Television broadcaster ITV (LON:ITV) led the risers on a flat day on London’s main market.
Liberty Global has hiked its stake in the television broadcaster and Liberum reckons the rumours of a takeover are inevitable.
The move, which Liberty called “opportunistic,” makes it the largest shareholder in ITV.
“Liberty has stated it does not intend to make a bid for ITV but its move suggests that it thinks a move by another player is likely or, at least, an increasing possibility” the broker said.
Liberty, owned by American investor John Malone, last year bought its initial stake of 6.4%.
Shares rose 2.3% to just shy of 278p.
The company couldn’t drag the FTSE 100 higher, which was down 7.5 points to 6,661.
“With Chinese shares seeing their worst month in 6 years, it’s hardly surprising that investors aren’t keen to hold onto their commodity shares going into August” Connor Campbell at Spreadex said.
Meanwhile, widening losses in the commodity sector has created its usual drag on the index today.
Antofagasta (LON:ANTO) nestled at the bottom of the index as it said it will take a 50% stake in Barrick Gold’s Chile copper mine.
It will cost the miner US$1bn, almost half of its cash balance, for the stake in the Zaldivar copper mine. Shares dropped 4.4% to 555p.
Away from the index, specialist packaging and cigarette filter supplier Essentra (LON:ESNT) said pre-tax profit fell in the first half of 2015.
Revenue surged but it wasn’t enough and shares dropped 7.5% to 887p.
Conversely, JD Sports (LON:JD.) revealed that it expects pre-tax profits to come in 10% higher than the £110mln forecast by market analysts. Shares jumped 8.1% to 807p.
In small caps, ServicePower Technologies’ (LON:SVR) chairman has bought himself another £100,000 worth of shares.
The non-executive director bought 2mln shares at 4.5p each and they were up today, climbing 15% to 4.9p.
Meanwhile, Oxford Pharmascience (LON:OXP) said results of its OXPzero Naproxen (OXP005) were not as some had expected, with the company saying further testing will be needed to improve the results. Shares dropped 21% to 7.1p.