London midday: Footsie at year-high

London's blue chips hit their best level since September last year as buyers charged in again following the strong performance on Wall Street last week.There are strong risers in most sectors with the notable exception of banks where Barclays and Lloyds Banking are both lower.Banking giant Barclays has fallen despite reports its contemplating selling off a £4bn chunk of toxic assets.Crude prices up near $73 a barrel helped BP and Royal Dutch Shell gain ground Monday. Old Mutual, Standard Life and Legal & General also featured on investors' shopping lists.Index heavyweight Vodafone is going well, along with Unilever, Shire and Segro. The long running soap opera revolving around the chairman role at TV broadcaster ITV took another twist as the two leading candidates withdrew from the running. Former Reed Elsevier boss Sir Crispin Davies and former BMI boss Sir Michael Bishop have both ruled themselves out. The market has taken the news well so far. Troubled sportswear group JJB Sports has confirmed its plans for a rights issue to raise £100m are now back on track after it suspended the cash call on Friday after rumours surrounding executive chairman Sir David Jones. JJB said these rumours are totally unfounded and it has given Sir David its full backing. It added its cash call plans have also been well-received sending the shares higher.Carillion, the support services company, is to sell its environmental consultancy business Enviros. Engineering, sciences and project delivery firm, Sinclair Knight Merz, is paying around £27m (net) in cash for Enviros. The funds will be used to reduce Carillion's debt.Diversified miner Xstrata has agreed to sell its 70% interest in El Morro, which operates a copper-gold mine in Chile, to gold miner Barrick Gold for $465m. Xstrata chief executive Charlie Sartain said the project, which is also known as El Morro, would create more value as part of Barrick's portfolio.Punch Taverns is lower on weekend reports it will take a £600m write-off on its pub estate with its results this week, which will also be poor according to the stories. Enterprise Inns is down in sympathy.Credit lender International Personal Finance (IPF) said it had seen a recovery in trading that will result in its full year performance being 'materially ahead of current market expectations' if it continues.Market researcher and polling group YouGov fell into losses in the year to July 31, but said it was winning market share.Higher margins will help profits come in higher than expected this year at telco billing software group Intec.