By Sara Sjolin, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- U.K.'s FTSE 100 index broke a two-day
losing streak on Wednesday, with AstraZeneca lifting the benchmark
after a group of shareholders tried to revive the Pfizer bid.
The FTSE 100 index rose 0.3% to close at 6,821.04, after trading
as low as 6,782.80 earlier in the day.
Shares of AstraZeneca PLC (AZN) picked up 2.6% after the drug
maker's sixth largest investor, Legal & General Group PLC ,
urged the board to reconsider a takeover offer from U.S. pharma
giant Pfizer Inc. (PFE), according to The Wall Street Journal.
AstraZeneca on Monday rejected a "final" takeover offer from Pfizer
worth 55 pounds ($92) a share.
Shares of Burberry Group PLC (BURBY) ended 0.2% higher, paring
back from a gain as big as 1.8%, after the luxury-goods firm
reported a 17% rise in full-year revenue and said it would invest
in opening more stores in Japan.
Posting the biggest loss in the U.K. benchmark, shares of Wm
Morrison Supermarkets PLC dropped 2.2% after Deutsche Bank cut the
food retailer to sell from hold. The analysts argued that after a
10% rally over the past two weeks, there aren't enough strong
fundamentals to push the stock higher.
More broadly, investors in the U.K. digested the latest minutes
from the Bank of England, which economists at Berenberg said had a
hawkish tone. All nine members of the Monetary Policy Committee
voted in favor of keeping interest rates at a record low of 0.5%
and making no changes to the 375 billion pound ($632 billion)
quantitative-easing program at the meeting earlier in May, but the
minutes showed there was a range of views on the future
interest-rate path.
Further strengthening the case for a rate hike, data showed U.K.
retail-sales annual growth was the strongest in almost a decade in
April.
The pound (GBPUSD) rose after the minutes and the retail data,
trading at $1.6877, up from $1.6842 late Tuesday.
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