London afternoon: L&G leads modest advance

Leading shares are mixed but with a slightly firmer bias after rising over the lunchtime session.Insurer Legal & General (L&G) leads the advance on the back of a positive broker note from Nomura Securities. "We highlight our preference for L&G over Prudential (Reduce), given that we expect Pru to go ex-growth in the US this year," the Japanese broker said."We have raised our price target by 14% to 171p to reflect our increasingly optimistic view of L&G's growth prospects, and raised our earnings forecasts by 7% for 2010 and by 11% for 2011. Our dividend for 2010 is raised by 3% to 5.19p," Nomura said.Elsewhere in the financial sector Barclays is laid low by a "sell" recommendation from Evolution Securities ahead of the banking giant's results next week. Retailers are among the heaviest fallers after some underwhelming sales figures from the John Lewis. As the department store itself put it, the 1% rise in sales in the week to February 5 from the same period last year was "not a large one."Marks & Spencer and fellow fashion retailer Next are under pressure, with the rise in cotton prices to a new high adding to their woes. Sticking with the John Lewis theme, online delivery service Ocado has tumbled after it confirmed that the department store's pension fund, an 11% shareholder, has sold its stake now that the lock-up period following last July's float has ended. Shares in Ocado had risen 50% over the last month prior to the John Lewis sell-off. Cairn Energy is higher after it pledged to shareholders it will not put up with any interference from the Indian government in the $9.6bn sale of its oilfields in Rajasthan to Vedanta.The continued civil unrest in Egypt weighs down Centamin Egypt. The shares rose sharply late yesterday afternoon on fallacious reports that unpopular president Hosni Mubarak was planning to step down.Support services group Carillion has agreed to pay £306.5m for green support services business Eaga. In a deal recommended by Eaga bosses, shareholders will get 118.79p a share in cash and receive the 1.21p interim dividend, taking the total to 120p.Emergency repair service provider Homeserve is still predicting a year of strong growth with profit matching City expectations. Customer and policy numbers were both 14% higher at the end of 2010 than at the same time the previous year, up to 4.8m and 10.9m respectively. Pubs group Mitchells and Butlers has named senior independent director Simon Burke as its new chairman, taking over from John Lovering who steps down today. Burke has been on the board as non-executive deputy chairman since January 2010. He's also chairman of HobbyCraft and a non-executive director of the BBC Executive Board. Shaftesbury, the property company focused on London's theatre-land district, said demand for its properties has remained healthy since the end of September. Investment activity in the area is on the up and is predicted to increase over the next 12 months. A sharp rise in pre-tax profits in the half year to 30 November sent shares in Fiske higher, even as the stockbroker warned that 2011 will be "difficult."Pre-tax profits jumped to £369,000 from £286,000 over the same period the previous year on revenues that rose to £2.23m from £2.04m.Struggling sportswear group JJB Sports has warned it could go bust unless landlords agree to cut rents on 95 stores it has earmarked for possible closure. JJB's plan comes just two years after it did a similar deal, called a company voluntary agreement or CVA, on 140 stores.Shares in Renovo have lost nearly three-quarters of their value after the scar treatments developer admitted that its main treatment Juvista has failed to meet its goals in the phase III trial in Europe.Real estate investment trust McKay Securities has received an uplift of 32p in net asset value per share from favourable movements in long term swap rates.