Hotel group surges after £2.2bn Singaporean bid

ShareS in Millennium & Copthorne Hotels jumped nearly 40pc after a Singaporean group launched a £2.2bn bid for the company.

City Developments – part of the hong Leong Group owned by billionaire Kwek Leng Beng – tabled an offer worth 685p a share.

M&C stock jumped 35pc, or 175p, to 675p.

City Developments already owns 65pc of the company and Kwek is M&C chairman.

It has already tabled bids worth £1.8bn and £2bn but failed to convince shareholders to back those earlier offers.

M&C’s independent directors backed the latest bid – paving the way for the takeover to go ahead.

British American Tobacco was the second biggest climber in the FTSe 100 ahead of its first-quarter figures next week.

In fact it has enjoyed a decent run over the past five trading days, adding £6.7bn to its value. Just why it and rival Imperial Brands (flat at 2073p) should be in demand this week remains a mystery.

Yes, both BaTs and Imps provide a defensive counterweight in times of market turmoil. But of course Wall Street and London have been on the up in recent days.

The most plausible explanation appears to be the seeming inability of the Food & Drug administration to enact a planned US ban on menthol cigarettes, which then stymies litigation.

analysts reckon the current round of delays kick the industry threat of large, expensive class actions around two years down the street.

In the meantime, BaTs (up 3.4pc, or 98,5p, at 3014p) has its own home-grown problems – namely the fact that it is underrepresented in the ecigarette category. a particular threat is Juul, 35pc owned by rival altria, which in the jargon is ‘cannibalising’ the US market with its next-generation products.

So investors will want to know more about BaTs Next Generation Product plans next week.

The FTSE 100 held its nerve to close 1pc, or 72.09 points, up at 7331.94, even after the official monthly US jobs numbers came in light. The world’s largest economy created just 75,000 roles compared with the 180,000 predicted in the run up to the numbers.

‘It was a big miss for US jobs,’ said Neil Wilson, analyst at Markets.com, adding that this will reinforce the perception that the Federal reserve is inching closer towards cutting rates.

Sage Group was a blue-chip casualty after the London arm of Deutsche Bank downgraded its recommendation to ‘sell’ and cut its price target by 145p to 505p a share. Stock in the Newcastleheadquartered supplier of accounting software closed edged 0.1pc, or 0.6p, lower to 754.6p.

FTSe 250- listed Royal Mail (down 3.8pc, or 7.6p, at 195.9p) was also under pressure after a broker downgrade, with hSBC cutting its recommendation to ‘hold’ from ‘buy’ and slashing its price target to 216p a share from 300p.

elsewhere among the mid-caps, the ‘bottom fishers’ came out for

Kier Group, whose shares have been decimated by a profit warning and the fact its shares are a key holding of a fund run by fallen star stock picker Neil Woodford.

Down more than 50pc in the last month, Kier shares built on Thursday’s gains to jump a further 7.2pc, or 10.4p, to 155.8p. Ukraine focused iron ore group

Ferrexpo had some much needed good news for its shareholders in the form of an upbeat trading statement and an apparent clean bill of health over charity donations it made. The stock closed 4pc, or 9.5p, higher at 248.3p.