UK Stocks Down; Amlin Estimates

Marcus Jacob
05 Apr, 2011
New York City

UK stocks edged lower as investors focused on rising debt stress in Europe. Amlin Plc estimated claims linked to Japan, Australia and New Zealand of

[R]3:00 PM London – UK stocks edged lower as investors focused on rising debt stress in Europe. Amlin Plc estimated claims linked to Japan, Australia and New Zealand of £275 million. Vedanta Resources gained after it inched closer to acquiring Cairn India stake.[/R]

The FTSE 100 index declined 17.41 to 5,999.53 and the FTSE All Share index fell 9.7 to 3,112.43.

Markets in Spain, France and Germany were lower between 0.2% and 0.8%.

Stock Movers

Amlin Plc increased 3.3 pence to 390 pence after the company estimated claims of £275 million linked to disasters in Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

The property and casualty reinsurer estimated claims from Queensland flooding of £15 million, from earthquake in New Zealand of £110 millions and from earthquake and tsunami in Japan of £150 million.

HMV Group traded lower 2.75 pence to 12.50 pence after it estimated full-year earnings before tax at £30 million compared to last month estimate of £45 million.

TUI Travel Group increased 6.9 pence to 230 pence after the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported that the company had talks with sovereign wealth fund of Oman and China based logistics company to sell its stake in a container shipping company Hapag-Llyod.

Home Retail Group increased 4.3 pence to 208.9 pence after the private equity group Madison Dearborn Capital Partners increased its stake.

London Stock Exchange increased 5 pence to 862 pence and the stock exchange operator said it plans to sell its shareholder management services group in Italy, Servizio Titoli to Computershare for 30 million euros.

WPP Group declined 5.5 pence to 784 pence and the company said it acquired a minority stake in Canada based Vice Holdings, a youth media marketing firm.

BTG Group declined 1.3 pence to 230.30 pence after the healthcare company said full-year revenues in the year ended in March is expected to fall between £108 million and £114 million and recurring revenues to range between £98 million and £102 million.

Vedanta Resources increased 3.6% to 2,498 pence after the Securities and Exchange Board of India approved the company’s unit Sesa Goa Ltd’s proposal to minority shareholders for 20% Cairn India.

Vedanta earlier said it has raised $6 billion in bank debt to finance its $9.6 billion purchase of Cairn India which has the largest onshore oil deposit in India.