On a fairly quiet end to the week, easyJet is flying high on vague takeover speculation.
Traders heard talk of a possible £16 a share offer, perhaps from private equity or founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou or a New York firm.
EasyJet shares, which have been volatile since the Brexit vote, are currently up 44p at £11.22. The budget airline said it had no comment on the stories.
Overall the FTSE 100 is drifting lower, down 16.60 points at 6852.36 ahead of UK public finance figures.
Elsewhere Centrica has climbed 2.4p to 236.1p as Barclays analysts raised their target price from 240p to 245p with an equal weight rating. They said:
Centrica recently announced pro-forma earnings for their new Connected Home & Distributed Energy & Power divisions. We see significant potential from these areas longer term, though with too greater near-term uncertainty to ascribe high valuation at this stage. Not all plain sailing: Whilst Centica’s efficiency savings are noteworthy, it’s not all positive: 1) UK Supply Account Numbers: first half 2016 account losses totaled a very high 2.7%, and we see future margin erosion as Centrica defends market share; 2) Gas Storage: We downgrade 2016 estimated EBIT from a £10m loss to a £40m loss due to the Rough outage extension; 3) Wholesale prices have shown recent weakness, impacting investor confidence.
With oil prices in a bull market on hopes of action to curb output at Opec’s meeting next month - albeit Brent crude has slipped back 0.8% to $50.45 this morning - BP is 1.75p better at 437.3p.
