Sharewatch: Stock Upgrade Fuels Cable & Wireless Rise

Television and internet giant Cable & Wireless saw a 2.30% rise yesterday, pushing the company’s share price up to 122źp as city bank ING upgraded the firm’s status to ‘buy’ and increased its price target to 165p from 142p.

BSkyB also saw a rise, climbing by 0.22% to 694p following the company’s decision to auction off the rights to eight Premiership football matches. Sky had originally paid more than £1 billion for its package of matches but has been forced by the European Commission to release control of some games to other broadcasters (see Sky Kicks Off Premiership Auction After EC Ruling).

Aegis suffered a 0.52% dip to close at 95˝p yesterday as its UK and Ireland chief executive, Mark Craze, unexpectedly resigned after fifteen years at the helm of the global advertising company (see Craze Steps Down From Aegis After Fifteen Years).

A strong start by Wall Street pushed the FTSE 100 up 0.7% to 4,571.8 while the FTSE 250 added 0.3% to rise to 6,313.8.

The closing prices of media company shares on Thursday were:

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