The hardest thing I do in the morning is decide what type of day I'm going to have and what phones to pack." He does, he cheerfully admits, walk around with a bag full of phones all day "Well, they're for different purposes," he says. Despite his lofty position at the world's biggest mobile phone company, giving Frank Nuovo a quick call could prove problematic "I have my sports phones, my luxury phones, my communicator At least three different numbers. Mr Ashley would certainly have had the firepower to buy the group. He is reported to be worth £500m.Finally, United Clearing was steady at 132.5p despite the sale of 6,200 shares at 130p by Michael van Klink, its finance director.. Before this, Sports World, which owns the Sports Soccer chain and the London store Lillywhites, had been seen as a possible bidder for Umbro. Umbro shares came under selling pressure this week after it emerged that Sports World International, the vehicle of the retail entrepreneur Mike Ashley, cut its stake in the group to 3.9 per cent.
Investec Securities applauded the coup and said: "We are increasingly certain Pursuit Dynamics will become a major food-manufacturing equipment player over the next decade as, one by one, major manufacturers start to adopt its technology."Umbro jumped 13.25p to 146p amid talk of a possible bid for the sports equipment brand. BOC improved 5p to 1,046p after Deutsche Bank upgraded the gases group to "buy" from "hold". The German broker expects BOC to achieve substantial growth in the years ahead, driven by its Asia operations.Among the smaller companies, Pursuit Dynamics improved 4.5p to 205p on news that the technology developer had secured yet another customer in the food and beverage arena for its PDX system. Cazenove raised its rating on WPP to "outperform" from "neutral" and tipped next week's interim results from the group to impress the City.
It believes the advertising group will have benefited from the recent strength of the US dollar against Sterling. However, analysts suggested that a deal could take some time to finalise.WPP gained 5.5p to 602.5p as Cazenove became the second heavyweight broker to upgrade its stance on the advertising giant in as many days. BAE is said to have decided to open the books of the business to the likes of Thales of France, Italy's Finmeccanica and Germany's ThyssenKrupp. The German bank has long been tipped as vulnerable to takeover and in recent weeks its shares have soared amid ever-stronger rumours of a bid. Neither RBS nor Commerzbank was willing to comment on the speculation. Analysts poured cold water on any talk that RBS was about to make a move on the German bank. They pointed out that just this week, in the wake of its purchase of a stake in Bank of China, RBS management ruled out making any acquisitions in Europe.BAE Systems rose 7.5p to 322.5p on reports that the defence group is planning the sale of its German naval systems unit, Atlas Elektronik.