London midday: UK growth cuts little ice

Better than expected UK third quarter growth has cut little ice with investors this morning, who are firmly focused on weak miners, negative corporate news and broker downgrades.Britain's economy grew twice as fast as expected in the three months to September, according to preliminary estimates by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The UK expanded by 0.8% in the three months to the end of September compared with forecasts of just 0.4%.But traders weren't interested. Cairn Energy tops the list of fallers after it failed to find a commercial discovery at either the T8-1 or T4-1 wells offshore Greenland.The boom in mobile devices using ARM Holdings' intellectual property was largely responsible for chip designer's solid third quarter. Revenue rose 34%, but analysts at Panmure Gordon said the numbers were expected. They also remain bearish on the stock as "the share price is discounting a fairly stellar performance over the next few years". Bid rumours have also driven the price up recently, but Panmure thinks an approach is unlikely. Last night's warning on fourth quarter revenue from ARM chip user Texas Instruments didn't help.Insurers Prudential, Legal & General and Standard Life have been injured by a Bank of America Merrill Lynch downgrade. The Americans cut their rating on the sector following a recent strong run.Banks did well, but soon turned lower. Bank of England governor Mervyn King launched a fresh attack on them over the credit crunch and warned that much more equity will be necessary to build up their capital bases. A surprise third quarter loss at the investment banking arm of Swiss giant UBS also soured sentiment. Lloyds, HSBC and Barclays have fallen.Brit Insurance, the underwriter that sponsors the England cricket team and the Oval cricket ground, has backed a takeover by private equity buyers worth up to £888m. The offer made by Apollo Management and CVC Capital Partners values each share at between £10.75 and £11. There's £10.45 in cash, a 30p capital distribution, plus contingent value payment worth as much as 25p, depending on the value of the company's net tangible assets at the end of the year.Elsewhere, Fidessa, the provider of multi-asset trading systems, said uncertainty in its markets has continued into the third quarter. "Looking ahead, we believe the market will remain difficult to predict," the company said. "Despite this, we are confident that we can deliver good growth for 2010 as a whole although, as previously stated, we do not believe that the overall rate of growth will be as high as that seen during 2009," it added.South African miner Aquarius Platinum saw a sharp rise in earnings in the third quarter, helped by an increase in production of platinum group metals (PGM). Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation surged to $39.2m from $16.5m the year before. The UK's second biggest cinema chain Cineworld posted a 8.5% increase in revenue in the 42 weeks to 21 October after the summer's strong 3D film line-up.Panmure Gordon has cranked up its target price for ASOS anticipating a strong Christmas trading period for the fast growing online clothes retailer. Analyst Jean Roche highlights a number of "reasons to be cheerful" about ASOS's prospects notably that UK online fashion sales growth accelerated in September, up 24% from August and 28% from last September.Bus and train group Go-Ahead's chief executive Keith Ludeman is to retire after 15 years with the company to be replaced by David Brown, currently TFL's Managing Director, Surface Transport. The group added that trading in the period to end October has been robust and it has not changed its expectations for the full year to 2 July 2011.