London midday: Miners weigh down Footsie

London's blue-chip index is doing its usual trick of following the miners, which today are in a down phase. The worst performers in the mining sector are Vedanta Resources, Eurasian Natural Resources, Anglo American, BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Fresnillo and Antofagasta.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 said its compensatory open offer received acceptances in respect of 87% of the shares on offer, leaving the book-runners to place the unsold shares in the market. The stock overhang has caused the Lloyds share price to fall back sharply.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.FTSE 100 - RisersLand Securities Group (LAND) 497.00p +1.84%British Land Co (BLND) 381.50p +1.53%Cable & Wireless (CW.) 128.50p +1.18%Rolls-Royce Group (RR.) 332.50p +0.99%FTSE 100 - FallersVedanta Resources (VED) 1,552.00p -6.95%Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) 61.70p -6.80%Eurasian Natural Resources (ENRC) 646.50p -5.27%Anglo American (AAL) 1,762.00p -5.12%