Consolidation in the cable sector dominated the markets today as telecoms group Cable & Wireless confirmed it was in exclusive talks with NTL over Cable & Wireless Communications residential network.
News of the possible tie-up knocked Telewest shares hard as it lost its place as the front-runner for the operation, expected to fetch £8bn.
Telewest shares fell 6p to 299p – a 2% slide. Cable & Wireless, which owns a majority stake in CWC, gained 15p to 830p, while CWC added 1.5p to 733p.
The news came on a positive start to London trading, with the FTSE-100 Index breaking through the 6,600 barrier in the opening minutes.
By mid-morning the Footsie had slipped back marginally, to be 32.5 ahead at 6595.7 points.
Record highs on Wall Street on Friday added strength to the markets, with both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite Index posting new peaks.
Confusion in the bidding battle for Allied Domecqs pubs came as Punch Taverns first said it had pulled out of talks, then said they were back on.
Allied said it was now in discussions with other bidders as well as Punch and the group gained 3p to 577p.
Bass, which is backing the Punch deal by taking over a chunk of the best pubs, put on 1.5p to 953p.
Latest expectations were for Punch to be set to offer £2.65bn for the estate, down on its previous £2.925bn.
Cement company Rugby announced it had sold its poor-performing UK and Australian joinery operations for £86.5m.
The sale did not include its better performing doors and windows makers in the US and Holland as dealers had expected. But the price impressed the markets, and shares gained a marginal halfpenny to 116.5p.
PA News 19/07/99
