Platinum specialist Lonmin has jumped 115p to £26.46 on takeover speculation. The talk is of a possible £34.50 offer from, perhaps, Xstrata or Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation.
ENRC, however, had earlier been tipped as a counter bidder for oil group Imperial Energy, up 36p to £10.80. Imperial has already had one approach, believed to be from India's ONGC.
Still on the speculative tack, property group Minerva added another 8.25p to 128.25p. The company has received a 160p a share cash offer from Dubai's Limitless group, but traders are now talking of another possible predator.
Overall, leading shares have recovered some of their earlier falls after a revival on Wall Street. The US market is now in positive territory, after oil slid nearly $4 a barrel to a six week low as fears of disruption from tropical storm Dolly faded. The oil price fall has outweighed poor figures from banking group Wachovia, and downbeat comments from US officials.
This has all benefited the UK market, with the FTSE 100 now down 48.5 points at 5355.8. More than 40 points of that is due to Vodafone, which has fallen 13% to 129.4p after a shock warning on revenues.
