By Steve Goldstein
U.K. stocks traded around 15-month highs on Wednesday on the
final full trading day of 2009.
After finishing at the highest closing level since Sept. 8,
2008, the U.K. FTSE 100 fell 0.1% to 5,433.26.
The pound (CUR_GBPUSD) fetched $1.5879, down 0.1%.
The index has climbed 22.6% this year and has closed higher in
the prior five sessions.
The London Stock Exchange closes early on Thursday on New Year's
Eve, though traders weren't exactly rushing to place orders, with
only Alliance Trust , up 1.1%, receiving a double-digit percentage
of average 90-day volume of the large-cap components.
British Land rose 0.6% and Segro fell 0.1%. British Land is
buying Segro's 50% interest in the Surrey Quays Shopping Center, in
southeastern London, and Clifton Moor Retail Park in York, for 26.9
million pounds.
The holder of the other 50% is supermarket giant Tesco , which
pays 52% of the rent on the properties and has four other ventures
with British Land.
Segro has been selling its retail property holdings since 2004
to focus on flexible business space, and Segro said it's now
completed those disposals.
Petrofac rose 1.2%. The firm has signed a deal with Turkmengas,
the state-owned natural-gas firm of Turkmenistan, to provide
engineering services on a gas-processing facility. The first phase
of the contract is valued at $100 million, and the second part of
the contract would be to develop the facility, infrastructure and
pipeline.
Outside the FTSE 100, GeoPark Holdings rose 3.4% after it
drilled an oil well in Chile to a depth of 2,187 meters and found a
flow rate of 650 barrels of oil a day.
Synchronica rose 8.7% as the company won a $176,600 order for a
mobile e-mail product from a West African mobile operator.
Peru energy group Maple Energy fell 7.3% after selling 16
million shares, or roughly 15% of the company, to institutional
investors to raise $11.8 million.