FTSE 100 movers: Beazley rallies on Zurich stake disclosure; BP, Shell gush lower

(Sharecast News) - London's FTSE 100 was 1% higher at 10,322.33 in afternoon trade on Monday. Beazley rallied after Zurich Insurance disclosed a stake of just under 1.5% in the London-listed insurer, after a recent takeover approach was rejected.

Zurich said in a filing that as of 30 January, it holds just over 8.86m shares in Beazley.

On 22 January, Beazley said it had rejected a £7.7bn takeover offer from Zurich Financial as it "materially undervalues" the company and its longer-term prospects. The 1,280p a share cash offer for Beazley followed an earlier approach made by Zurich on 4 January at 1,230p a share, which was rejected on 16 January.

Defensive stocks were on the rise, with caterer Compass Group, Coca-Cola, AstraZeneca and consumer goods giant Unilever all up.

Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, pointed out that in an environment where gold and silver assets haven't proved to be as reliable havens as some people hoped and many tech stocks have run out of steam, "the natural place to hide is defensives".

"For some investors, a slice of toast and Marmite, and a headache tablet is just the job when markets are in a spin," he said.

"For others, buying the companies that sell these goods is also a much-needed tonic. That's why shares in consumer goods groups Unilever and Reckitt, healthcare products specialist Haleon, and various Coca-Cola bottling companies were in vogue on the UK market. In theory, their sales could be ticking over regardless of what's happening on financial markets."

Precious metals miner Fresnillo was down but off earlier lows as gold prices eased off heavy losses.

Oil giants BP and Shell were also weaker as oil prices fell amid signs of a de-escalation in Iran-US tensions.