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FTSE holds it grounds despite Abbey takeover

  • By Julie Henderson
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Abbey National's share price has taken a beating this morning following news of its proposed takeover by Spanish giant Banco Santander Central Hispano, but the FTSE is still afloat.

The benchmark FTSE 100 index was almost flat at 4331 points within the first hour of trading even though the Abbey deal has hit the banking stock hard. Other FTSE stock markets are also relatively flat, the as the FTSE All-Share sits at 2155 points and the FTSE 250 index remains at 5990.

Abbey National is currently down shed 22.5p or 3.88% to 557.5p as it emerged on Friday the banking group is in talks for a takeover by Abbey. On Friday the share price rose 18%, but all talk now waits for the announcement later today by Abbey.

RBS is likely to be affected by the deal as it holds a stake in Banco Santander and vice versa, so will probably have to mutually relinquish shares in eachother’s firms.

Vodafone, the FTSE 100 giant, has managed to climb 1.25p or 1.1% to 117.5p this morning after revealing growth of Japanese customers boosted the overall target for the fiscal first quarter.

Pearson Group, owner of the FT, also rose 5.5p or 0.9% to 623p after reporting it had a first-half loss, albeit the losses were much less than the last half 2003 thanks to cost cutting.

Incisive Media, publisher of IFAonline, is a rival publishing house to Pearson.

In Asia, the largest technology-related stocks closed the day down after reports suggesting its largest customers are about to cut orders.

Taiwan Semiconductor closed the day down 4.4% to NT$40.90 and United Microelectronics – both of which are due to report this week – ended the day 2.3% lower at NT$21.

And the Japanese Nikkei 225 index also closed down 0.3% to 11,159.

In the US on Friday, the Nasdaq suffered heavy losses and closed down 39.97 points or 2.12% to 1,849 perhaps as a result of that same Commercial report.

The Dow Jones index also dipped back under the 10,000 mark again to close down 88 points or 0.88% to 9,962 while the S&P 500 index lost 10.6 points or 0.97% to 1,086.

IFAonline

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