.<\/p>\n
Not everyone appears impressed with the proposed merger. Word is that broker HSBC has taken the opportunity to repeat its reduce recommendation on both.<\/p>\n
Share prices generally were subdued by Israel’s air strike on Syria. Prices traded in a narrow band and the FTSE 100 index was up 0.1 at 4274.1. Vodafone dipped 1\/2p to 1223\/4p, despite US securities house Lehman Brothers raising its earnings estimate and target price from 150p to 160p.<\/p>\n
Scottish Southern Energy firmed 11\/2p to 613p after taking control of the gas-fired 700MW Isle of Grain power station for 242 million. The acquisition adds another modern, efficient power station to SSE’s generating fleet which, including hydroelectric power stations in Scotland, accounts for some 10% of the UK’s electricity producing capacity.<\/p>\n
Traders are said to be jittery about tomorrow’s second-quarter trading update from Marks Spencer, up 33\/4p at 3161\/4p, with US investment bank JP Morgan taking the opportunity to repeat its neutral recommendation.<\/p>\n
Analystsare not looking for a repeat of last year’s big improvement and are forecasting single-digit earnings growth.<\/p>\n
Speculation has resurfaced that Prudential, 1\/4p better at 4391\/ 4p, may be contemplating the sale of its internet banking arm, Egg.<\/p>\n
Speculators say the bidder could be financial services outfit Cahoot.<\/p>\n
Last week there was talk that Egg may be getting ready to pull out of its loss-making operation in France. This led to speculation the Pru has put the business up for sale with a price tag of 2 billion, or, at the very least, may be ready to reduce its 75% stake. Egg retreated 1p to 135p.<\/p>\n
Manchester United firmed 71\/2p to 2251\/2p as bid speculation intensified. In late trading on Friday, hedge fund Lansdowne sold more than two million shares, almost 1%. The sale reduces its stake to 5.17%. The buyer is thought to have been Malcolm Glazer, owner of the NFL’s Tampa Bay, who last week almost doubled his stake to 15.4 million shares (5.92%).<\/p>\n
Today a line of 548,429 went through at 223p with a further 466,777 traded at 2231\/2p. The trades follow the move by US Irish trio JP McManus, John Magnier and Dermot Desmond, who between them own almost 13% of the shares with BSkyB holding 10%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ITV merger twins Carlton Communications and Granada enjoyed some big gains, with Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt expected to give her blessing to the 4 billion deal this week. Granada led the top 100 companies higher with a rise […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hedgeco-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1300\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}