RAMSEY CROOKALL & CO

16th May 2011 Evening Report

The FTSE 100 closed flat, recovering from early session losses due to the U.S. markets turning higher and boosted by a late-session rally in the heavily-weighted mining sector.

Miners Antofagasta, Rio Tinto, Anglo American, Fresnillo, BHP Billiton and Vedanta Resources all closed higher.

Oilfield services group Wood Group slipped after saying it is to return £1.05bn to shareholders by way of a tender offer to repurchase up to 32.1% of the issued ordinary share capital of the group. The strike price range has been set at 605p to 625p. The strike price range represents a discount of 6.1% to 3.0% to the closing price of Wood shares on 13 May, the last trading day before the announcement of the tender offer.

However, London Stock Exchange moved ahead after saying it remains committed to its proposed merger with its Canadian counterpart TMX despite learning that TMX has received an approach from Maple, a consortium of Canadian financial institutions and pension funds.

Finally, energy supplier Centrica closed lower after its British Gas Community Energy division has acquired PH Jones Group, a provider of central heating services to the social housing market, for £30m in cash.

THE FTSE 100 closed         Down 2 @ 5923

THE DOW JONES at 4:45 Up 39 @  12634

THE NASDAQ COMP at 4:45 Down 7 @   2820

Exchange Rates

GBP – USD           1.6242 GBP - EURO         1.1417