London midday:Stocks pare losses

Leading shares finished the morning session well above their low levels though the Footsie remained in arrears on lingering fears about a slowdown in economic growth in China and concerns over Spain's sovereign debt after ratings agency Moody's said it was considering lowering its rating by a notch or two.Sentiment was boosted by Spain's €3.5bn bond issue this morning being oversubscribed, though only by 70% as opposed to 135% for the May bond issue.Barclays has signed a joint venture agreement with Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) and Nikko Cordial Securities, a wholly-owned subsidiary of SMBC, to provide wealth management services to high net worth individuals in Japan. The shares are in the dumper, however, this morning because of concerns of a slow-down at its Barclays Capital (BarCap) investment management arm. Barclays said BarCap had seen weaker trading conditions in the past two months. Swiss engineer ABB said it will not match an offer by Emerson for electrical plugs and peripherals maker Chloride. Emerson trumped ABB's agreed offer with a bid worth 375p in cash or £1bn in total. ABB was offering 325p. In similar vein, CH2M Hill said it will no longer proceed with its acquisition of Scott Wilson after rival bidder URS Corporation increased its offer for the design and engineering consultancy firm.Another piece of English heritage has gone west as Tate & Lyle sold the largest part of its sugars division to American Sugar Refining of the US for £211m - a deal that will see it lose its well known brand Lyle's Golden Syrup. Cairn Energy has started its summer drill programme off the coast of West Greenland with the Alpha prospect (Alpha-1) in the Sigguk Block, about 175km offshore Disko Island. The Edinburgh-based oil company is targeting the Alpha and T8 exploration prospects which lie in water depths of between 300 and 500 metres. It will take 55 days to drill to 4,200m at Alpha and 38 days to get down to 3,250m at T8, the firm estimates. An update is due in August.Telecoms giant BT plans to undercut Sky's Sports channels. BT Vision customers can add both Sky Sports 1 & 2 to the service for £16.99 a month, or either one for £11.99 a month, on a month by month basis. BT says the £11.99 bundle works out £205 cheaper than Sky's current equivalent deal and £281 cheaper than Virgin Media over a year.Guinness brewer and spirits distiller Diageo has reached agreement with its pension fund trustees on a 10-year funding arrangement for the UK pension scheme. The arrangement includes the novel idea whereby a pension funding partnership will be formed (the PFP), which will hold maturing whisky spirit as assets, generating an income to the UK Scheme which is expected to total £25m each year over the term of the PFP.Brewer Greene King saw profits rise for the year and said current year's trading is ahead of expectations. Pre-tax profit rose to £101.9m from £54.3m on revenue that increased 3.1% to £984.1m, helped in particular by the 3.5% growth in its retail business.Department store Debenhams said like-for-like sales decreased by 0.4% over the 42 weeks and added that it remains cautious about consumer confidence. The group said like-for-like sales were impacted by the strategy of improving gross margins by increasing the penetration of own bought trading space and by stronger comparatives in the third quarter of 2009. Energy services group John Wood Group said fall-out from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is not expected to materially affect the company's performance this year. About 4% of annual revenue is related to new deep water developments in the Gulf. Not so Wellstream, which designs and manufactures flexible risers and flowlines for the oil and gas industry. It warned that the recovery predicted for second half looks to be slower than expected and may result in some profit being delayed into 2011. Production at Aquarius Platinum's Blue Ridge platinum mine in South Africa will be cut as a result of a safety review carried out following the deaths of two workers within a month.Five-a-side football pitch operator Goals Soccer sees overall sales for the six months ended 30 June slightly ahead of 2009, but shares fell after it said full-year figures might come in towards the lower end of current market expectations.FTSE 100 - RisersFresnillo (FRES) 1,005.00p +2.60%BP (BP.) 326.10p +2.26%Cable & Wireless Worldwide (CW.) 88.05p +1.67%ARM Holdings (ARM) 281.90p +1.59%Intertek Group (ITRK) 1,453.00p +0.69%Scottish & Southern Energy (SSE) 1,125.00p +0.54%BG Group (BG.) 1,010.00p +0.40%Centrica (CNA) 297.30p +0.20%Experian Group (EXPN) 587.00p +0.17%Rio Tinto (RIO) 2,972.00p +0.12%FTSE 100 - FallersSchroders (SDR) 1,169.00p -3.63%Schroders NV (SDRC) 968.00p -3.30%Barclays (BARC) 263.30p -2.68%British Airways (BAY) 190.80p -2.65%Tesco (TSCO) 370.20p -2.59%Legal & General Group (LGEN) 76.65p -2.54%Investec (INVP) 442.20p -2.51%Whitbread (WTB) 1,374.00p -2.48%Essar Energy (ESSR) 464.40p -2.27%Rolls-Royce Group (RR.) 550.00p -2.22%