Miners lower; BSS Group agrees takeover offer from Travis Perkins
By Sarah Turner, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- European shares struggled for direction on Monday with U.S. markets closed for a holiday and amid lingering worries about growth, although oil giant BP managed to gain ground.
The Stoxx Europe 600 index (ST:SXXP 237.45, +0.18, +0.08%) traded flat at 237.30, dipping in and out of positive territory, a similar performance to Friday.
The index lost 4.5% last week after data fueled worries about global economic growth.
"We're still driven by macroeconmic [factors] where there are a number of concerns," said Edmund Shing, strategist at Barclays Capital.
"There's a question about Chinese growth and we know that a lot of marginal demand comes from China so clearly if people are worried about that then they are not going to be buying the miners," he added.
Miners fell on Monday, with Rio Tinto (UK:RIO 2,878, -57.00, -1.94%) (RTP 44.33, +0.07, +0.16%) shares down 1.9% and Antofagasta (UK:ANTO 764.00, -13.50, -1.74%) shares down 1.7%.
Of the regional indexes, the German DAX index (DX:DAX 5,837, +2.36, +0.04%) (DE:BMW 38.30, +0.45, +1.19%) traded flat at 5,835.42, the U.K. FTSE 100 index (UK:UKX 4,837, -0.90, -0.02%) traded fractionally lower at 4,836.44 while the French CAC-40 index (FR:PX1 3,343, -5.42, -0.16%) declined 0.2% at 3,341.87.
Asian shares ended mixed. U.S. equity markets are closed for a holiday.
The dollar gained against the euro and sterling, with the common currency (CUR_EURUSD 1.2524, -0.0032, -0.2549%) down 0.3% at $1.2527 and the pound (CUR_GBPUSD 1.5126, -0.0074, -0.4869%) down 0.4% at $1.5135.
Exporters moving higher in Europe included aircraft maker EADS (FR:EAD 16.16, +0.36, +2.28%) , up 2%, and automaker BMW (DE:BMW 38.30, +0.45, +1.19%) , up 1.1%.
Oil giant BP (UK:BP. 334.85, +12.85, +3.99%) (BP 29.35, -0.04, -0.14%) rose 3.8%.
The Sunday Times newspaper reported that the firm has launched a search for a strategic investor to help secure its independence, as it moves to defend itself against potential takeover bids.
The company's advisers are trying to drum up interest among rival oil groups and sovereign wealth funds to take a stake of between 5% and 10% at a cost of up to 6 billion pounds, the paper said, without citing sources.
BP's management fears a takeover approach may come as soon as it has plugged the leaking oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, which is expected in the next few weeks.
On Monday, BP put the cost of the response to the spill at $3.12 billion.
Shares of BSS Group (UK:BTSM 427.00, +10.80, +2.60%) were up 2.6% after the firm agreed a 435.8 pence per share, or 557.6 million pound ($847.3 million), takeover from building materials peer Travis Perkins (UK:TPK 752.50, -2.00, -0.27%) , down 0.1%.
U.K. media group Pearson (UK:PSON 884.00, +17.00, +1.96%) rose 2%.
It was upgraded to hold from sell at Royal Bank of Scotland, which said shares are now at their target price and they no longer see material valuation downside.
The analysts said they also no longer see a risk that Pearson will pay a strategic price for Brazilian media group Santillana. But the group said they are still concerned about Pearson's late cycle (U.S. school) and counter-cyclical (U.S. college) exposures.
