London close: Footsie drops slightly

London's main markets closed slightly lower after trading within a tight range all day.BP was the strongest blue chip all day on reports that the governments of Kuwait, China and Singapore could inject funds under a £6bn plan designed to shore up the oil group's finances in the wake of the Gulf disaster. The cost of the clean-up has now exceeded $3bn.Ahead of its first quarter trading update on Wednesday retailer Marks & Spencer was wanted, as was fellow clothing store Next. Markets were fretting once more about a slow-down in global economic growth, and this put African Barrick Gold, ENRC, Antofagasta and BHP Billiton under pressure. Bank shares were also out of favour with Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays the weakest. Elsewhere in the sector, part-nationalised lender Lloyds Banking Group is selling a portfolio of 40 private equity investments in its Bank of Scotland Integrated Finance (BoSIF) unit to a newly formed joint venture for £332m in cash. The new joint venture, called Cavendish Square Partners, will be majority owned by private equity investor Coller Capital, with Lloyds Banking Group retaining a stake of around 30%. British Airways said traffic measured in revenue passenger kilometers fell 11.1% in June, in part due to strike action by the Unite union in the first nine days of the month.Premier Oil has upgraded reserves estimates for Catcher and Catcher East to between 60mn barrels of oil (mmbls) and 100 mmbbls after striking oil again at the lucrative field in the UK Central North Sea.Premier and other stakeholders in Catcher - Encore Oil (15%- operator), Nautical Petroleum (15%), Wintershall (UK North Sea) Limited (20%) and Agora Oil & Gas (15%) - are looking to buy "a number" of new site surveys over potential drilling locations in Block 28/9. Investors in Falkland Oil and Gas hungry for news on the Toroa F61/5-1 exploration well will have to wait an extra week due to "minor operational issues and weather related downtime". Wickes owner Travis Perkins has got its name on BSS after the pair agreed a cash and share bid worth 436p per BSS Share and valuing the plumbing supplies firm at approximately £558m. The terms are in line with the initial approach from Travis in May.Outsourcing specialist Serco has won a long term contract to provide and operate a new prison at Belmarsh West, London. This is the first prison contract to be awarded in the UK to an alliance of the private and voluntary sectors and is worth about £415m to Serco. Construction works will begin right away and the contract will run for 26½ years.Distribution and outsourcing group, Bunzl, has snapped up Belgian cleaning and hygiene consumables firm Etablissements Glorieux SA. The Belgian company, which trades at Global Net, is being acquired from the owners, Olivier and Luc Glorieux. Last year it turned over €19.6m.Property developer St. Modwen Properties returned to the black at the interim stage and has resumed dividend payments. Net asset value (NAV) per share at the end of May had risen to 214p, a rise of 6.8% from the NAV at the end of November 2009. R&D consultant Sagentia is trading so strongly it now expects its first half results not only to beat estimates but also to exceed the forecasts for the whole year. After a bumper set of full year figures last month, Aim-listed component distributor Elektron predicts its next set of interims will also be 'significantly ahead' of its expectations. Mining engineer MDM slumped to an 11-month low Monday as project delays will lead to earnings for the year to 31 March 2011 "materially below current market expectations".Publisher Dods, which changed its name from Huveaux last month, admits it's received a number of bid approaches, as speculated in the press recently.Shares in Thor Mining were a hot property after the coming said its Dundas gold project in Western Australia has thrown up additional anomalies with new drill targets.