U.K. Stocks Declines as Mining Shares Retreat; Vedanta Drops

By Sarah Jones

June 12 (Bloomberg) -- U.K. stocks fell, led by mining companies as Vedanta Resources Plc announced a $1 billion convertible bond issue and base metals fell.

Vedanta, India’s largest copper producer, sank 7.8 percent. Antofagasta Plc and Xstrata Plc lost more than 3 percent as investors sold commodities after recent gains. Barclays Plc slid after BlackRock Inc. agreed to buy the lender’s investment unit.

The FTSE 100 Index fell 24.37, or 0.6 percent, to 4,437.5 at 2:13 p.m. in London, leaving the measure virtually unchanged for the week, after swinging between gains and losses more than 10 times today. The FTSE All-Share Index slipped 0.6 percent today, while Ireland’s ISEQ Index added 0.7 percent in Dublin.

Vedanta fell 7.8 percent to 1,610 pence after India’s largest copper producer said it is offering $1 billion of convertible bonds to help fund expansion plans. The offer may be increased by $250 million and JPMorgan Cazenove is the sole bookrunner.

Antofagasta, owner of copper mines in Chile, declined 5.4 percent to 665.5 pence as the base metal dropped in New York and London as the dollar advanced and investors sold commodities after recent gains. Xstrata, owner of the fourth-biggest copper producer, lost 3.9 percent to 744.5 pence.

Nickel, tin, lead and zinc also retreated on the London Metal Exchange.

Barclays lost 3.9 percent to 292.75 pence after the bank announced that BlackRock agreed to buy Barclays Global Investors for $13.5 billion to become the world’s largest money manager.

The U.K. lender will hold a 19.9 percent stake in the combined company. Financing will include $2.8 billion from the sale of equity to institutional investors and as much as $2 billion in loans from Barclays and other banks.

The following stocks also gained or fell in the U.K. market. Stock symbols are in parentheses.

AstraZeneca Plc (AZN LN) rallied 81 pence, or 3.2 percent, to 2,598 as UBS AG added the drugmaker to its “European focus list” and raised its price estimate in the shares by 11 percent to 3,100 pence.

Berkeley Group Holdings Plc (BKG LN) dropped 28 pence, or 3.5 percent, to 767 after Nomura Holdings Inc. today placed 4.5 million shares of the British Homebuilder.

Earlier this week, Citigroup Inc. and Credit Suisse Group AG sold 144 million pounds ($237 million) worth of shares that were own by Saudi billionaire Maan al-Sanea’s Saad Group.

BT Group Plc (BT/A LN) rallied 4.4 pence, or 4.7 percent, to 97.4 after Bank of America Corp. upgraded Britain’s largest phone company to “buy” from “neutral,” citing a “new era of cost control and pricing discipline.”

GlaxoSmithKline Plc (GSK LN) increased 41 pence, or 3.9 percent, to 1,099.5 as the World Health Organization declared the first pandemic since 1968. Glaxo today said it said it started developing an adjuvanted vaccine against the pandemic flu strain known as A(H1N1).

To contact the reporter on this story: Sarah Jones in London at sjones35@bloomberg.net.