London open: Slow start for Footsie

Early gains for Footsie have disappeared quickly in the face of a poor start for the miners and the absence later on of Wall Street, closed for Independence Day.BP is one of the gainers on reports the governments of Kuwait, China and Singapore could inject funds under a £6bn plan designed to shore up the oil group's finances in the wake of the Gulf disaster. The cost of the clean-up has now exceeded $3bn.Premier Oil has upgraded reserves estimates for Catcher and Catcher East to between 60mn barrels of oil (mmbls) and 100 mmbbls after striking oil again at the lucrative field in the UK Central North Sea.Premier and other stakeholders in Catcher - Encore Oil (15%- operator), Nautical Petroleum (15%), Wintershall (UK North Sea) Limited (20%) and Agora Oil & Gas (15%) - are looking to buy "a number" of new site surveys over potential drilling locations in Block 28/9. Investors in Falkland Oil and Gas hungry for news on the Toroa F61/5-1 exploration well will have to wait an extra week due to "minor operational issues and weather related downtime". Wickes owner Travis Perkins has got its name on BSS after the pair agreed a cash and share bid worth 436p per BSS Share and valuing the plumbing supplies firm at approximately £558m. The terms are in line with the initial approach from Travis in May.Part-nationalised lender Lloyds Banking Group is selling a portfolio of 40 private equity investments in its Bank of Scotland Integrated Finance (BoSIF) unit to a newly formed joint venture for £332m in cash. The new joint venture, called Cavendish Square Partners, will be majority owned by private equity investor Coller Capital, with Lloyds Banking Group retaining a stake of around 30%. Outsourcing specialist Serco has won a long term contract to provide and operate a new prison at Belmarsh West, London. This is the first prison contract to be awarded in the UK to an alliance of the private and voluntary sectors and is worth about £415m to Serco. Construction works will begin right away and the contract will run for 26½ years.Mining giant Rio Tinto has sold the last two remaining parts of its Alcan Packaging business. Medical Flexibles, which comprises four North American plants, has been bought for $66m by Amcor, and completes Amcor's acquisition of the Alcan Packaging global Pharmaceuticals, global Tobacco, Food Europe and Food Asia divisions.Distribution and outsourcing group, Bunzl, has snapped up Belgian cleaning and hygiene consumables firm Etablissements Glorieux SA. The Belgian company, which trades at Global Net, is being acquired from the owners, Olivier and Luc Glorieux. Last year it turned over €19.6m.Property developer St. Modwen Properties returned to the black at the interim stage and has resumed dividend payments. Net asset value (NAV) per share at the end of May had risen to 214p, a rise of 6.8% from the NAV at the end of November 2009. R&D consultant Sagentia is trading so strongly it now expects its first half results not only to beat estimates but also to exceed the forecasts for the whole year. After a bumper set of full year figures last month, Aim-listed component distributor Elektron predicts its next set of interims will also be 'significantly ahead' of its expectations.