Brickmaker slumps as its big investor ditches stock

Brickmaker ibstock was one of the day’s biggest losers after its largest shareholder sold their 25pc stake for more than £200m.

The Leicester-based construction firm edged down 2.4pc, or 5.4p, to 220.5p, after private equity firm Bain capital declared that it wanted out.

Despite initially planning to offload about half its shares, held through subsidiary Diamond, Bain decided to fully exit ibstock following ‘strong investor demand’. The sale raised more than £218m after the 101.6m shares were quickly snapped up by institutional investors at 215p each.

Bain declined to comment last night, but it comes after the firm sold 10pc of its stake in ibstock for £70.9m in September.

The FTSE 100 edged up 0.2pc, or 13.08 points, to 7288.72 as strong earnings updates from Standard chartered (up 4pc) and croda international (up 3.8pc) helped to offset losses in healthcare stocks. Nanotechnology firm Oxford

Instruments was by far the biggest winner in the FTSe Small cap index after offloading its industrial analysis business for £80m.

Oxford, which provides technology and systems for industry and research, sold the arm to software firm Hitachi, with the deal expected to complete next year.

Shares reached their highest level since July 2015, rising 11.8pc, or 100p, to 947.5p. russian gold miner Petropavlovsk was also among the day’s winners after returning to profit last year following heavy losses in 2015. its 2016 profit stood at £26.7m, compared to a loss of £231.6m in 2015, although revenue fell to £420.9m from £467m. investor confidence was also buoyed by the firm’s claim it can cut debt to £467m from £475m by the end of the year. Shares jumped 3.7pc, or 0.27p, to 7.57p. Property developer U And I

Group, on the other hand, had a nightmare as it became the latest firm to be hit by Brexit.

Shares fell as the company revealed that development and trading gains for the year until February 28 were down to £35m from £51.1 the previous year.

Likewise, profit fell to £0.4m from £25.8m as the company struggled to generate interest in its portfolio of regeneration projects across London, manchester and Dublin.

chief executive matthew Weiner said it was hit by a slowdown in activity following last year’s referendum, which raised questions around valuations in the housing market. after a large initial drop, U and i finished down 1.8pc, or 3.5p, at 189p. Back-office software firm EG

Solutions rose despite chief executive elizabeth Gooch offloading a large chunk of shares for the third time in a month. Gooch sold 410,000 shares worth £250,000 as part of an agreement with shareholders to reduce her stake to improve the availability of the company’s cash and assets.

She still has more than 4m shares, equal to a 17.8pc stake.

earlier in april she sold just over 793,000 shares worth £484,000. at the end of march she sold a £49,800 stake as the firm announced a £2.1m contract with a leading global bank. Shares rose 1.5pc, or 1p, to 66.5p. ‘Big data’ specialist Rosslyn

Data Technologies saw £4.3m wiped off its value after it announced that it will fund its £2.6m acquisition of software firm integritie with a share placing.

The tech firm plans to raise around £4.5m by placing 100m shares at 4.5p each. The cash raised will be used to develop rosslyn’s existing product range.

rosslyn’s shares sank 27pc, or 2.12p, to 5.75p.