Market report: Wednesday close

SHARES of Durex and Dr Scholl's sandals group

City speculators see SSL as one of the early takeover stories for 2005. It follows reports that business intelligence group GPW, which was spun out of Kroll in August, has begun due diligence work on SSL for a client that may be prepared to pay up to 400p a share. That would value SSL at £757m.

The company declined to comment today on what it termed 'market speculation'. Other companies thought to be in the running include Anglo-Dutch household products giant Reckitt Benckiser, up 20p at 1577p, US consumer products giants Johnson & Johnson and Kimberly-Clark, and battery maker Energizer Holdings.

British healthcare group Smith & Nephew, up 1½p on 530p, and retailer Boots, up 3p at 659p, have also been touted as likely suitors in the past. SSL last month said first-half pre-tax profits more than doubled to £28.2m on flat sales of £203m. Even so, the price struck a low of 258p in October, leaving it vulnerable to takeover.

Reaction to news of the earthquake and tsunamis that struck Indian Ocean countries on Boxing Day was muted.

In fact, share prices rose to close at a convincing year-high on the first day back after the Christmas break. The FTSE 100 index added 21.7 points to close at 4819.8.

On Wall Street, US stocks were generally lower by lunchtime, as further weakness by the dollar and a mixed batch of economic reports encouraged some profit-taking after last night's highs.The Dow Jones was down 36.8 points at 10,819.4, while the Nasdaq was up 2.1 points at 2,179.29.

First Choice Holidays fell 3¼p to 151¼p despite moving quickly to smother any City fears that it may suffer as a result of events over the weekend. It did not expect the disaster to have a 'material impact' on the current year's results. A statement from the company said: 'The percentage of bookings that are affected by the event, in the context of the group's total annual bookings, is very small.'

Customers scheduled to travel to the area are being offered refunds, the opportunity to change their destination or to take their holiday at a later date. The company said it had about 1,200 customers in the areas affected and all but six had been accounted for.

Rival MyTravel, which last week got the go-ahead for its proposed debt-for-equity reconstruction, rose 2.22p to 8.20p.

Alpha Airports said a downturn in its duty free shopping and alcohol supply business to the tourist trade in Sri Lanka and the Maldives could shave £1m from profits in its year to 31 January 2005. The shares sank 6p to 86p.

Insurance brokers were a touch softer with no real weight of selling. SVB Holdings dipped 2½p to 32½p while Cox Insurance was 1½p cheaper at 91p.

Merchant bank Singer & Friedlander jumped 11p to 272½p on reports that its biggest shareholder, Icelandic bank Kaupthing with almost 20% of the shares, is about to embark on a £1bn spending spree in Britain. City speculators are adamant Singer is its most likely target with a price tag of more than £450m.

Drugs giant AstraZeneca, up 10p at 1880p, has been given the go-ahead by Japan's Ministry of Health for its cholesterol treatment Crestor. The drug has been criticised in some countries.

AstraZeneca withdrew its cancer treatment Iressa before Christmas because it failed to prolong life. The US regulator has demanded more information about its anti-coagulant Exanta.