Could the cloud computing specialist Iomart be the target of a fresh bid?

In July, the Glasgow-based company rejected two approaches from Host Holdings Europe, which is backed by the private equity firm Cinven.

The highest offer valued Iomart at over £300m but management felt this undervalued it. Now there are murmurings in the City that another bid could be about to materialise. Cinven declined to comment; Iomart was flat at 267.25p.

The FTSE 100 continued its upward march, adding 52.17 points to 6,741.25. Tech stocks performed well, with Arm Holdings adding 23.5p to 930.5p and Sage climbing 4.6p to 396.8p.

It wasn’t all rosy. Land Securities, off 6p at 1,092p, and British Land, down 6p at 724.5p, suffered after fresh data revealed that the UK’s booming housing market is cooling. Royal Mail also slipped 0.5p to 435.1p as Jefferies reiterated its “underperform” rating due to pressure on the postie’s parcel business.

Petra Diamonds’ recent strong performance continues. The miner sparkled 9.2p higher to 199.2p on the FTSE 250 after saying it is on track to produce 3.2 million carats worth of diamonds this year, and to meet its target of 5 million carats a year by 2019.

Premier Foods booked a solid 2.5p gain to 42p on the small-cap index, with one fund manager putting the rise down to the Bisto maker’s recent share price weakness.

Poor old Kea Petroleum. The AIM-listed oil and gas explorer jumped on Friday after announcing that news about one of its sites in New Zealand was due early this week. But yesterday the news arrived, and it was not good. The Puka-3 well is being plugged and abandoned after technical analysis revealed it wasn’t commercially viable. Kea tumbled 2.27p to 1.12p – a five month low.

Polypipe’s maiden set of results since listing in April made for happy reading for investors. Pre-tax profit leapt by 66 per cent, while revenue rose by 11 per cent. The shares climbed 6p to 242p but still sit below Polypipe’s 245p float price.

The crisis management specialist Red24 and medical equipment maker Lidco both fell on profit warnings – Red24 by 2.87p to 12.62p, Lidco 2.5p to 14.75p.