Bid rumours keep shares on the boil

THE stock market ended the week on a high note with a combination of Wall Street and continuing takeover speculation keeping shares on the boil.

A major winner was Granada, the media and hotels giant, after selling the White Hart Hotels chain to Regal. Granada, which lately has been the centre of speculation that it might be broken up after setting up a separate media and television division, bounded ahead 23p to 797p.

Another media group, Pearson, also enjoyed a strong share rise. It raced up 20p to 721p on hopes that a new profit sharing scheme in banking subsidiary Lazard would feed into bigger profits for the group.

Manchester United was again heavily in demand on hopes that it will win the Premiership title after Liverpool defeated Newcastle United 4-3 last night. Manchester's share price gained 5p to 292p.

Profit taking took Burmah Castrol down 7p to £10.78 and Thorn EMI, which has risen spectacularly this week was marked 15p lower to £17.90.

Major changes BAT Industries up 20p to 508p, Ben Bailey down 21/2p to 27p, Division Group up 5p to 72p, Hambro Insurance up 10p to 94p, Nelson Hurst down 11p to 198p, Pearson up 20p to 721p, Rexam up 18p to 403p, Superscape VR down 72p to 598p, Granada up 23p to 797p, Thorn EMI down 15p to £17.90.