Virgin Media Inc (LON: VMED), SSE PLC (LON: SSE) and Victoria Oil & Gas plc (LON: VOG) are pushed down by the latest news.
The FTSE 100 rose back through the 6,300 level in morning trading, but then fell back a little to stand just four points up on 6,287 at the time of writing. Fresh concerns about debt in the eurozone seem to be causing some jitters in the otherwise steady bullish run we've seen so far this year.
While share price movements have been mostly upwards today, there are still some constituents of the various FTSE indices that are falling. Here are three dropping today:
Virgin Media
Shares in Virgin Media (LSE: VMED) dropped back 24p (1%) to 2,886p today, after revealing that it is to be taken over by US giant Liberty Global (NASDAQ: LBTYA.US). The deal, which will take the form of a stock and cash merger valued at $23.3bn, will create a broadband communications company with 25 million customers in 14 countries.
Todays fall came after a surge in the Virgin share price yesterday, when the company confirmed rumours that some sort of transaction was in the pipeline.
SSE
SSE (LSE: SSE) shares dropped 6.9p (0.5%) to 1,408p after the company agreed to sell four of its wind farms with a total capacity of 79.5MW, for £140 million. The buyer is a new fund set up by Greencoat Capital, in which SSE will invest up to £43m depending on subscription demand.
SSE will take power from three of the farms, and will continue the operation and maintenance of all four. The deal depends on Greencoat Capital listing on the London Stock Exchange and raising the capital for the purchase, and that is expected to happen by March.
Victoria
A new equity placing sent shares of Victoria Oil & Gas (LSE: VOG) down 15.3% to 1.74p, their lowest price of the year so far. The explorer, with assets in Cameroon and Russia, told us that the placing of 1.46 billion new shares at 1.6p each to raise £23 million had been oversubscribed. The firm says the new cash is sufficient to fund its long term objectives for its Logbaba Gas discovery in Cameroon and to meet its production targets for this year.
Longer term, Victoria plans to sell off its interests in Russia in order to focus solely on Africa.
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> Alan does not own any shares mentioned in this article.
