Market report: Friday close

PRIVATE equity firm CVC made the most of recent strong results from

The shares, which went to institutional investors, were sold by Merrill Lynch and Citigroup for 295p, netting £135m and reducing CVC's holding to 19.8%.

The placing was 'comfortably oversubscribed' but the shares fell 9p to 295p.

According to insiders, CVC - which sold the shares just as the 180-day lock-up agreement was coming to an end - sees itself as a long-term shareholder in Halfords but felt its stake was too large.

Halfords, sold to the venture capitalists by Boots for £427m in 2002, has been among the most successful new admissions to the stock market this year after its launch at 260p. Last week, it reported an 18% rise in operating profits, driven by strong demand for satellite navigation and in-car entertainment systems.

Post-Pre-Budget Report blues were notably absent in the City, but sharp falls among heavyweight mining stocks helped drag down the FTSE 100 index 3.3 points to 4747.90. The Dow Jones opened 8.2 points lower in New York this afternoon at 10,576.9.

Doom-mongering analysts at UBS seemed to be behind the falls after the broker issued research warning investors to be cautious in 2005. It said US business inventories are down - less restocking means less demand for metals - and picked out indications of slowing growth in China as further evidence for its negative assessment.

Rio Tinto was a big faller, down 25p at 1496p, as UBS cut its target to 1600p from 1650p. Anglo American was off 19p at 1235p after UBS lowered its sights by 10p to 1350p.

Although the broker left its rating for BHP Billiton unchanged, the Anglo- Australian group slipped 7½p to 591p while Chilean copper miner Antofagasta was 30p lower at 1100p and Lonmin slid 16p to 918p.

Water companies remained in focus as investors digested the impact of the Ofwat review. United Utilities, down 3½p at 597½p, was also on the receiving end of a downgrade to reduce from UBS, although its target was lifted to 540p, while Merrill Lynch cut AWG, ½p lower at 800p, to neutral from buy and Cazenove regraded Severn Trent, down 6½p at 936½p, to underperform from neutral.

Smaller medical companies provided much of the news and excitement on Aim. GW Pharmaceuticals sank 35½p to 106½p after revealing its attempts to get its cannabis-based treatment for multiple sclerosis sufferers, Sativex, licensed will drag on for at least another six months. It also admitted a review of Sativex by the Committee on Safety of Medicines questioned whether the drug actually led to any improvement in the patient and called for further studies.

Provalis rose ¾p to 8¾p as it announced the first shipment of its diabetes-testing kit to the US, while Allergy Therapeutics rose 5½p to 90p after winning the first patent for its family of MPL sublingual vaccines, which could provide an alternative to antihistamine-based treatments.

Andor Technology is the latest start-up to try its luck. The Belfast-based developer of tiny digital cameras for medical diagnostic microscopes rose 32½p to 125½p on its first day.