Fresh from proposing a wheeze supposedly to help the troubled US monoline insurers, billionaire investor Warren Buffett has put some life into GlaxoSmithKline.
The pharmaceutical group's shares are up 24p at £11.25 on news that Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway company has invested $76m for 1.51m American depositary receipts. Berkshire has invested in a number of other healthcare companies in recent months.
Elsewhere mining group Vedanta Resources rose 56p to £20.60 after UBS upgraded the shares from neutral to buy and increased its price target from £23 to £26.
But Bradford & Bingley continued to suffer after this week's write-downs, off another 9.5p to 177p. And Alliance & Leicester lost 14.5p to 529p as Citigroup issued a sell note and cut its target from 575p to 400p.
Ahead of A&L's results next Wednesday, Citi said: "The writedowns announced for 2007 and our expectation of further charges in 2008 mean that we now expect tangible net asset value to fall to 367p per share by 2008. We set our target price at 400p reflecting a diminished merger premium as Santander no longer appears interested in acquiring Alliance & Leicester."
Transport groups slumped after Go-Ahead warned on profits because of rising fuel costs and lower rail subsidies. Go-Ahead lost 338p to £18.97, Stagecoach fell 15.75p to 230.5p and strong>FirstGroup fell 33.5p to 612.5p.
Overall the FTSE 100 has drifted 6.8 points lower to 5872.5.
