London afternoon: Lloyds rump placed at 60p

Footsie clawed back some losses over the lunch time session but remains in the red, thanks largely to the weakness of miners, which are following metals prices lower.Mining stocks Vedanta Resources, Eurasian Natural Resources, Anglo American, BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Fresnillo, Lonmin and Antofagasta all feature among the ten worst performing blue-chip stocks.Hochschild Mining follows the sector trend despite completing the construction of new power lines in Peru and Argentina, which will help the Latin America-focused precious metal miner to maximize operational efficiency and reduce costs.Part-nationalised bank Lloyds Banking is the day's biggest faller among Footsie constituents, after 13% of the shares available in open offer were left unsubscribed by shareholders. Reports in the market suggest the rump of the open offer has been placed in the market at a price of 60p per share, a premium of 21.57p over the offer price. The Lloyds share price ended the lunch-time session trading a tad above 60p, sharply lower than Friday night's closing price.Barclays has confirmed talks are underway with US firm BlackRock over the future over its fund management arm Barclays Global Investors (BGI), which includes its iShares business. Reports over the weekend suggested Barclays is poised to conclude a deal that would see BlackRock buy BGI for £8.1bn, with Barclays to take up to a 20% stake in the combined business. Barclays said the discussions with Blackrock still have a way to go before a deal could be sealed.Water group Pennon Group is beefing up its waste management arm with the £11m purchase of London Recycling Limited. The shares float higher, along with other utility stocks such as United Utilities, National Grid and Severn Trent.Goldman Sachs has been reviewing the UK defence sector and has selected Rolls-Royce as its favoured stock. The aero engine maker is upgraded to 'neutral' from 'sell', but sector peer Cobham is cut to 'sell' while BAE Systems, rated a 'sell' by Goldman Sachs, sees its price target sliced to 330p from 400p, in expectation of defence cuts in the US and UK.Soft drinks group AG Barr said overall trading remains in line with expectations with sunny weather boosting sales in the latter half of May. Total revenue for the period from 1 February to 29 May increased by 22.5% compared to the same period last year. Like for like sales, taking out the effect of the Rubicon acquisition, are up by 7.9%.Workspace Group, which provides business premises for small and medium sized businesses, plunged deeper into the red as a result of property write-downs but traded profitably at the operating level. In the year to 31 March 2009 the company made a trading profit after interest charges of £10m, up 12.3% from £8.9m the year before.Yellow Pages publisher Yell has appointed Bob Wigley as its new chairman. He will take up his new job following the Annual General Meeting in July.Teenager clothes specialist JD Sports reported a 1.7% rise in like for like sales growth in the period from 1 February to 30 May but warned that maintaining the gross margin comparative with the previous year may prove increasingly challenging later in the year.A bid battle is in prospect for Irish carbon credit company EcoSecurities after French energy company EDF said it was considering a rival bid to the one made by Dutch firm Guanabara Holdings. EDF said it is contemplating an offer of at least 75p in cash per EcoSecurities, trumping the indicative 60p per share offer announced by Guanabara.Education and training firm BPP is chalked higher after agreeing merger terms with Apollo Global, an investment firm focused on the education services sector.Recruitment company Networkers International is selling its stake in its joint venture to Saudi Telecoms Systems for $4.2m, giving the latter total control of the joint venture. Shares in Plexus Holdings are in demand after the oil and gas engineering services firm won a £1.2m deal with Red Sea Petroleum Operating Company (RSPOC) to supply its POS-GRIP wellhead systems for wells being drilled in the Red Sea.