Raymarine, the supplier of radars, radios and other electronic equipment for boats, is up almost a third after confirming it is still exploring the sale of the business and has spoken to a US company.
Responding to weekend press reports of talks with US navigation equipment specialist Garmin, Raymarine repeated June's assertion that it was considering a sale or an equity fundraising.
It said in a statement this morning:
"The board of Raymarine notes the recent press speculation regarding potential discussions with Garmin Ltd and reconfirms that it is in preliminary discussions with a number of parties, including Garmin, which may or may not lead to a sale of the company."The company continues to explore a sale of the business or an equity fundraising and, in the absence of either of these, to secure additional medium term debt facilities with its banking syndicate.
"The board notes that, at this stage, there can be no certainty that an offer will be made nor as to the terms on which any offer might be made. At present, it is not known whether any offer will provide any value for ordinary shareholders."
The shares are up 3.75p, or 29%, to 16.5p.
Further up the market, insurer Aviva is getting some support in the falling market from a broker upgrade. Analysts at HSBC have raised their rating on Aviva to "neutral" from "underweight" and raised their price target to 400p from 320p.
Aviva is up 2.1p at 373.9p and rival Legal & General is 0.4p higher at 66.35p.
Aviva and Legal & General are two of only four risers on the FTSE 100 - the others are Morrisons and drugmakers GlaxoSmithKline. The index was down 86 points, or 1.8%, at 4628 at 11.45 am.
Many analysts believe the FTSE is now set for a correction after rising some 35% since the low point in March. Others think it has further to go and any dips like today could be seen as a chance to buy into a continuing rally.
David Jones, chief market strategist at IG Index comments:
"The real test now is whether investors are happy to view this sell off as yet another opportunity to load up their holdings ahead of an anticipated push higher."
"While today's slide is so far the biggest fall seen on the UK index in six weeks, it was only at the end of last week that we saw the highest level reached so far this year. At the moment, the broader recovery is still in place and it would not be a surprise to see shares claw back the lost ground over the next few days."
"Looking ahead to the US open, at the moment it looks like the Dow Jones index is going to start off around 150 points lower at 9170. While, like the FTSE, this is a heavy fall to start the week, only a slide below the 9000 level is likely to give investors cause for concern by suggesting that this could be the beginning of a significant move lower rather than just a brief correction in the recovery."
