London midday: Banks keep Footsie ahead

Banks are driving Footsie upwards following a sluggish start. Lloyds, Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays are all higher.

Life groups Old Mutual, Legal & General and Standard Life are also in demand.

HSBC is the exception among the financials after Goldman Sachs reduced its view to 'neutral' and removed it from its conviction-buy list saying it was puzzled by its weak performance relative to Standard Chartered.

BSkyB is a lively market on talk that Rupert Murdoch is planning to the take the satellite broadcaster private. The Aussie/US tycoon owns 40% of BSkyB already. Analysts were sceptical of the rumour, though apparently there has been a large buyer for the shares recently.

Housebuilders are strong on repeated chatter that consolidation is imminent.Barratt is the name mentioned most often, but the others are strong as well as today. Bovis, Taylor Wimpey and Berkeley are higher.

In company news, global pharmaceuticals leviathan GlaxoSmithKline has dumped its remaining 4.5% holding in former subsidiary Maxygen. Glaxo said it no longer owns any shares in the US-based protein drug developer after selling its entire holding of 1.433m shares.

Liberty has confirmed rumours it is talking to potential buyers after receiving approaches to take over the 134-year-old luxury department store group.

Emissions exchange operator Climate Exchange saw 2009 revenues grow strongly to £33.61m from £22.78m in 2008, but sales were below expectations of £34.32m. The company swung back into the black, with a pre-tax profit of £2.15m, compared to a loss of £2.54m the year before, but analysts had been expecting a profit of £2.59m.

Nightclub operator Luminar has instigated a 'rigorous' cost cutting plan after the recent cold snap added to what were already weak sales. For the financial year as a whole, same outlet sales were 9.9% below the previous year as a direct result of a reduction in customer numbers, it said.

Upmarket cooker manufacturer Aga moved back in the black as sales picked up in the second half of the year. The group posted a profit of £0.5m for 2009, down from £14.4m last time, but a recovery from £2.4m loss at half-way. Sales for the year dropped from £279m to £245m.

Dragon Oil has completed and carried out initial testing of the Dzheitune (Lam) A/142 and 13/143 development wells in Turkmenistan, its first two of the year.

Yule Catto's joint venture subsidiary, Revertex (Malaysia) has exchanged conditional contracts with HB Fuller Company for the sale of adhesives business Revertex Finewaters.

Shares in Discovery Metals were wanted Friday after the miner published the assay results from drilling at the Boseto Copper Project located in north-west Botswana.

Europe-focused oil exploration company Nautical Petroleum has secured the use of a rig for the drilling of the Catcher prospect in the UK Central North Sea. Drilling on the well, located in block 28/9, is expected to start in May. A sea-bed survey in January indicated that the well can be drilled using a heavy duty jack-up rig, and the use of just such a rig has now been secured.