Shire up in London; BSkyB, ITV off after BT soccer deal

LONDON (MarketWatch) — The U.K.'s FTSE 100 index moved higher on Monday, with shares of Shire PLC among major advancers after an acquisition, while British Sky Broadcasting Group PLC and ITV PLC declined after rival BT Group won the rights to broadcast Champions League soccer matches.

The benchmark index (UK:UKX)  added 0.3% to close at 6,728.37, building on a 0.2% gain from Friday.

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Shares of Shire (UK:SHP)  climbed 0.9% after the drug maker said it is buying rare-disease company ViroPharma Inc. (VPHM)  for $4.2 billion, or $50 a share. ViroPharma jumped 25% in the U.S.

Read more on the Shire, ViroPharma deal.

Hammerson PLC (UK:HMSO)  gained 0.8% after the property-development and investment firm said it is seeing ongoing signs of recovery in its markets and it is "well-positioned to capitalize" on those opportunities.

The broadcasting sector was also in the spotlight after BT Group PLC (UK:BT.A) bought the rights to broadcast live Champions League and Europa League soccer matches for 897 million pounds ($1.4 billion). Shares of BT Group inched 0.5% higher.

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The rights are currently held by rivals British Sky Broadcasting (UK:BSY) , whose shares skidded 10.9%, and ITV PLC (UK:ITV) , which fell 1.6%. Nomura cut BSkyB to reduce from buy, while Citigroup said ITV is probably the bigger casualty of BT's rights acquisition and lowered the rating to neutral from buy.

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"On BSkyB, while not welcome, we think this is handle-able and would see significant weakness as an opportunity to buy the shares," the Citi analysts said.

Shares of RSA Insurance Group PLC (UK:RSA)  slid 10.5% after the company late Friday issued a profit warning for the full year and said it had suspended the chief executive and chief financial officer of its Irish division, as it investigates issues that were identified during a routine audit.

Credit Suisse cut the insurance firm to underperform from neutral following the announcement of problems with the Irish business.

Sage Group PLC (UK:SGE)  added 1.3% after the software firm appointed Steve Hare as its chief financial officer effective Jan. 3 to replace Paul Harrison, who stepped down in August.

Outside the main index in London, shares of Lonmin PLC (UK:LMI)  added 3.9% after the platinum miner said it swung to profit on the full year as it recovered from the effects of a violent strike last year.