Dip for FTSE

Water company Severn Trent starred today as the London market’s top riser after revealing plans to demerge its Biffa waste management business.

With shareholders eyeing the potential benefit of holding shares in both Biffa and Severn Trent, the blue-chip stock surged almost 7%, up 71p at 1197p.

The move was one of the few highlights of a session that saw the FTSE 100 Index dip by 18.1 points to 6006.2 at mid-morning.

The Footsie gained 60 points yesterday on the back of strong mining stocks but was off today as investors continued to struggle to justify the presence of the market at a level above the 6000 barrier.

Severn’s strong performance encouraged buying in a number of other utility stocks with Scottish Power up 4p at 582p in the top flight and second-tier Anglian Water Group ahead 6p at 1146p, a rise of almost 1%.

Miners were in subdued form, although copper specialist Kazakhmys continued to benefit from strong results last week. It rose 2% or 23p to 1139.5p – a sharp contrast with the opening price of 976.5p on Monday of last week.

The fallers board was led by Tate & Lyle as sentiment towards the sugar group remained weak following its recent decision to write down the value of its assets. The stock was more than 2% lower, a fall of 14.5p to 561p.

Meanwhile, record profits of more than £20m (€28.7m) from publisher Bloomsbury failed to inspire its share price – down 20p at 343p – as the company had already flagged up the Harry Potter-related boost.

There was a better performance from retailer Topps Tiles after the company issued a trading update offering some encouragement to investors.

With like-for-like sales up 0.9% in the past five weeks, Topps shares gained 4% or 8p to 229p.