Leading shares have shaken off rising oil prices, a downgrade of Greece's debt and falls on Wall Street and Asia overnight.
As fears of a full blown civil war in Libya grow, Brent crude has added nearly $1 to $116.95 a barrel. Meanwhile away from north Africa and the Middle East, the financial problems in Europe are also in investors' minds. Moody's ratings agency has downgraded Greece from Ba1 to B1 and assigned a negative outlook, much to the anger of the country's government.
Still, despite all this, the FTSE 100 is up 12.12 points at 6002.51, with Intertek the leading riser after the testing company unveiled an 11% rise in full year profits to £212m and a $730m acquisition. The company is buying safety services business Moody International, moving it further into the energy sector. Kevin Lapwood at Seymour Pierce said:
[Moody] has been acquired on a very full enterprise value/ EBITDA exit multiple of 13.5 times but it is an important strategic move for Intertek since it considerably enhances its global position in technical safety services and systems certification.
The acquisition will not be earnings enhancing in the short term but is a good strategic move. We move to outperform from buy with a target price of 2000p.
