By Michael Taylor
LONDON, May 8 (Reuters) - Britain's blue-chip index ended
slightly higher on Thursday as takeover talk boosted miners,
while financials fell as the Bank of England left interest rates
unchanged.
The FTSE 100 <> climbed 9.8 points, or 0.2 percent at
6,270.8 during a choppy session but is down almost 3 percent for
the year.
Banks weighed after the BoE decision to hold rates at 5
percent, as expected. Barclays <BARC.L>, Royal Bank of Scotland
<RBS.L>, Lloyds TSB <LLOY.L>, Standard Chartered <STAN.L> and
HBOS <HBOS.L> lost 1.1 to 2.5 percent.
Also weighing on the sector was news that the U.S.
Securities & Exchange Commission planned to ramp up transparency
in top Wall Street firms. []
"I thought there was a chance that they might actually move
today," said Chris Iggo, a strategist at Axa Investment Managers
of the BoE verdict. "To be sensible you need to go with form and
the form is that they don't often cut rates two meetings in a
row."
"The data is shocking. It's like the economy has completely
stalled in March and April. Retail sales down, CPI surveys were
horrible, mortgage approvals taking another leg down -- if it
was that simple that they were just responding to data then they
should have gone, and I think they will in June."
"The complicating factor is inflation," he added.
Earlier, the National Institute of Economic and Social
Research said Britain's economy continued to grow below its
trend rate.
The European Central Bank also decided to keep rates on
hold, at 4 percent.
Among FTSE 100 gainers, Kazakhmys <KAZ.L> led miners higher,
surging 10.2 percent on renewed market talk of bid interest from
Eurasian Natural Resources Corp (ENRC) <ENRC.L>, traders said.
ENRC, whose shares rose 5.9 percent, declined to comment,
while Kazakhmys could not immediately be reached for comment.
The UK Takeover Panel has given ENRC until 1600 GMT on May 16 to
make an offer for Kazakhmys.
Antofagasta strengthened 5.5 percent, BHP Billiton <BLT.L>
added 2.9 percent and Xstrata <XTA.L> gained 1.9 percent.
Lonmin <LMI.L>, the world's third biggest platinum producer,
climbed 6.1 percent after posting a 63 percent jump in
first-half profit on strong platinum prices, but withdrew a
long-term output target due to South African power problems.
In other commodities, oil majors BP <BP.L> and Royal Dutch
Shell <RDSa.L> fell as crude prices <CLc1> eased from record
highs. The two companies were also among a dozen oil firms which
agreed to pay $423 million and clean-up costs to settle
litigation over decades of groundwater contamination from the
gasoline additive and possible carcinogen MTBE. []
UNILEVER RIDES HIGH
Among a host of companies reporting, Unilever <ULVR.L>
advanced 5.4 percent after the food and consumer goods group
beat forecasts with a 7.2 percent rise in first-quarter
underlying sales and said it expected sales in the year to beat
its target range. []
Next <NXT.L> climbed 6 percent on short covering after the
clothing retailer said it continued to believe that sales in the
second quarter would "improve significantly" despite falling in
the first quarter. []
Sage Group <SGE.L>, Britain's biggest software company,
added 7.4 percent after it said underlying first-half pretax
profit rose 9 percent and said it was confident for the full
year. []
Further on the downside, Carphone Warehouse <CPW.L> lost 3.4
percent. Europe's biggest independent mobile phone retailer said
it was to sell a 50 percent stake in its retail unit for 1.1
billion pounds to U.S. consumer electronics retailer Best Buy
<BBY.N> and the two groups would launch a new company.
[]
Enterprise Inns <ETI.L> was down 2.2 percent after
skyrocketing nearly 30 percent in the previous session when the
company, Britain's second-largest pub firm, got the go ahead
from the government to convert to tax-efficient status as a real
estate investment trust (REIT).
(Additional reporting by Dominic Lau; Editing by Quentin Bryar)
