RAMSEY CROOKALL & CO

MIDDAY REPORT

15TH NOVEMBER 2010

Blue chips have opened lower despite some trading updates today, with miners the main drag on sentiment.

BHP Billiton’s decision to end its battle to buy Canada’s Potash Corp for around $40bn and sweeten shareholders with a $4.2bn share buyback instead has not helped its share price.

The trimming of the BP empire continued Monday morning with the oil giant completing the sale of five southern African marketing businesses. The company has agreed to sell its fuels marketing businesses in Namibia, Botswana and Zambia to Swiss company Puma Energy, a subsidiary of Trafigura Beheer.

Premier Oil is the stand-out in the oil sector after reports over the weekend that KNOC, the Korean company that recently snapped up Dana Petroleum, has its sights set on the company. Premier is said to be one of a number of North Sea-focused oil groups KNOC has spoken to informally.

Autumn did not bring the usual increase in visitor numbers for Persimmon but the housebuilder said sales volumes have remained stable in the second half of the year. The company reiterated its previous guidance of an increase in full year sales revenues of around 10% more than last year, but said total borrowings at the end of the year are expected to be less than £80m, lower than previous guidance.

Underwriter Beazley has again been rejected by rival Hardy despite upping its indicative takeover offer by 10% to 330p. Beazley said the board of Hardy would not recommend an offer of 330p per share and would not even be prepared to meet to discuss it. A previous offer of 300p per share got similar short-shrift.

THE FTSE 100 AT 12.30 PM IS UP 8 @ 5805

THE DOW JONES CLOSED DOWN 90 @ 11,192 THE NASDAQ COMP CLOSED DOWN 37 @ 2518

Exchange Rates

GBP – USD 1.60

GBP – EUR 1.17