Monday's most followed: Rockhopper Exploration, Carnival, Robert Wiseman, VSA Capital, Phytopharm, Forbidden Technologies, Interior Services Group

It hardly surprised anyone that Rockhopper Exploration (LON:RKH) was the top search on Google Finance this morning after media reports over the weekend suggested the company could soon be taken over.

The Sunday Times reported that the Falklands operating explorer is in talks with oil and gas major Cairn Energy (LON:CNE), which is looking to acquire part of its acreage or make a bid for the company.

Other potential suitors for Rockhopper include Premier Oil (LON:PMO) and America’s Noble Energy.

Rockhopper’s initial assessment of the Sea Lion development project’s scope, revealed in September, estimated development costs of US$2 billion, while the company expects to have US$100 million in the bank once all drilling costs have been accounted for.

Away from oil and gas, the Costa Concordia accident dominated the news in London markets today, having triggered a 15 percent plunge in the share price of its owner Carnival (LON:CCL) to reduce its market cap by nearly £3 billion.

In a statement this morning, Carnival said that the ship will be out of service at least until the end of the year, reducing its earnings for the year 2012 by around US$85-$95 million or US$0.11-$0.12 per share.

Carnival also noted that it has insurance coverage for the vessel of up to US$40 million including US$30 million insurance against damages and a further US$10 million covering personal injuries.

Moving to small caps, positive updates that resulted in significant movements in share prices topped the list of today’s most read RNS statements.

These included Scottish dairy group Robert Wiseman Dairies (LON:RWD), which jumped 18.5 percent to 388.75 pence per share after accepting a takeover offer from German firm Müller.

The offer of 390 pence per share in Robert Wiseman values the business at £279.5 million and represents a massive premium of the group’s closing price on Thursday, the last day of trading before it confirmed it was in takeover discussions with Müller.

In a separate statement, Robert Wiseman reported that the business traded in line with expectations during the crucial Christmas period despite the challenging economic environment.

Today’s update from VSA Capital (LON:VSA), which resulted in a 50 percent surge in its share price in morning trade, also showed up on the list of popular stock exchange statements.

Demand for shares in the broker was boosted by the news that it was involved private share placing for African and Middle East focused oil and gas explorer NewAge Limited conducted by a Hong Kong based investment fund.

The fees from the placing should help VSA post a profit of £500,000 for the current financial year despite a loss of nearly £600,000 reported for the first half of the year to the end of September. These fees are receivable over the next twelve month period, including £1.75 million before the end of the current financial year.

Other top risers included Phytopharm (LON:PYM), which reported positive results from a study of its Parkinson’s disease treatment Cogane.

The medicine showed a 30 to 50 percent improvement in muscle strength in one muscle type compared to both the untreated control group and patients treated with riluzole, the product currently marketed for the treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Treatment with Cogane also resulted in an increase in the number of motor units compared with both groups.

However, effects were less clear in a second muscle type which was more severely damaged in the model, though Cogane again showed an improvement compared to riluzole.

Trading updates from AIM quoted stocks Forbidden Technologies (LON:FBT) and Interior Services Group (LON:ISG) also caught the eye of investors this morning.

Cloud video specialist Forbidden Technologies expects its full year 2011 results to show double digit sales growth in part thanks to signing up Post Houses to act as channels to market, making its FORscene video platform for social media available to their clients.

The Post House channel is growing quickly, leading to a 94 percent jump in sales in broadcast post and continued high percentage growth in the second half.

The group added that its licence deal with YouTube would make a significant contribution to its 2012 results.

The statement from Interior Services was not as positive with the group reporting that trading conditions in the UK have worsened with a number of its clients cancelling or deferring projects in the second half of the year.

This, said Interior Services, will slash profits at its UK retail businesses by £3 million.

Following the profit warning, shares in the group slid 18 percent to 120 pence, giving it a market cap of £33.4 million.

On bulletin board, functional food group Provexis (LON:PXS) became one of the most discussed UK companies on message boards. Some investors were disappointed with the share price performance, linking it to the lack of any major updates for the company over the past month.

In its interim report, which was released on December 1, the group said it was working on developing a powder format of Fruitflow, an extract which improves blood flow, with partner DSM and was involved in commercial discussions with “global brand owners”.

Posters on bulletin boards said bringing any major names on board would likely give the much needed boost to the share price, while also hoping that the company will focus its research and development activities on Fruitflow and its other core product Science in Sport (SiS).