London’s FTSE 100 was up 0.5% at 7,257.43 in afternoon trade on Monday.
Vodafone and BT Group rallied after private equity firm KKR made a $12bn takeover approach to Telecom Italia.
Neil Wilson, chief market analyst at Markets.com, said: “There has been a lot of speculation about a possible takeover of BT of late, so the move by KKR creates some further excitement that Altice’s Patrick Drahi could launch a bid.”
Miners Antofagasta, BHP, Rio and Anglo American all rose as copper prices advanced.
BHP was in focus after it and Woodside Petroleum signed a AUD$40bn petroleum merger deal, which will see Woodside acquire BHP’s petroleum assets in return for a 48% in the combined company.
On the downside, Polymetal and Fresnillo both lost their shine as gold prices fell.
FTSE 100 – Risers
Antofagasta (ANTO) 1,476.50p 4.83%
Royal Mail (RMG) 518.00p 3.91%
BHP Group (BHP) 1,931.40p 2.51%
Vodafone Group (VOD) 115.86p 1.97%
Rio Tinto (RIO) 4,541.00p 1.93%
BT Group (BT.A) 163.75p 1.93%
Kingfisher (KGF) 327.70p 1.61%
Barclays (BARC) 193.88p 1.53%
B&M European Value Retail S.A. (DI) (BME) 612.20p 1.53%
Anglo American (AAL) 2,885.50p 1.46%
FTSE 100 – Fallers
Polymetal International (POLY) 1,398.00p -5.09%
Darktrace (DARK) 517.50p -1.90%
Prudential (PRU) 1,427.50p -1.62%
Flutter Entertainment (CDI) (FLTR) 11,375.00p -1.47%
ITV (ITV) 119.00p -1.41%
Fresnillo (FRES) 940.60p -1.28%
Aveva Group (AVV) 3,395.00p -1.28%
Sage Group (SGE) 791.80p -0.98%
Smith & Nephew (SN.) 1,267.50p -0.78%
Informa (INF) 510.20p -0.78%
