The French advertising giant unveiled a 49 per cent jump in first-half profits.Elsewhere, dealers reported heavy institutional demand for Sportingbet, 10.5p higher to 356p, and Empire Online, 13p better at 224p. We see this as unlikely to occur in the immediate future.” Meanwhile, Shire Pharmaceuticals added 11p to 655p after shareholders at TKT approved the takeover of the group by Shire. The UK pharmaceuticals company is tipped to reportsolid results today, boosted by strong sales of Adderall, its treatment for hyperactivity in children.WPP gained 9p to 596p after better-than-expected results from its rival Publicis. The US broker fears that recent takeover speculation has left Exel overvalued, and slashed its rating on the stock to “neutral” from “buy”.JP Morgan said: “In the absence of a bid, we calculate that a 14 per cent upgrade to 2006 profits forecasts is needed to justify a further rise in the shares. The last time BAE shares traded at current levels was almost three years ago, and ABN tips them to hit 340p soon.

It believes the group has been making good progress in recent years and is particularly impressed by strengthening cash flows at the company.ABN also applauded BAE’s acquisition of United Defence Industries in the US, which makes the company better diversified.Exel lost ground, falling 21p to 927p, after a downgrade from JP Morgan. Yesterday’s drop in O2 shares was certainly a setback for them as many had helped the stock hit a fresh all-time high of 144p earlier in the week.Dealers said Capital is unlikely to have paid much attention to the bid speculation. The fund manger is known to focus on taking sizeable positions in companies and holding them for as long as it takes for their value to reach a level that Capital believes its fair.Meanwhile, ABN Amro pushed BAE Systems shares to a new high for the year. The defence giant added 6.5p to 301.75p as the Dutch broker upgraded its recommendation on the stock to “add” from “hold”. This has been driven in part by a turnaround at O2’s once underperforming German division and by rumours of a bid for the company.In recent days, talk of an offer for the company has become increasingly loud, prompting City punters to pile into the stock en masse. The disposal sees Capital reduce its holding in Europe’s sixth-largest mobile phone operator from 7.5 per cent to 3.1 per cent and is a great coup for the California-based money manager.
It built the bulk of its shareholding in 2002, when O2 was unloved by investors and its shares tradedbelow 40p Since then, the stock has enjoyed an amazing renaissance. The placing, completed at 139p, raised more than half a billion pounds for the US fund management giant, and meant that O2 was easily the most heavily traded stock in the market yesterday.

O2 dropped 5p to 137.75p after Goldman Sachs sold 380 million shares on behalf of Capital Group. Bulls of O2 suffered a setback yesterday after the mobile phone group’s biggest shareholder cashed in on a significant chunk of its stake. Its clients can choose an interactive service that allows centres and retailers to monitor the data online in real time.. More than 40 per cent of the UK’s population are within the catchment area of these centres.

In London FootFall bases its figures on 500,000 visits a week to 13 retail outlets.FootFall uses overhead cameras at shopping centre entrances that contain software that can count the number of people passing through. The company, based in Solihull, West Midlands has 120 staff, most of whom hold shares.The company established its footfall index in November 2000, which economists used to track the impact on the high street of events such as the 2000 fuel crisis and the 11 September attacks.It uses cameras and thermal-imaging equipment to track 100 million shopper visits per month in more than 135 shopping centres. “We are growing quite strongly and are looking at an IPO next year although we get approached by other businesses that are interested,” said Mr Gallagher who along with co-founder Brian Barnes, owns a “big chunk” of the 40 per cent. David Smyth, its business planning director, said: “We are currently looking for an exit and have appointed advisers.”We are going through a beauty parade for a trade sale but the other option is an IPO [initial public offering] early next year.”John Gallagher, the joint founder and chief executive, said the company had achieved compound growth of 60 per cent a year over the last five years. Mortgage borrowing rose for the first time since April.Hints of buoyancy in the housing market were reflected in figures from the British Bankers’ Association showing a rise in mortgage approvals in June. Approvals – loans agreed but not yet made – hit a 12-month high of 70,750 in June, and were up 5 per cent from May But they were down 20 per cent compared with June 2004.. A company that produces figures on shopper numbers that have become vital for economists since the bombings this month, is consideringa stock-market flotation next year.

FootFall, which uses hi-tech devices to count the number of people entering shopping centres, has drawn up plans for a trade sale or flotation valuing the company at more than £30m.
Any change of ownership would deliver a windfall of at least £12m for the executives who own 40 per cent of the company. The rest of the company is owned by venture capital firms.FootFall was set up in 1991 as a technology company, selling customer-counting equipment to retailers, before it made information provision the focus of its business. It said its members repossessed 4,640 homes in the first half of the year, 51 per cent up on the second half of 2004.The CML stressed the numbers were “very small” compared with a peak of almost 39,000 in the second half of 1991. It said one in 2,500 mortgaged homes was repossessed compared with one in 250 in 1991. Peter Williams, its deputy director general, said: “It now seems the second half of 2004 marked the trough in .. repossessions.