Monday, 16 March 2015 21:30
LONDON: Britain’s top share index rebounded on Monday after its biggest weekly drop of 2015, with Tesco leading the market higher on a report that WPP was eyeing a majority stake in the Dunnhumby customer data unit of the world’s third-biggest retailer.
The market also drew some support from mining shares, which increased on expectations of steady economic growth in China, the biggest metal consumer globally.
Tesco shares were up 3.8 percent after Bloomberg, citing a source familiar with the matter, reported that WPP was interested in Tesco’s data unit. Spokesmen for WPP and Tesco declined to comment, the report added.
“Cost-cutting measures are being used (by Tesco) as part of a wider reform strategy and the selling of the Dunnhumby data unit will have come as a welcome, even attractive prospect to investors,” Augustin Eden, an analyst at Accendo Markets, said.
WPP itself is the biggest advertising company worldwide.
Reuters reported last month that analysts value Dunnhumby, bought by Tesco in 2004, at between 800 million pounds ($ 1.2 billion) and 2 billion. Dunnhumby gathers and analyses data from almost 1 billion shoppers globally to help firms create customer loyalty and personalisation programmes.
Tesco was the top gainer in the blue-chip FTSE 100 index , which rose 0.9 percent to 6,801.53 points by 1503 GMT. The index fell 2.5 percent last week in its biggest weekly drop since December, touching its lowest in two months. Monday’s rise left it less than 3 percent off a record high in early March.
The UK mining index was up 0.4 percent after Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said on Sunday the country had a lot of room to manoeuvre its policy and boost the economy. Rio Tinto , BHP Billiton and Randgold Resources gained 0.9 to 1.3 percent.
“We believe that market optimism on the mining sector is at a pretty low level on concerns regarding supply-side issues and the sustainability of Chinese growth. And that makes the sector sensitive to any good news coming through,” said Robert Parkes, equity strategist at HSBC Global Research.
“We are overweight on the mining sector and believe that the pessimism is overdone especially in the current environment, where the business cycle indicators are starting to point upwards. It’s a cyclical sector and is exposed to a re-acceleration in the global economy.”
On the downside, Irish construction company CRH — which has agreed to buy assets from Lafarge and Holcim — fell 3.5 percent after Holcim called a halt to its merger with Lafarge, pressing the French company to renegotiate the deal terms.
Tullow Oil slipped 6 percent following a sharp drop in crude oil prices and as Exane BNP Paribas cut its target price for the stock by 5 percent.
Copyright Reuters, 2015
