Market Report: Petropavlovsk on the up as Pavel Maslovskiy returns as chief executive

The boss is back at Petropavlovsk.

Investors gave a resounding thumbs up to news that Pavel Maslovskiy, who co-founded the Russian gold miner 20 years ago, is returning. Mr Maslovskiy left in 2011 to join the Russia Senate.

Miners around the world have suffered this year amid tumbling commodity prices and last month Petropavlovsk, formerly Peter Hambro Mining, announced it there would be a rights issue to satisfy bank lenders and holders of $310m (£195m) worth of bonds due next year.

Now Mr Maslovskiy is returning to the role of chief executive, pledging to reach “a holistic agreement with lenders, bondholders and shareholders to refinance the company”. Petropavlovsk jumped 4.25p to 24.25p.

There was “carnage” across markets world-wide yesterday, according to CMC Markets’ chief analyst Michael Hewson. Poor US retail, manufacturing and production data added to the gloomy mood that has pervaded the City. The FTSE 100 collapsed to a 15-month low, down 181.04 points at 6,211.64, its biggest one-day fall since June 2013. Oil producers continued to suffer from falling crude prices; and AbbVie said it is reconsidering its £32bn offer for Shire, down 1,128p at 4,012p, on tax concerns.

After failing to snap up Finnish rock crushing specialist Metso earlier in the year, Scottish engineer Weir, down 93p at 2,120p, managed to seal a takeover, spending $220m (£138m) on Chinese-American equipment manufacturer Trio.

Newspaper and magazine distributor Connect Group leapt 26p to 164p on news of a deal with Amazon to provide same-day delivery in the UK. WH Ireland’s Nick Spoliar called the tie-up “ground breaking”.

Aquarius Platinum admitted that the $37m sale of its stake in two projects to a Chinese consortium has collapsed, after it failed to gain the necessary approvals from South African regulators in time. Aquarius slipped 1.25p to 18.75p.

Big-data pioneer WANdisco jumped 57.5p to 357.5p on AIM, thanks to record quarterly sales. Booking jumped 56 per cent to $5.3m.