London - Britain's top share index edged higher on Tuesday after falling for five sessions in a row, with RSA Insurance Group leading the gains on bid interest from a Swiss-based rival.
RSA surged 11 percent after Zurich Insurance said it was weighing up a bid for the British group with a market capitalisation of 4.4 billion pounds ($6.85 billion).
“We have not been keen on the break-up story on RSA due to the pension scheme deficit... However, a bid for the whole group is much more likely and today sees the first indication that such a bid may be on the cards,” Shore Capital analyst Eamonn Flanagan said in a note.
In other top gainers, GKN added more than 6 percent after the British engineering company said it had agreed to acquire Netherlands-based Fokker Technologies for 706 million euros ($781 million), including debt, to strengthen its position as a supplier to aeroplane manufacturers.
Hikma Pharmaceuticals was also on the rise, up nearly 6 percent after saying it would buy German drugmaker Boehringer Ingelheim's US specialty generic drug business for about $2.65 billion in cash and stock to bolster its presence in the United States.
On the downside, Royal Mail fell 3 percent after Britain's postal regulator Ofcom said Royal Mail had breached competition law by proposing wholesale prices that were designed to be more expensive for any firm looking to run a rival mail delivery service.
The blue-chip FTSE 100 index was up 0.6 percent at 6,544.11 points by 0737 GMT. It closed 1.1 percent lower on Monday, tumbling for the fifth session in a row in its longest losing streak so far in 2015.
The FTSE hit a record 7,122.74 points in April but is now more than 8 percent below that high and down 0.5 percent in the year to date.
Reuters