Predators waiting at LandSecs gates

PROPERTY followers have been told to keep a close eye on

Manish Chande and Peter Walicknowski said cheerio and left LandSecs without a natural successor to chief executive Ian Henderson.

Walicknowski, director for strategy and business development and everyone's favourite to step up to the top job, left for personal reasons. Analysts said he was miffed with Henderson's decision to stay put for a further two years.

With LandSecs' board apparently not singing from the same hymn sheet, a bidder could pounce. Last year punters got over-excited when Donald Gordon, the property brain behind Liberty International and Capital Shopping Centres, took a 3% stake. Speculation suggested Capital could be reversed into LandSecs. It never happened, and Gordon sold his stake at a profit.

LandSecs held merger talks with British Land (2p dearer at 460p) in early 2000 but the discussions failed after disagreements on price and the structure of the board. Dealers reckon the two could decide to sit around the negotiating table again and agree a deal this time.

A much smaller deal, which should be concluded very soon, is the sale by LandSecs of six shopping centres to REIT Asset Management for £250m cash.

Town Centre Securities, in which serial stake-builder Jack Petchey owns 5.6% via his Isle of Man investment vehicle Trefick, rose 4p to a high of 128p.

Wall Street's early 120-point gain was ignored and the Footsie remained in negative territory. It lost 21.9 points to close at 5228.5 with virtually the entire fall attributed to the 7 1/2p decline to 170 3/4p in heavyweight Vodafone. Dixons said yesterday that mobile phone sales over Christmas were poor. Orange fell 15p to 620p.

US investors chased the Dow Jones higher on hopes of economic recovery later this year. They have not ruled out the possibility of another US interest rate cut on January 30. Back home, dealers expect Sir Eddie George and his chums at the Bank of England to leave UK interest rates on hold today. Sterling was steady at $1.4375, with the euro at 61.87p.

Persistent talk of a bid from Abbey National (24p up at 1024p) lifted Alliance & Leicester 8p more to 861p.

Sir Clive Thompson's pest control and security group Rentokil Initial rose 4 1/4p to 278 1/4p after broker UBS Warburg raised its target price by 20p to 285p.

Speciality chemicals company Yule Catto jumped 12 1/2p to 256p. It plans to merge its polymer subsidiaries, Harlow Chemical and Revertex Belgium SA, with its Synthomer offshoot. The enlarged group will become YC's largest business with turnover of more than £200m.

Oxford Glycosciences advanced 50p to 725p after stating it has identified several proteins implicated in breast cancer, through working with US group Medarex Inc.

US broker Lehman Bros describes biotech hopeful Xenova as an attractive early stage pipeline company. It closed 5p better at 62 1/2p.

Construction group MJ Gleeson slid 80p to 1207 1/2p following chairman Dermot Gleeson's agm warning that first-half pretax profits will be lower than the £5.3m last time, after cost overruns in the south-east division of Gleeson Homes.

Pubs group JD Wetherspoon closed as flat as a pint of home-made scrumpy at 393p, down 45 1/2p. Like-forlike sales to January 6 were up 3.7% on the year, a modest slowdown from the 6% improvement in November. Teather & Greenwood's Nigel Popham advised clients to sell because the rating is unsustainably high.

Floated on Aim at 97p in December, chemicals group Inditherm rose 18 1/4p to 147 1/4p. Institutions have been taking a closer look. The Fleming Mercantile Investment Trust owns 3.7%.

HOUSE broker Beeson Gregory describes b>Pacific Media (1.37p) as an attractive long-term buy. It has transformed itself into a focused TV home shopping and multi-channel operator. The appointment of Chris Stafford-Bush as chief operating officer has beefed up the management team. PM had £2.1m cash at the interims. This would have grown to £2.6m by the end of the year, and acquisitions are on the agenda.