EXTRACT: Royal Dutch Shell was not immune to the rumour mill. Its A shares jumped 54p to £18.31 on revived talk of a merger with BP, France’s Total or even Gazprom. It has also re-started oil production in Nigeria after the ending of a protest by villagers.
THE ARTICLE
Nick Fletcher
Friday May 18, 2007
Another splurge of bid speculation and a host of broker recommendations put some life into the market yesterday. Credit information business Experian – recently spun out of GUS – added 22.5p to 598.5p. The company moved into the takeover spotlight after US rival Acxiom Corporation was bought for $3bn by investment group Silver Lake, the offer being a 14% premium to its share price.
British Airways was also in the takeover frame after Goldman Sachs said the airline was the “jewel in the crown” for potential private equity and other predators. It said the shares, up 11.5p to 501.5p, were fundamentally cheap after they had fallen recently on worries about the implications of the “open skies” arrangements and weakening demand.