London open: Footsie pushes higher

After yesterday's sluggish performance London has more of a spring in its step today.Only three blue chips are down at present, with miners again going well after the late rally on Wall Street overnight. Vedanta and Kazakhmys are the sector stars this morning.Invensys leads the way overall after the engineer became the exclusive supplier of railway signalling to Chinese rolling stock maker CSR Corporation. British Gas owner Centrica has stepped up its campaign to secure more of its gas supplies. It has doubled its equity interest in the gas and oil producing Statfjord field in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea to 19.13%.BP is close to sealing permanently the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico after a relief well intercepted the original drillhole, which should enable engineers to shut it down completely. 3i is creating an integrated private equity business by merging its buyout and growth capital units. The decision leaves 3i with two business lines - Infrastructure and Private Equity - and expansion into other areas such as debt management are also on the cards, as flagged at the year end.Domino Printing, the provider of industrial ink jet and laser printing equipment, said trading conditions continued to improve over the summer months and it is running ahead of expectations. Sales revenues in the May to August period were 20% higher than in the same months of 2009. Like for like sales increased by 16%.Peri-Peri chicken chain Nando's is adding burgers and souvlaki to its menu with the agreed takeover of restaurant group Clapham House for £30m. Capricorn Ventures, Nando's owner, has pitched its offer at 74p per share cash, a 31% premium to the price before talks started, which has been recommended by Clapham's directors.Pubs group Mitchells & Butlers is paying Restaurant Group £19.5m in cash for its Ha Ha Bar & Grill chain. It's expected the deal for the 22 sites will complete on 3 October when the transformation into 12 All Bar One pubs, six Browns restaurants and four other M&B brands will begin. BP Mitchells & Butlers Centrica 3i Group