RAMSEY CROOKALL & CO EVENING REPORT

17 SEPTEMBER 2010

The afternoon session has seen the FTSE 100 move downwards with company news thin on the ground.

Invensys has been usurped from its position as best performing blue-chip but is still sporting a noteworthy gain after the engineer became the exclusive supplier of railway signalling to Chinese rolling stock maker CSR Corporation.

British Gas owner Centrica has stepped up its campaign to secure more of its gas supplies. It has doubled its equity interest in the gas and oil producing Statfjord field in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea to 19.13%.

And BP is close to sealing permanently the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico after a relief well intercepted the original drill hole, which should enable engineers to shut it down completely.

Elsewhere in the oil sector Dana Petroleum, which has been trading below the £18 a share offer price from KNOC, edges back up towards the £18 level on rumours that bidder KNOC is buying shares in the market.

And finally, 3i is creating an integrated private equity business by merging its buyout and growth capital units. The decision leaves 3i with two business lines - Infrastructure and Private Equity – and expansion into other areas such as debt management are also on the cards, as flagged at the year end.



THE FTSE 100 CLOSED DOWN 31 @ 5508

THE DOW JONES AT 4.30 IS DOWN 3 @ 10,591

THE NASDAQ COMP AT 4.30 IS UP 9 @ 2312

Exchange Rates

GBP – USD 1. 564 GBP – EUR 1. 2