Rooney rumours lift Man U

AS fans of the Red Devils dreamt about England wonder kid Wayne Rooney signing for £25m and lining up in the famous red shirt against Lyons, Sparta Prague and Fernabache in the lucrative European Champions League, shares of

There was confusion after-hours about who had possibly sold what to whom. Dealers waited in vain for confirmation, but it never came. Speculation about a full-scale bid for the world's richest football club has been rife since 1999. With more than 50% of the club's equity in entrepreneurs' hands its easy to see why.

Irish horse-racing multimillionaires JP McManus and John Magnier hold 28.9% via their vehicle Cubic Expression. Malcolm Glazer, who owns the Tampa Bay Buccaneers American football team in Florida, sits on 19.2% and Harry Dobson, a director of Ovoca Resources, has 6.5%.

Glazer recently put £380m worth of property on the auction block, fuelling speculation that he was at last preparing to bid for ManU. Perhaps he has bought all or a large slug of the Irishmen's stake and then he would have to bid under UK takeover rules.

Glazer could even buy Dobson's stock to take him to just under 30%, preventing him from tabling a formal offer, but giving him a much bigger slice of the cake.

There have been murmurings in the High Street that super-rich Scottish entrepreneur Tom Hunter wants to sell his 11% stake - worth around £30m - in House of Fraser.

He bought his shareholding in the department store two years ago and is sitting on a nice profit, so why not trouser it? There has also been suggestions that interim results on September 19 will be accompanied by a JJB Sports-type profits warning blaming the recent spate of wet weather.

But the HoF share price has taken it all on the chin and yesterday closed 1/4p dearer at 114 1/4p. In her strong buy note sent to clients yesterday, Arbuthnot analyst Gillian Hilditch said current renegotiation of its store card offers exciting upside of up to around £207m (89p per share).

HoF makes no profits at all from its 1m store cards under the terms of a contract agreed with GE 13 years ago. That will soon change. HoF is now in negotiations with several other financial providers and will either remain with GE or switch to another provider and offer a profit share arrangement as well as some cash up front. Even without the store card, the shares look inexpensive, says Hilditch.

Up for the sixth day on the trot, the Footsie closed 42.3 points higher at the day's best of 4453.9. An easier oil price and comments made by a Bank of England MPC member suggesting that UK interest rates do not have a lot further to rise helped maintain the bullish momentum.

Wall Street traded 21 points lower in the early stages.

Perennial takeover favourite Legal & General rose 2 3/4p to 99 1/2p, while Prudential gained 9 3/4p to 441 3/4p.

Awaiting further developments in the Abbey National/Banco Santander bid situation, Abbey improved 2 1/2p to 589p. Dealers are confident that the Spaniards will walk away emptyhanded and Abbey will eventually climb into bed with HBOS (3 1/2p better at 685p) or Lloyds TSB (7p up at 417 1/2p).

Down from £6-plus since new boss James Murdoch shocked the City by changing the pay-TV giant's growth targets, BSkyB rallied 13 1/2p to 491p. Fund managers have begun to dip their toes believing the stock is oversold.

Citigroup Smith Barney advised clients to buy ITV (2 3/4p better at 105p) ahead of interim figures on September 9.

The easing of fuel costs and vague bid talk lifted discount airline easyJet 10 1/2p to 150 1/2p.

Aim-quoted Financial Development Corporation, the renamed PR group Hansard, rallied 4p to 32p after announcing that overdue subscription monies had been received from major investor Terry Ramsden.

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WEBSITE management software specialist Mediasurface once flirted with the idea of a float, but the tech market crash put paid to that.

Almost four years later and now much leaner and meaner and chaired by Sage's Michael Jackson, it has arrived. Placed on Aim at 12p by KBC Peel Hunt, the shares closed at 13p. Blue chip customers include Associated Newspapers, EMI, Nato, Prudential and Aegon. Interesting.