Market Report: Shareholders aren't keen on Shire's pursuit of Baxalta

Shareholders of Shire still aren’t keen on Baxalta, the US rare diseases specialist that the FTSE 100 drugmaker is intent on pursuing. Rumours that Shire is putting together another bid pegged the shares back 49p to 4,597p.

Since the $30bn offer was unveiled in August, the company has lost a fifth of its market value.

Baxalta rejected the takeover bid outright and Shire’s share price slump since then means its all-share bid is even cheaper. Three weeks ago, Shire bought the US firm Dyax for $5.9bn (£3.9bn), but chief executive Flemming Ornskov confirmed it had not given up on Baxalta.

The word on the street is that Shire could come back with a cash and shares offer.

The FTSE 100 returned to winning ways, up 60.41 points at 6,337.64, with housebuilders doing much of the legwork thanks to Chancellor George Osborne’s plans to double the house-building budget.

Oil supermajor Shell will wrap up its £43bn takeover of BG Group, according to analysts at RBC Capital, who argued that BG, up 6.5p at 1,009.5p, should rise now that Australia’s competition watchdog has given the deal the green light. BG’s market capitalisation is still about 12 per cent below the implied bid value, but RBC thinks this discount will close over the next couple of months and has lifted its recommendation to outperform.

Shell, 1p off at 1,666.5p is reported to have secured the backing of Qatar, which has a 3.6 per cent stake in the Anglo-Dutch giant even after recent share sales.

Anglo American crashed 34.8p or 7.7 per cent to 417.2p after HSBC analysts tipped the shares to fall to 410p, speculating that the miner will need to fork out at least $2.7bn to keep its dividend next year.

Vague bid chatter boosted Ophir Energy by 6.4p to 91p, although the FTSE 250 oil firm claimed there was no truth to the rumours.

On AIM, Cohort gained 17p to 412p after securing a two-year contract worth £9.7m to provide training and exercise support to the Ministry of Defence, while the former AIM software star Blinkx tumbled 2p to 21p even after Martin Hughes’ Toscafund increased its stake to 28.9 per cent.