Tullow advances in lacklustre London
By Neil Hume
Published: June 20 2007 08:56 | Last updated: June 20 2007 19:59
The strong run of Tullow Oil, the FTSE 250 oil exploration and production company, continued Wednesday.
Tullow shares had jumped 12.5 per cent on Monday after the company announced a significant find off the coast of Ghana.
Wednesday, they climbed a further 12.9 per cent to a record high of 504½p after a big push from Merrill Lynch, the company’s joint broker
Adding the stock to its Europe 1 Focus List of recommended stocks and increasing its target price to 560p, Merrill said Monday’s news had made Tullow one of the sector’s strongest M&A candidates.
It also said Tullow’s Ugandan assets were undervalued. Merrill said the Ugandan portfolio could be worth at least 442p (on an unrisked basis) based on recent data from Tullow’s partner in the country, Heritage Oil.
In the wider market, leading shares ran out steam after a bright start. Up 42 points in early trading, the FTSE drifted to close 0.9 points lower at 6,649.3. Traders blamed the apathy on the counter attractions of Royal Ascot and the hawkish minutes from the last meeting of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee.
Elsewhere, the FTSE 250 fell 19.7 points, or 0.2 per cent, to 11,797.5.
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