With leading shares attempting a revival, Imperial Tobacco has regained ground lost on Tuesday.
The maker of Gauloises and Lambert & Butler cigarettes reported a 5% decline in underlying first half underlying tobacco sales, but said it was on track to meet its targets for this year. Overall revenues fell 4% to £12.1bn, as consumers continue to cut back on smoking for health and budget reasons.
Imperial, which fell sharply on Tuesday after a negative note from Nomura, responded to the update with an 81p rise to £32.01. It expects to complete its $7.1bn purchase of certain brands from a combined Reynolds American and Lorillard when that deal passes anti-trust hurdles, and said it was open to taking more brands if that was required by regulators.
Overall the FTSE 100 is currently 35.28 points higher at 6962.86, despite continuing worries about a Greek default - although a €200m payment by the country to the IMF helped matters - and uncertainty over the UK election. A rebound in UK services PMI helped sentiment, as did reasonable data from the eurozone. Later come ADP jobs figures from the US, ahead of Friday’s non-farm payroll number.
On a busy day for results, GKN has climbed 5.2p to 353.2p following its update while Legal & General is up 4.1p to 261.4p.
But Sainsbury is the biggest faller in the FTSE 100, down 7.1p at 267.9p after a £72m loss including property write-offs.
CRH, down 37p at £18.11, and Sage, 5.1p lower at 491.4p, also disappointed investors with their trading news.
But SuperGroup has soared nearly 6% as fourth quarter sales rose 11.6% and the fashion group said it was on track for full year profits of between £60m and £65m.
