By Rebekah Curtis
LONDON, March 28 (Reuters) - Britain’s top share index
traded flat by midday on Friday, as Enterprise Inns surged on
hopes of becoming a low-tax real estate investment trust, but
banks offset gains after the sector was battered on Wall Street.
By 1148 GMT the FTSE 100 .FTSE was down 4.8 points or 0.1
percent at 5,712.4. The index has shed more than 11 percent so
far this year due to investors’ concerns over a likely U.S.
recession and as credit markets appeared to have worsened.
“It doesn’t seem to have much energy or momentum to push
higher,” Neil Parker, a strategist at Royal Bank of Scotland
said of the market.
“We could be going back lower again. The nervousness
surrounding the UK economy generally is causing people a lot of
distress.”
Enterprise Inns (ETI.L: Quote, Profile, Research) jumped 10 percent. It also announced
it had put off a refinancing and said current trading was tough.
Elsewhere, U.S. stocks fell on Thursday, hit by talk Lehman
could suffer a fate similar to the near-collapse of Bear Stearns
(BSC.N: Quote, Profile, Research), but Lehman called the rumours “totally unfounded”.
Most UK banks fell. Lloyds TSB (LLOY.L: Quote, Profile, Research) dropped about 1
percent after saying Terri Dial, group executive director of UK
retail banking at the firm, decided to leave the group. Earlier
the Wall Street journal said Dial would move to Citigroup (C.N: Quote, Profile, Research).
Citigroup declined to comment.
Continued…
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