* FTSE up 2 pct
* Oil majors lifted by rising crude prices
* Banks gain on investor confidence
By Farah Master
LONDON, March 23 (Reuters) - Britain's leading share index
rose 1.4 percent on Monday, as a U.S. plan to purge banks of up
to $1 trillion in toxic assets boosted investor confidence,
lifting commodity stocks and financials.
By 1128 GMT, the FTSE 100 index <> was 54.65 points
higher at 3,897.50. The blue-chip index gained 6.3 percent last
week and closed 25.92 points higher at 3,842.85 on Friday, but
is still down 11.9 percent this year.
The U.S. government is putting in as much as $100 billion
from its bailout fund in an attempt to coax private investors to
buy up toxic assets worth up to $1 trillion from debt-ridden
banks. []
"It (U.S. bank plan) has really had a positive impact on the
UK market," said Richard Hunter, head of UK equities at
Hargreaves Landsdown.
"There has been a fairly broad brush mark up at the moment
in anticipation of there actually being some meat on the bones.
It's very much an opportunity for the U.S. government to nail
down what the exact details of the plan are going to be," Hunter
said.
Oil majors lifted the index as crude <CLc1> rose towards
$53 a barrel, continuing its fifth week of gains.
Royal Dutch Shell <RDSa.L> and BP <BP.L> rose 2.3 and 1.5
percent, respectively. BG Group <BG.L> was up 2.6 percent, also
supported by news the oil company had acquired 70 percent of
Australian coal seam gas producer Pure Energy. []
Financials made broad gains, led by Barclays <BARC.L> which
rose 9.9 percent after news the bank is offering to finance the
purchase of its iShares fund unit. []
HSBC <HSBA.L>, Standard Chartered <STAN.L> Lloyds Banking
Group <LLOY.L> and Royal Bank of Scotland <RBS.L> were up
between 2.9 percent and 6.3 percent.
COMMODITY BOOST
Miners were helped by a surge in the copper price to its
highest in over four months on evidence of robust Chinese import
demand and investor optimism over the U.S. bank plan.
Rio Tinto <RIO.L>, Anglo-American <AAL.L> and BHP Billiton
<BLT.L> were up between 2.7 percent and 7.3 percent. Xstrata
<XTA.L> was up 2.5 percent after the mining company said
acquisition opportunities are developing in the mining sector,
the Wall Street Journal reported.
Life insurers were also buoyant as sentiment towards the
sector improved following broadly reassuring full-year results
from the main industry players since the start of March.
Old Mutual <OML.L> was the top FTSE 100 riser, up 10.3
percent, while Legal & General <LGEN.L>, Aviva <AV.L>,
Prudential <PRU.L> and Friends Provident <FP.L> added between
2.8 percent and 3.9 percent. However, Standard Life <SL.L> fell
1.2 percent.
Shares in Vodafone <VOD.L> rose 0.5 percent after it
announced a European network deal with Spain's Telefonica
<TEF.MC>. []
Travel and leisure companies fell with Thomas Cook <TCG.L>
down 2 percent. Shares in Europe's biggest travel firm TUI
Travel <TT.L> fell 1.8 percent while shares in Whitbread
<WTB.L>, Britain's biggest hotel operator, fell 1.1 percent.
Shares in utility company Centrica <CNA.L> fell 1.9 percent
following newspaper reports on Sunday the company would meet
executives of Venture Production <VPC.L> on Monday to discuss a
takeover of the UK independent oil and gas firm. []
(Editing by Simon Jessop)
