Market report: Tuesday close

STANDARD LIFE'S dash for cash caught the stock market on the hop today and posed the question: 'Which other bits of the family silver is the life assurer going to flog?'

The placing of 55m shares, or almost 20%, of Hammerson, part owner of the Brent Cross shopping centre in north London, was done at prices ranging from 615p to 645p following a bookbuilding by US broker Smith Barney.

Hammerson, off 12 1/2p at 640 1/2p, is a notoriously thin market with daily turnover in thousands of shares rather than millions. Traders are now looking to see what other parts of its extensive equity portfolio Standard Life may sell.

It has holdings of up to 3% in many of the FTSE 100 constituents, with its largest stakes including miner Xstrata, down 3p at 631p, with 25.34m shares, or 4%, worth £160m. Property companies were the biggest movers where the mutual has big stakes. It is the third-largest shareholder in Liberty International, off 7p at 673p, the shopping-centres owner behind Lakeside in which it holds 27.86m shares, or 8.42%, worth £186m.

The mutual has recently increased its stake in White City owner Chelsfield, up 1 1/2p on 309p.

The developer is currently under siege from a management buyout team. Standard is also the second-largest shareholder in West End developer Derwent Valley, up 4 1/2p at 734p, with 4.58m shares worth £33m, giving it 8.6% of the firm. Winten withdrew its offer for Derwent yesterday. City speculators say another bidder may soon emerge.

Standard also has 10.44m shares in Land Securities, Britain's largest quoted property firm, down 13p at 1007p, worth £105m.

Share prices lost an early lead following a lacklustre start to trading on Wall Street this afternoon. London's FTSE 100 index fell 9.50 points to 4440.10.

Tesco lost 10 1/2p to 247 3/4p after announcing plans to raise £810m through the issue of 315m new shares at about 250p. The bookbuilding was done by broker Cazenove. Like-for-like sales in the run-up to Christmas rose and German bank WestLB is sticking with its outperform rating while its former broking offshoot Panmure Gordon has repeated its buy recommendation.

Reuters was one of the biggest risers in the FTSE 100 with a 6 1/2p gain to 276 1/2p ahead of this week's trading update. Lloyds TSB slid 7 1/2p to 453 1/4p on the back of the abrupt departure of Philip Hampton as finance director. A line of 50m shares went through the market at 460p yesterday.

Serial investor Bob Morton's Systems Union rose 1/2p to near a four-year high of 116 1/2p after declaring that full-year figures will be ahead of market expectations. It also announced a maiden dividend of 1p. Trains and buses operator FirstGroup fell 1p at 282 1/2p despite its bid for the ScotRail franchise being referred to the Office of Fair Trading. Chief executive Moir Lockhead said: 'We will now consider whether we wish to continue with our bid for ScotRail given all the uncertainties'.

Inter Link Foods, up 19p at 437 1/2p, moved closer to its ambition to be Britain's second-largest cake maker, after Mr Kipling. It is buying mince pies maker Hoppers Farmhouse Bakeries for £5m and has won the licence to bake Disney branded cakes in Britain.