THE London market edged higher as Vodafone notched up its largest annual growth for eight years and the government renewed its pledge to push on with a Lloyds Banking Group share sale.
The mobile phone giant saw its shares rise after it posted annual earnings up by 2.7% to £11.6 billion as sales lifted 2.3% to £40.9 billion, boosted by operations in South Africa, Egypt and Turkey.
The FTSE 100 Index lifted 16.4 points to 6167.8, pushed up by results from Vodafone and a series of other positive corporate announcements.
Germany's Dax fell 0.6%, while the Cac 40 in France was 0.4% lower.
In stocks, Vodafone was up 3.4p to 227p as the group added that it has concluded its Project Spring investment programme, which has seen the world's second-largest mobile phone operator invest £19 billion on network upgrades.
Chief executive Vittorio Colao said: ''This has been a year of strong execution for the group, returning to organic growth in both revenue and EBITDA (underlying earnings) for the first time since 2008."
Shares in Lloyds Banking Group lifted after a fresh government announcement undertaking to sell stock to the public this financial year despite Chancellor George Osborne's move to postpone a retail offering in January amid market turmoil.
Harriett Baldwin, Economic Secretary to the Treasury, said she was "determined" the government will make Lloyds shares available to the public this year amid calmer markets, with a full return to the private sector in 2016-17.
But the government will only sell the shares when the stock rises above the 73.6p break-even level at which Lloyds was bailed out.
Shares lifted 1%, or 0.6p, to 67.3p.
Housebuilder Taylor Wimpey was a strong riser in the top flight after it upgraded its profit guidance for the year as the firm heralded positive growth in the UK housing market.
It also said that it will pay out a bigger dividend to shareholders in 2017, upping the award 26% to 13.8p a share, totalling £1.3 billion.
Taylor said it would pay a special £300 million dividend in July 2017 and increase its ordinary dividend.
Shares jumped by almost 5%, or 8.7p, to 193.6p.
Developer Land Securities, the firm behind the Walkie Talkie skyscraper in London, was another strong top flight performer, after posting robust full-year trading - but it warned a Brexit vote would "be painful for the property industry".
It said the value of its assets rose by 10.3% to 1482p a share in the period - while revenue profit, which includes joint ventures, was up 10% to £362 million.
But chief executive Robert Noel said a June Brexit vote over the short term would slow decision-making, drive down demand and lead to falling rents.
However, Land Securities shares lifted 2%, or 23p, to 1162p.
The biggest risers in the top flight were Ashtead up 51p at 927.5p, Taylor Wimpey up 8.7p at 193.6p, Inmarsat up 30.5p at 779p and DCC up 235p at 6385p.
The biggest fallers were Associated British Foods down 71p at 2980p, TUI down 24p at 1029p, Unilever down 56.5p at 3106.5p and Diageo down 33p at 1856p.
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