FTSE 100 movers: St James's Place rallies; NatWest in the red

London's FTSE 100 was down 0.4% in afternoon trade on Thursday.

St James’s Place surged as FTSE 250 peer Hargreaves Lansdown said it had rejected a 985p per share takeover offer from a consortium comprising CVC, Nordic Capital and Platinum Ivy, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.

Rolls-Royce advanced after saying it had a strong start to the year despite continued industry-wide supply chain challenges.

Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust gained as it reported a positive return over the past year following two years of negative returns in both NAV and share price terms. The shares were also likely boosted by well-received results overnight from shareholding Nvidia.

Housebuilders Persimmon, Barratt and Taylor Wimpey all rose, having slumped a day earlier on the back of a higher-than-expected UK inflation print.

National Grid fell after results and as it announced a £7bn equity raise through a rights issue. Severn Trent, United Utilities and Centrica also fell

NatWest traded lower following reports that plans for a sale of shares in the bank to the general public have been put on hold after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called a general election for 4 July.

Whitbread lost ground as it traded without entitlement to the dividend.

FTSE 100 - Risers

St James's Place (STJ) 485.60p 4.16%
Rolls-Royce Holdings (RR.) 442.10p 2.94%
Scottish Mortgage Inv Trust (SMT) 893.80p 2.71%
Persimmon (PSN) 1,468.50p 2.44%
Barclays (BARC) 215.80p 2.01%
Barratt Developments (BDEV) 509.60p 2.00%
BAE Systems (BA.) 1,398.00p 1.75%
Melrose Industries (MRO) 622.40p 1.63%
Taylor Wimpey (TW.) 147.40p 1.62%
Schroders (SDR) 388.40p 1.52%

FTSE 100 - Fallers

National Grid (NG.) 1,012.00p -10.24%
RS Group (RS1) 757.50p -6.58%
Severn Trent (SVT) 2,533.00p -4.21%
United Utilities Group (UU.) 1,039.00p -3.99%
BT Group (BT.A) 125.25p -3.29%
Smith & Nephew (SN.) 989.60p -2.54%
Ocado Group (OCDO) 336.30p -1.92%
Whitbread (WTB) 2,993.00p -1.90%
Centrica (CNA) 144.95p -1.80%
SSE (SSE) 1,785.50p -1.76%