BA rises despite defeat at hands of Grand Prix ace

British Airways owner IAG soared despite missing out on its bid for Austrian airline Niki.

the airline group previously announced it had inked a deal to purchase the chain from collapsed Air Berlin through a subsidiary of its spanish airline Vueling for a total of £32.5m.

But yesterday its deal was scuppered by Niki’s founder, former Formula One world champion Niki Lauda, after the courts ruled the insolvency proceedings had to take place in Austria.

the ruling cleared the way for other parties such as ryanair and Lauda to bid again for the carrier.

Lauda’s company Laudamotion was the winner – though neither party disclosed the purchase price. the 68-year-old three-time F1 champion has offered to take on most of Niki’s 1,000 employees – and said he had secured 15 aircraft and planned to bring them back into operation by the end of March, focusing on destinations in turkey, Greece and spain.

Analysts, however, suggested the move will be bad for the airline in the long term. Berenberg said: ‘We cannot but feel a bit dismayed that while the creditors’ committee’s decision may be the most advantageous for them, they are doing the airline itself a disservice.’

iAG said it was disappointed that Niki would not be able to develop and grow stronger as part of the group. however, investors took news of the loss on the chin, and sent shares up 1.5pc, or 9.6p, to 659.8p.

Elsewhere, low-cost hungarian airline Wizz Air took off after expressing an interest in some of Alitalia’s short and medium-haul routes. the italian airline was put under special administration last year after staff rejected a turnaround plan that involved cutting jobs and salaries.

Boss Jozsef Varadi said: ‘As far as Alitalia is concerned, we are only looking at the parts that are of interest to us, the short and medium haul – certainly not the intercontinental flights.’ his comments were enough to send shares soaring 5.3pc, or 185p, to 3689p.

Wizz Air joins Lufthansa, EasyJet and Us private equity fund Cerberus which have also expressed an interest in Alitalia.

EasyJet, which successfully secured a £35m deal for Air Berlin’s assets in October, rocketed 5.1pc, or 80p, to 1643.5p after reporting a strong first quarter.

the FTSE 100 finished up 0.21pc, or 16.39 points, at 7731.83 while the FTSE 250 climbed 0.08pc, or 16.03 points, to 20,671.20.

Game Digital plunged after it revealed its finance boss would be jumping ship.

Chief financial officer Mark Gifford has resigned with immediate effect to focus on his other business and personal interests. his resignation comes after the company reported falling margins over Christmas after its hardware business – which includes consoles such as the Xbox One X and Playstation 4 – was hit by a lack of flexibility on pricing from manufacturers. Yesterday its shares sunk 13.4pc, or 6.3p, to 40.7p. Also down was biotech firm

Benchmark Holdings which dropped 5.4pc, or 4p, to 69.5p after failing to climb out of the red.

the company, which harvests salmon, shrimp and tilapia and develops treatments to keep fish healthy, saw its sales in the year to the end of september jump 28pc to £140.2m from £109.4m the year before. it racked up £7.1m in losses, compared to £18.3m the year before.

Advertising giant WPP also finished lower, falling 2.1pc, or 28.5p, to 1330p following a downgrade by Goldman sachs.

Medical equipment manufacturer Smith & Nephew jumped 2pc, or 25p, to 1260.5p after revealing it will benefit from President trump’s Us tax changes.