Shares fall after Lloyds bid referred

Lloyds TSB and Abbey National are under pressure on the London Stock Exchange after Trade Secretary Stephen Byers referred Lloyds' proposed takeover bid to the Competition Commission.

Minutes after the decision, Abbey National is down 3%, a drop of 36p to £11.03, while Lloyds TSB is down 12p to 630p, a fall of nearly 2%.

The falls are an added burden to the FTSE-100 Index of leading stocks which is off 38.2 points. It is now resting at 5964.9.

Fears that the spread of foot and mouth disease may lead to the cancellation of a flurry of race meetings are hitting bookmakers particularly hard, with both Arena Leisure and Stanley Racing suffering.

Both would stand to lose valuable turnover if race meetings were cancelled, and the negative sentiment has pushed Arena Leisure down 5%, or 5½p to 102p.

Stanley Leisure is also down, by more than 4%, by 10p at 226½p.

Gains are coming from a mix of stocks, with Telewest Communications topping the Footsie leaders board, rising 3½p to 124p.

Software group Misys is also ahead, 17p at 622p while computer services group Logica is making up for its losses yesterday, moving up 37p to £13.62.

Reuters is also up, jumping 23p to £10.83.

Similarly, there is no obvious trend to the fallers, with computer services group CMG and tobacco firm BAT among the biggest casualties so far, off 27p at 773p and 16½p at 522p respectively.

Elsewhere, pharmaceuticals firm PowderJect is up 7½p at 480p, after announcing it is to begin clinical trials of a vaccine to combat hepatitis B in partnership with GlaxoSmithKline. GSK is down 2p at £19.63.