Arena rumour sends punters to the races

UK racecourse owner

Punters piled in on gossip that the entrepreneur, whose private company builds flats across London and the Docklands, had agreed to buy the 20m shares from leisure magnate Trevor Hemmings, Arena's largest shareholder with 40%. The mystery buyer apparently wants to get involved in next year's planned redevelopment of Royal Windsor racecourse. Buying a stake in the company would not be a bad start and would give him bargaining power.

Rumours suggest he wants a piece of the action at Arena before a bidder pounces. He knows that a large leisure group has been stalking Arena for months and could launch a full-scale offer at any time while the shares are so flat.

Arena recently launched its all-singing, all-dancing Attheraces website. It hopes to tap into the £70bn global betting market using interactive TV and the internet. There have been several false starts at Arena, but if the property developer does pick up 6%, the stock could be off to the races.

Among other leisure stocks, Newcastle United's 3-1 win over Arsenal which lifted the Magpies to the top of the Premiership failed to give the shares a boost. They fell 4p to a record low of 26p.

The FTSE 100 lacked festive cheer. It dropped 59.7 points before rallying in sympathy with a resilient Wall Street. The Footsie closed 30.5 lower at 5,120.6.

British Airways dropped 12 3/4p to 195 1/4p after Continental Airlines, the number five US carrier, told the American transport department that an alliance between BA and American Airlines would hurt competition on transatlantic routes.

Reflecting Motorola's woes, ARM Holdings, whose chips are used in 80% of mobile phones, fell 20 1/2p to 351p.

Supported of late for its near-7% yield, Severn Trent took a bath, nosediving 34p to 676p as the dividend qualifying date passed. For the same reason, United Utilities dipped 22p to 578p.

Top FTSE 250 performer was AB Ports, 24p better at 400p. It forecast at least an 8% rise in full-year sales and pretax profits at the upper end of analysts' expectations. It expects operating profits from UK ports and transport activities to grow by 7% in the year.

Mersey Docks advanced 12 1/2p to 497 1/2p on director buying. Peter Jones bought 20,000 shares at 483p, Alastair Findlay 10,000 at 483p and Gordon Waddell 5,000 at 483p.

An upbeat trading statement unlocked an 8p gain to 163 1/2p in Chubb. Annual results will meet expectations with a 9% rise in sales. Following a bullish meeting with management, broker Altium Capital advised clients to buy Biotrace International which rose 9p to 145p.

Hanson's cautious trading statement unsettled building materials rival RMC, 28 1/2p down at 608 1/2p.

Marconi's shareholders will certainly be gald to see the back of 2001. The stock slumped 2 1/2p to 36p after ABN Amro said sell and revealed a target price of 23p.The broker says some form of financial restructuring appears inevitable. Net debt needs to be halved, but Marconi will not be able to reduce it for some years.

Electrical equipment group Volex crashed 72 1/2p to 237 1/2p after warning that it is unlikely to meet expectations for the year to March 2002.