Tuesday isn’t the most thrilling of days economic calendar-wise, leaving all the early intrigue in the hands of a couple of takeover bids.
As the pound awaits Thursday’s Bank of England meeting, the currency falling 0.2% against the dollar while sitting flat at €1.136 against the euro, the FTSE was free to hit a fresh 4-ish month high. The UK index jumped 0.4% after the bell, a move that put it within a whisker of 7600, a level not seen since the very end of January.
This meant the FTSE ignored the latest Brexit chaos brewing in Theresa May’s cabinet to instead focus on the news that Japanese firm Takeda (T:4502) has agreed a £46 billion takeover of Shire (LON:SHP), an announcement that sent the latter 3% higher. Interestingly, however, that still leaves the Dublin-based pharmaceutical almost £10 per share away from Takeda’s £49 per share offer, suggesting investors are keeping quite a lot in reserve until the likelihood of the deal going through becomes more concrete.
The morning’s other big move came from Virgin Money (LON:VM), which shot up more than 8.5% to a 14 month peak of £3.40 following reports that CYBG (LON:CYBGC) had approached the company with a deal worth £1.6 billion. Though the Virgin Money was keen to state that there was ‘no certainty’ of a formal offer, investors seemingly had more confidence in this than the Shire/Takeda tie-up.
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