FTSE 100 movers: Miners rally on China data; BT boosted by Openreach report
London’s FTSE 100 was up 1.5% at 5,829.45 in afternoon trade on Friday.
BT was a high riser after a report it is in talks with potential bidders for a multibillion-pound stake in its Openreach infrastructure division.
Potential buyers include Macquarie, the infrastructure focused Australian bank, and a sovereign wealth fund, the Financial Times said. Interested parties have held talks with BT in the past three weeks, the FT said.
CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson said: "If BT is able to pull this deal off, and in some respects, it really needs to if the UK is able to get the broadband infrastructure it needs, then we could well see a considerable uplift in the share price, given that Openreach’s assets have been valued somewhere in the region of between £15bn and £20bn."
Miners - which are heavily dependent on demand from China - were in the black after better-than-expected Chinese industrial production data. Anglo American, BHP and Rio Tinto all rallied after data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed that Chinese industrial output rose 3.9% in April from a year earlier compared to a 1.1% decline in March and coming in ahead of expectations for a 1.5% increase.
FTSE 100 - Risers
Meggitt (MGGT) 253.60p 6.60%
BT Group (BT.A) 108.30p 6.02%
Fresnillo (FRES) 735.80p 5.84%
Anglo American (AAL) 1,439.40p 5.51%
Centrica (CNA) 37.13p 5.33%
Whitbread (WTB) 2,687.00p 5.04%
Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) 1,648.00p 4.97%
BHP Group (BHP) 1,419.00p 4.71%
Rio Tinto (RIO) 3,915.00p 4.21%
Carnival (CCL) 865.00p 4.17%
FTSE 100 - Fallers
Next (NXT) 4,414.00p -3.46%
Associated British Foods (ABF) 1,632.00p -1.95%
Ferguson (FERG) 5,708.00p -1.89%
Informa (INF) 412.30p -1.83%
AstraZeneca (AZN) 8,614.00p -1.72%
CRH (CRH) 2,260.00p -1.70%
Ocado Group (OCDO) 1,927.50p -1.46%
Legal & General Group (LGEN) 185.80p -1.01%
JD Sports Fashion (JD.) 517.60p -0.88%
Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) 104.30p -0.86%