With markets drifting ahead of the meeting between Greece and its European creditors to - once more - try and hammer out a deal, there is a spate of takeover talk to occupy investors.
SABMiller is up 79.5p at £35.37 following weekend reports that 3G Capital, an investment group led by former tennis player Jorge Paulo, was considering a £75bn takeover bid for the brewer. The Mail on Sunday said 3G, which owns a controlling stake in Anheuser-Busch, was looking at a possible offer as part of a consortium.
But 888.com is down 23.25p or 13% at 147.5p after talks about a 203p a share bid - including a 3p dividend - worth £720m from William Hill broke down. 888 said:
Due to a significant difference of opinion on value with a key stakeholder, it has not been possible to reach agreement on the terms of a possible offer.
Analyst Karl Burns at Panmure Gordon said:
We retain our sell recommendation on 888 and 96p price target. We believe competition will increase significantly in the UK post the introduction of the Point of Consumption Tax, resulting in a significant slowdown of revenue growth for 888, whilst we believe the valuation remains aggressive given the high proportion of unregulated revenue (around 40%).
Overall the FTSE 100 has dipped 3.54 points to 6869.98 as worries about the possible fallout from the Greek talks continued to unsettle investors. Weaker than expected Japanese growth figures did not help matters, while energy companies were hit by a dip in the oil price. There were also concerns about the situation in Ukraine, while there will be no guidance from Wall Street later since it is closed for a public holiday. Chris Beauchamp, senior market analyst at IG, said:
The old bugbears are back to stalk markets this morning. The ceasefire in Ukraine, barely a day old, is already looking shaky, while anxious eurozone markets turn their eyes to the latest meeting between finance ministers, who are recommencing the uphill struggle to hammer out an agreement between Greece and its partners. We can only hope that today’s session is more productive than last week’s, where even a single statement from all parties was too much to ask. The default setting for most investors today is ‘sit on your hands’, and await developments.
Royal Dutch Shell A shares have slipped 11p to £21.38 while Centrica has dropped 8p to 279p as Citigroup cut its price target from 310p to 285p.
Precious metals miner Fresnillo has fallen 26.5p to 852.5p after Morgan Stanley moved from overweight to equal weight.
Among the mid-caps Jimmy Choo has added 8.6p to 172.6p as HSBC raised its recommendation from neutral to overweight and its price target from 190p to 205p.
