Bid for Tomkins fails to boost investor cheer as BP’s woes drag down FTSE
WEAK US housing data helped push Britain’s top shares lower yesterday, as cautious investors trimmed positions in riskier assets, while BP fell after leaks were discovered in its capped well.
The FTSE 100 closed down 10.57 points, or 0.2 per cent, at 5,148.28, having shed one per cent on Friday.
The index’s fall echoed a retreat on Wall Street after data from the United States revealed that the homebuilder sentiment index fell in July to the lowest level in more than a year.
The data sparked new fears about the pace of a recovery.
The data offset upbeat corporate news from Halliburton and Boeing.
BP shed 4.7 per cent and took 14 points off the index as engineers monitoring its damaged well in the Gulf of Mexico detected seepage on the ocean floor that could mean problems with the cap that has stopped oil from gushing into the ocean.
The oil firm has lost over 40 percent in value since the leak started in April.
A broker downgrade weighed on Associated British Foods, off 2.4 per cent, with Evolution Securities cutting its rating on the Primark fashion stores owner and Silver Spoon sugar refiner to “neutral” from “buy”.
In a sign that the domestic UK economy is facing stiff headwinds, asking prices for British homes fell for the first time this year, Rightmove said yesterday.
Tomkins soared almost 28 per cent after the engineering firm said it had received a bid approach at 325p per share from a consortium of Onex and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.