Unilever has jumped nearly 3% after announcing it would spin outs its European and north American spreads business - which includes Flora- into a separate business.
In an investor presentation - but not an official stock market announcement - chief financial officer Jean-Marc Huet said the Baking Cooking and Spreading business would become a standalone business. It would have its own management team and more freedom to take decisions.
The business has struggled as consumers eat less bread and therefore use less margarine.
Unilever is up 76p at £27.52 but has come off its best levels as it seems this is an internal reorganisation rather than a demerger.
Huet also said currency headwinds should ease in 2015 but market conditions remained challenging.
Elsewhere Sage is up 14.9p at 437p as analysts at Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, Citigroup and UBS all raised their target prices following the software group’s better than expected full year results on Wednesday.
Overall the FTSE 100 has added 8.33 points to 6724.96 ahead of the latest policy decisions from the Bank of England and European Central Bank. Most analysts expect no moves on interest rates or stimulus programmes but there are hopes the ECB will hint at further moves - government bond buying in particular - next year.
Mining groups came under pressure, with Anglo American down 27.5p at 1292.5p as Bank of America Merrill Lynch moved from buy to underperform. It also reduced its rating on BHP Billiton, down 19.5p at £14.99, from buy to neutral. Bernstein and Investec also cut their target prices on BHP.
