Market Report: Hyder Consulting sold to Dutch building designer Arcadis

One construction deal collapses, another arises.

Just as Carillion, 18.9p lower at 334.3p, and Balfour Beatty, down 14.8p at 237.9p, called off their marriage, Hyder Consulting announced it had agreed to sell itself to the Dutch building designer Arcadis for £256.2m, or 650p a share. The deal represents a chunky 38.5 per cent premium for the engineering consultancy, which has worked on projects such as Sydney Harbour Bridge. News of the deal sent Hyder rocketing 173.75p to 643p.

Strong results from the likes of Shell, up 66.5p at 2,555.5p, and Intu Properties, 8.5p better at 328.8p, weren’t enough to support the FTSE 100. Argentina’s default and hints from the US Federal Reserve that interest rate rises could be getting closer weighed on sentiment and the blue-chip index lost 43.33 points to 6,730.11.

Afren collapsed 38.8p to 110p on the mid-cap index as the Africa-based oil and gas explorer suspended its chief executive and chief operating officer. An investigation has uncovered unauthorised payments by a third party that may have been to the benefit of the two executives. The investigation is ongoing.

Telecity was given a vote of confidence by the US hedge fund manager David Abrams, dubbed a “one-man wealth machine” in The Wall Street Journal, as Abrams Capital Management upped its stake in the data centre group from 3 per cent to 5 per cent. But Telecity lost 9p to 795p.

After a tough couple of years, Gulfsands Petroleum finally had some good news to share. The oil and gas explorer was forced out of Syria in 2012 and decided to move into Morocco instead. Three wells later and the company had nothing to show for its efforts. But yesterday Gulfsands, up 6p at 54.5p, announced it was fourth time lucky, as gas was uncovered at its latest well.

A profit warning from engineering services group Redhall saw it tumble 6p to 21.5p. It said it expects to break even this year.

Ariana Resources, an AIM tiddler targeting gold exploration in Turkey, rose 0.27p to 1.15p after securing funding to get its first mine at the Red Rabbit Gold Project up and running.