Astrazeneca was on the rise this morning, picking up 84½p to £50.83, following reports that Pascal Soriot, its chief executive, was staying put. The FTSE 100 group had struggled last week after it was claimed that Mr Soriot was in talks to join Teva Pharmaceutical.
London’s blue-chip index started the week on the front foot, picking up 25.01 points to 7,403.4 as one much-anticipated departure did materialise.
ITV announced that Dame Carolyn McCall, chief executive of Easyjet, would succeed Adam Crozier as chief executive in January. Mr Crozier left this month after seven years. The broadcaster gained 5¾p to 180¾p. Shares in the airline had a turbulent start but were broadly flat by late morning.
Berenberg cut its target price for Pearson, the educational publisher, by 605p to 490p following its decision to sell a 22 per cent stake in Penguin Random House for about $1 billion. Analysts told clients: “Unlike Pearson’s prior disposals of the FT and The Economist, there was no upside value surprise, reflecting the fact that there was only one bidder — and one with a constrained balance sheet,” analysts told clients.
Royal Mail and Experian, which are due to update the markets tomorrow, lost 3½p and 11p to 397½p and £15.77¼ respectively.
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The FTSE 250 rose by 73.29 points to 19,481.65. Carillion led the risers, rallying by as much as 24 per cent after announcing that it had hired EY to support its strategic review. Shares in the construction and facilities management group slid from 192p to 57¼p last week in the wake of a profit morning. This morning they rose by 13¼p to 70p.
Weir Group rose by 144p to £19.68 after reassuring reassured the market that the North American oil and gas market had recovered “more strongly than formerly anticipated”.
Talktalk Telecom was among the mid-cap fallers, losing 4¼p to 184p after Macquarie downgraded the shares from “neutral” to “underperform”.