Sharewatch: Doubt Over WPP Deal As Aegis Scoops P&G

Speculation continued amongst traders yesterday concerning WPP‘s expected move to buy buy US rival Grey Group. The American firm yesterday lost its media planning account with Proctor & Gamble, one of the main attractions for a WPP bid.

The P&G account was scooped by Aegis, which dipped by 0.30%. WPP too saw a decline of 1.25% as interest in Grey, a purchase of which would bring an end to one of the few remaining independent advertising agencies, appeared to cool.

Elsewhere global information group Reuters fell by 4.15% to 323p as leading investment house Deutsche Bank cast doubt on its valuation, removing the company from its focus list and stating concern at the reduced opportunities for new business.

Also suffering a bad day’s trading yesterday was publishing giant, Reed Elsevier. The company slipped by 1.20% to 494p. The company recently announced the purchase of US data services group, Seisint in a deal worth $775 million (£417 million) (see Reed Acquires American Data Group Seisint).

Falling prices among banking stocks impacted the wider market yesterday, knocking the FTSE 100 down by 0.7% to 4,340.7 while the FTSE 250 slipped 0.5% to 6,043.

The closing prices of media company shares on Thursday were: