RAMSEY CROOKALL & CO May 21st 2012

Morning Report

The FTSE 100 is trading 0.5% higher, pushing further into the black, with banks and miners lending support following heavy losses last week. Miners also benefit from pro- growth comments from the Chinese premier. Man Group is the biggest gainer, up 6.6% after saying it will acquire Financial Risk Management Holdings.  

Hedge fund manager Man Group jumped early on saying it is set to pay up to $142.8m for FRM Holdings, a global hedge fund research and investment specialist. Man and FRM's combined multi-manager business will have total funds under management of approximately $19bn, making it the largest independent non-US based fund of hedge funds.

Global banking group HSBC rose after completing the sale of 195 US retail branches to First Niagara Bank for $0.9bn, first announced in July last year. Sector peers RBS and Barclays were also in demand.

Real estate investment trust British Land fell despite revealing profits ahead of expectations and net asset value (NAV) growth in the 12 months to the end of March. Underlying profits before tax rose 5.1% while NAV grew 4.9%.

UK food supplier Cranswick was in demand after seeing sales and profits beat expectations in the year ended March 31st, as it announced that its Chief Executive Officer (CEO) would be stepping down in the summer.

THE FTSE 100             @ 10:00            Up        27       @      5,295 THE DOW JONES            closed             Down     73       @     12369 THE NASDAQ               closed             Down      34       @      2778 Exchange Rates

GBP – USD       @      10:00                            1.5812 GBP - EURO     @      10:00                            1.2381

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