UK small caps rise 0.2 percent, outperforming a flat blue-chip index but slightly lagging mid-caps, up 0.3 percent.
Shares in Ocean Wilsons Holdings rise 0.8 percent as themajority-owner of Wilsons Sons, a maritime conglomerate operating in Brazil,reports growth in its full-year net profit margin.
"(These are) solid earnings in a tough trading environment and with adepreciating Brazilian Real," Cantor Fitzgerald writes in a note.
Cellular material technology Zotefoams falls 9.5 percent aftersaying in a trading update that it has seen a more subdued level of sales in thefirst four months of 2013 than in the same period last year.
Reuters messaging rm://francesco.canepa.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net