London Market Open Report (Mon, Oct 12, 2009, )

London open: London makes healthy start

London has made a bright start helped by the strong finish to last week on Wall Street.

Index heavyweight Vodafone is ahead along with Unilever, Shire and Segro as buyers dominate. Only Invensys and Randgold Resources are significantly in the red.

Banking giant Barclays is lower despite reports its contemplating selling off a Ł4bn chunk of toxic assets.

The long running soap opera revolving around the chairman role at TV broadcaster ITV took another twist as the two leading candidates withdrew from the running. Former Reed Elsevier boss Sir Crispin Davies and former BMI boss Sir Michael Bishop have both ruled themselves out. The market has taken the news well so far.

Troubled sportswear group JJB Sports has confirmed its plans for a rights issue to raise Ł100m are now back on track after it suspended the cash call on Friday after rumours surrounding executive chairman Sir David Jones. JJB said these rumours are totally unfounded and it has given Sir David its full backing.

Carillion, the support services company, is to sell its environmental consultancy business Enviros. Engineering, sciences and project delivery firm, Sinclair Knight Merz, is paying around Ł27m (net) in cash for Enviros. The funds will be used to reduce Carillion’s debt.

Diversified miner Xstrata has agreed to sell its 70% interest in El Morro, which operates a copper-gold mine in Chile, to gold miner Barrick Gold for $465m. Xstrata chief executive Charlie Sartain said the project, which is also known as El Morro, would create more value as part of Barrick’s portfolio.

Credit lender International Personal Finance (IPF) said it had seen a recovery in trading that will result in its full year performance being ‘materially ahead of current market expectations’ if it continues.

Market researcher and polling group YouGov fell into losses in the year to July 31, but said it was winning market share.

Higher margins will help profits come in higher than expected this year at telco billing software group Intec.