Market report: Tuesday close

IT could be auction time for

Izaki Group, a consortium of Israeli investors, continues to stake-build in the online auction company, raising its holding to 22.3% from about 16.5% in early April. The group has indicated it plans to buy up 30% of the shares but has not yet decided whether to launch a takeover. QXL rejected a £23.8m bid from a Dutch private-equity group last month.

Reversing earlier gains, the FTSE 100 index was off 24.8 points at 4885.8, undermined by weaker retail stocks. Rising oil prices, as producers' cartel Opec suggested it may not be able to pump enough to meet demand this year, also clouded sentiment. New York's Dow did nothing to lift the mood, moving 66.6 points lower when it opened this afternoon.

There was more bad news for High Street names from the latest British Retail Consortium data, which showed consumer caution hitting sales hard in April. B&Q owner Kingfisher, bid up this week on merger speculation, tumbled 8p to 258½p, Marks & Spencer slid 8¼p to 321¾p and Boots fell 4½p to 590p.

British American Tobacco bucked the weaker trend, gaining 17p to 1026p as positive broker comment continued to filter-through. CSFB has lifted its target on the defensive stock to 1075p from 990p and reiterated its outperform rating, arguing BAT is the best-value European tobacco share. Lehman Brothers is overweight, with a 1040p target.

ABN Amro cut it to add from buy but remains hooked on BAT - a 'win-win' for investors. 'Either BAT's own management narrows the performance gap, over time, or a bidder intervenes,' it said, lifting its target to 1100p from 1065p.

Sector rivals Imperial Tobacco and Gallaher was up 7p at 1495p and 4p at 824p respectively.

British Gas group Centrica was 3½p better at 225p after UBS reiterated its buy rating. However, the broker trimmed its target 20p to 280p in the wake of the mixed comments the company made yesterday about trading.

JP Morgan has reiterated its overweight rating on SABMiller , up 4½p at 816½p, and raised its fair value assessment by 10p to 950p, arguing the market underestimates the South African brewing giant's growth prospects.

Kier closed 2p lower at to 829p after securing a deal with Sheffield City Council to build four new schools under the private finance initiative in a project worth £97m.

Minerva, the London property developer that used to control collapsed retailer Allders, has appointed as chief executive Salmaan Hasan from Deutsche Postbank London, where he was head of property finance. He replaces Andrew Rosenfeld who moved up to executive chairman in March. Minerva, which aborted its own sale process in January, rose 3¼p to 246¾p, about the same level as last July, just before putting itself up for sale. Most other property stocks have surged since then.

Engineering, construction and services group Balfour Beatty lost ¼p to 310p after it picked up a five-year, £300m contract from United Utilities to carry out clean-water, waste-water and electricity works.

Venture Production, up 4p at 279p, has bought a package of North Sea oil assets from Amerada Hess which it hopes could yield net additional reserves of 50m to 60m barrels of oil equivalent over the next two to three years.