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Most followed: Amphion, Chariot Oil, Independent Oil, Karelian Diamond, Lloyds Banking, TSB

Last updated: 09:36 20 Mar 2015 GMT, First published: 10:36 20 Mar 2015 GMT

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Lloyds Banking (LON:LLOY) spent all that time trying to offload its TSB business and all it seems it had to do was float it off, and someone would step in and buy it.

That someone is Banco de Sabadell, the latest Spanish bank to come in and hoover up one of the historic names of British high street lending.

TSB Banking Group shareholders will receive 340 pence per share in cash for each TSB share, which values the entire issued share capital of TSB at around £1.7 billion.

Lloyds Banking has already sold a 10% stake in TSB to Sabadell and intends to accept the offer in respect of its remaining 40.01% stake, thereby sidestepping the awkward dilemma of offloading a large stake when everyone knows you are a forced seller - Lloyds has to shift the shares to keep the European Commission sweet.

On the subject of stock market floats, Motif BioSciences - one of the portfolio companies of intellectual property commercialisation specialist Amphion Innovations (LON:AMP) - is to hit the market at the end of the month.

Amphion owns around 38% of Motif, and the news has sent the shares up by one-sixth today; the shares are up almost 30% over the last week.

That's a handy rise but it is topped by Karelian Diamond Resources (LON:KDR), up more than 40% on the discovery of a potential new diamond source in Eastern Finland, of all places.

Finland does have a history of diamond deposits, but this - if it does turn out to be a kimberlite body - is the first new discovery in around 10 years.

Also on the discovery trail, is Independent Oil & Gas (LON:IOG), a company named on the Ronseal principle.

The North Sea junior can add another gas discovery to its portfolio, as the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) extended the boundaries of a newly awarded licence.
Block 48/22c, which was awarded in November and already contains the Elgood discovery, has now been expanded to also include the Hambleton discovery.

Hambleton is currently estimated to have 6bn cubic feet of recoverable resources, in the base case scenario.

Sector peer Chariot Oil & Gas (LON:CHAR) is attracting a lot of eyeballs to its full-year results statement, in which it revealed it has enough funds for its exploration commitments in Namibia, Morocco and Brazil in the current year and beyond.

The explorer ended 2014 with US$53.5 min of cash despite a loss of US$41.8mln compared to US$10.5mln loss in the previous year.

Forex broker FXCM, one of the worst hit by recent Swiss franc volatility, is to forgive customer losses of up to US$50,000.

It comes after IG Group warned this week that it didn’t expect much of the £18.4mln owed by clients to be repaid.

For some reason, today's solar eclipse is trending in the Business section of the News results of a well-known search engine.

More bad news for solar panel parts maker PV Crystalox Solar (LON:PVCS) which revealed chunky losses earlier this week ...

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