Shares: Taking Stock

Investors were unsettled by news that the chairman of Bristol United Press, Stanley Clarke, had resigned because of ill health. The shares dropped 2.5p to 440p. Mr Clarke had planned to retire at the end of March 1998, but his premature exit took the market by surprise. He is to be replaced at the end of October by James Evans, previously chairman and chief executive officer of Times Newspapers, but in the meantime, Sir John Wills, deputy chairman, is to take the helm.

Britton Group, the packaging company, put on a spurt after announcing that its US subsidiary had been awarded a lucrative folding carton contract with Kellogg, worth $30m (pounds 18m) in annual sales. Britton, which issued a profits warning in June, added 3p to 60p. The contract runs for five years from 1998.