London’s FTSE 100 was up 1.4% at 10,360 in afternoon trade on Thursday.
United Utilities surged as it unveiled plans to raise £800m to help fund a wide-ranging, multi-billion pound investment in its infrastructure. Severn Trent, British Gas owner Centrica, National Grid and SSE also rose.
Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said: “Plans for a massive flood of investment…has created an unusual level of excitement for a part of the stock market historically seen as pretty boring.
“The plan to support areas like data centres, clean energy and new homes is being taken as a game changer by investors for now, although delivering on this big programme of spending and remaining on time and on budget is the big challenge for the company.”
Rolls-Royce was also higher as it held guidance after making a strong start to the year across all divisions as it moved quickly to mitigate the impact of the Iran war.
Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG, said: “2026 has not run as smoothly as 2025 for Rolls’ share price but after a very choppy couple of months this morning’s update seems to have done enough to reassure the doubters.
“Rolls’ diversified business means it is better placed to weather the potential storm of lower airliner demand, thanks to the ongoing surge in military spending, and now the shares trade at a much less demanding valuation than was the case eight weeks ago.”
Standard Chartered rallied as the bank’s first-quarter profits came in ahead of expectations, driven by strong growth in the blue chip’s wealth business.
Persimmon advanced as the housebuilder hailed a good start to the year but also flagged early signs of increased inflationary pressure.
Weir Group slumped as it traded without entitlement to the dividend and on news that long-standing chief executive Jon Stanton is planning to step down.
Whitbread fell as it announced a new five-year plan that will involve the sale and leaseback of £1.5bn of its freehold properties, target £2bn of free cash flow, reduce gross capital expenditure by £1bn and result in the loss of around 3,800 jobs as it does away with its chain of branded restaurants.
DCC lost ground after saying it had rejected a 5,800p per share cash takeover proposal from US investment firms Energy Capital Partners and KKR.
FTSE 100 – Risers
United Utilities Group (UU.) 1,482.50p 12.96%
Severn Trent (SVT) 3,316.00p 8.86%
Rolls-Royce Holdings (RR.) 1,169.80p 7.15%
Standard Chartered (STAN) 1,852.60p 3.43%
Centrica (CNA) 212.90p 3.15%
Antofagasta (ANTO) 3,536.00p 3.10%
Persimmon (PSN) 1,055.00p 2.63%
National Grid (NG.) 1,310.20p 2.33%
SSE (SSE) 2,624.00p 2.30%
St James’s Place (STJ) 1,204.00p 2.25%
FTSE 100 – Fallers
Smurfit Westrock (DI) (SWR) 2,719.00p -7.15%
Weir Group (WEIR) 2,634.00p -4.56%
Whitbread (WTB) 2,305.00p -3.44%
DCC (CDI) (DCC) 5,750.00p -2.47%
Autotrader Group (AUTO) 499.10p -1.87%
Flutter Entertainment (DI) (FLTR) 7,896.00p -1.80%
Pershing Square Holdings Ltd NPV (PSH) 4,082.00p -1.40%
IG Group Holdings (IGG) 1,503.50p -1.38%
Entain (ENT) 547.00p -1.37%
Rightmove (RMV) 433.50p -1.34%