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Dealers were unsure who is behind the two companies but indicated that further buying by

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Dealers were unsure who is behind the two companies but indicated that further buying by the two is probable.Character Group put on 1p to 54p after its chairman, Richard King, bought 25,000 shares at 55p. Multi now becomes a cash shell and its management said they are looking at a number of acquisitions via which they can re-launch the company.Multi was close to collapse at the end of last year and was bailed out thanks to a refinancing package backed by the serial entrepreneur Bob Morton. The broker believes investors should switch out of Matalan and into Woolworths , down 0.75p to 42p.Warner Chilcott , formerly known as Galen, jumped 29p to 629p in response to Friday's late breaking news that the company had won a key patent victory. Advising investors to use the strength in Matalan's share price as a selling opportunity, the broker said: "We think there is weak rationale behind such a move by the US group."Wal-Mart has 20 per cent of the value-clothing market, the same as Matalan, according to Arbuthnot, and all acquiring Matalan would do is give it an alternative out-of-town presence, which could cannibalise its existing stores. A US court found in favour of the Northern Irish group and its partner in a battle against a rival manufacturer which wanted to start producing a copycat version of Warner Chilcott's Sarafem antidepressant.Lower down the pecking order, Multi Group jumped 0.37p to 6.12p after selling its tool hire business to Speedy Hire , unchanged at 420p, for £7.1m. In the US, the top 1 per cent of wealth owners owned one-third of total wealth in 1983 but this had risen to 38 per cent by 1998, and the top 5 per cent owned 59 per cent. By comparison, the bottom 60 per cent owned less than 5 per cent of total wealth (chart 3).What is remarkable about the US is that the group which has increased its share is just the top 1 per cent of wealth owners The other 99 per cent have seen their share fall.

This is very different from Britain, where the top 50 per cent have all gained, and it supports Professor Krugman's claim that America is moving back towards the gilded age of capitalism.The number of American millionaire households rose from 2.4 million in 1983 to 4.8 million in 1998, and the number of households with net worth of more than $10m increased almost fourfold from 66,000 to 240,000, with almost all the growth since 1992.A similar picture holds regarding incomes. Fuel is usually an airline's second-largest cost after labour. BA's rival easyJet fell 1.25p to 146.75p and Ryanair lost €0.1 to €4.4 ahead of today's first-quarter figures.Matalan rose 1p to 210.5p, although Arbuthnot Securities was heard advising its clients to ignore recent talk of a bid for the discount retailer from the US giant Wal-Mart. British Airways lost 6.5p to 224.5p as analysts pointed out that the price of jet fuel is at a 14-year high.

Argonaut said it would report a loss of about £6m for the year to end-July 2004, after suffering delays to the signing of a number of new development contracts.In the FTSE 100 index, Man Group , the hedge fund group, continued to slide It fell 58p to 1,250p. Elsewhere in the sector, Argonaut Games slumped 1.37p to 4.5p on the back of a profits warning. He is rumoured to have lost up to £7m as a result.Just after the close of business, Eidos released a statement about its Championship Manager 5 game, which will soon be available on the PlayStation and Xbox consoles. Back in May, Eidos was rumoured to have cost Robert Bonnier, the former Scoot boss, dearly. Mr Bonnier is said to have piled into the stock, building up an 8 per cent holding, shortly beforethe group's second profits warning of the year. Although they made a lot of money on Abbey they, more recently, lost a lot betting on a takeover of MFI.

Four years ago Eidos abandoned merger talks with its French rival Infogrames but recent speculation has centred on American players Activision and Electronic Arts as the most likely buyers of the company.Whether the "hot players" get it right on Eidos only time will tell. It complained that its small size prevented it from developing enough new products for the next generation of games consoles and so initiated a strategic review. The company in effect hoisted the "for sale" sign in June after a massive profits warning sent its shares crashing. Such talk left Eidos up 10.5p higher at 107p on the day. A bid for Eidos is without doubt a possibility. Dealers reported buying by a number of "hot players" said to among those who correctly predicted the bid for Abbey from Banco Santander. Eidos, the creator of Tomb Raider star Lara Croft, has always been a favourite among City punters and yesterday they piled into the computer games developer in the hope of a bid for the group.

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