London close: Greek talks bolster late recovery

As European leaders seemed to come closer to a solution to the Greek crisis, sentiment was lifted across the continent with markets finishing higher across the board. Despite a poor start, London equities got a boost in the late morning period, helping the Footsie back above the 5,700 mark. A strong start on Wall Street fuelled the rise in the afternoon.The miners were leading the comeback as metals prices recovered slightly. Randgold Resources, Lonmin and Kazakhmys were among the best performers on the blue chip index, despite falling early on. Following the acquisition of an additional stake in Africa-focused coal miner Riversdale Mining, Rio Tinto announced on Friday that it has now taken full control of the target, after months of deliberation and deadline extensions. After edging lower in morning trading, the mining giant has joined its sector peers on the rise. Commodities trading house Glencore was higher, helped by Charles Stanley which said that it sees this week's share price decline (after the first quarter results) as an "over-negative interpretation of the CEO's outlook for metal prices." Temporary power provider Aggreko was also helped by broker commentary, after Goldman Sachs raised its target price on the firm ahead of a trading update on Monday. BAE Systems, the defence firm, was heading lower after revealing that it will incur significantly higher-than-planned costs to complete the Omani Offshore Patrol Vessel programme. A charge of £160m (pre-tax) will be announced in its first half results. On the FTSE 250, Supergroup was the highest riser of the day, gaining 8% on Friday afternoon, recovering after a recent sell-off. Despite being 8% higher today, shares are still 19% lower than they were one month ago. Meanwhile, retail peer Dunelm was the worst performer, losing almost 7%. Electrical components manufacturer Laird extended gains after yesterday's surge on the back of new that it rejected a takeover proposal from Cooper Industries. The group announced today that it is to exit its underperforming handset antenna business. Bluetooth chip specialist CSR was edging higher after the price it is to pay for US video streaming outfit Zoran was slashed to reflect a worse than expected trading performance by Zoran in the second quarter. The new terms of the agreement vale Zoran at $484m, down from $680m previously. Infrastructure specialist Balfour Beatty was wanted after its United States unit acquired Fru-Con Construction, a water and wastewater infrastructure contractor, for £12m, in an attempt to expand its presence in the growing US water market. Engineering and design consultancy WS Atkins was edging higher after Credit Suisse raised its target price from 706.58p to 752p. A big mover of the day was IndigoVision, the internet video security company, which fell by almost a third on Friday after the group warned that sales for the full year will fall short of its expectations. "Since our interim results announcement in March, the Group's rate of growth has slowed. We continue to expect that full year sales will exceed last year's revenue of £28.0m, but that they will fall short of internal forecasts," the statement said. AIM-quoted sweetener maker PureCircle also turned a little sour after it said it expects to book one off costs of $10-15m in 2011 after it scaled down production and reduced inventory levels to match current demand and to improve operating cashflows. ---BCFTSE 100 - RisersAggreko (AGK) 1,911.00p +2.41%3i Group (III) 270.00p +2.27%Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 4,679.00p +2.16%Imperial Tobacco Group (IMT) 2,016.00p +1.87%Old Mutual (OML) 126.50p +1.77%Tate & Lyle (TATE) 656.00p +1.71%Kazakhmys (KAZ) 1,261.00p +1.69%Intertek Group (ITRK) 1,969.00p +1.65%Lonmin (LMI) 1,404.00p +1.59%Serco Group (SRP) 574.00p +1.50%FTSE 100 - FallersKingfisher (KGF) 264.70p -1.23%Inmarsat (ISAT) 564.50p -1.22%Capital Shopping Centres Group (CSCG) 381.80p -1.19%ARM Holdings (ARM) 556.00p -0.98%Eurasian Natural Resources Corp. (ENRC) 716.00p -0.97%British Land Co (BLND) 576.50p -0.86%BAE Systems (BA.) 309.90p -0.86%Cairn Energy (CNE) 400.00p -0.82%John Wood Group (WG.) 629.50p -0.71%ICAP (IAP) 452.70p -0.66%