London pre-open: Stocks expected to rise as M&A picks up, Shell takes over BG Group

UK stocks are expected to extend gains on Wednesday morning despite an impressive jump the previous day, as sentiment remains buoyed by a raft of M&A activity.

City sources predict the FTSE 100 will open 38 points higher than Tuesday's close of 6,961.77, after having risen 1.9% the previous session.

BG Group confirmed speculation that oil major Royal Dutch Shell has made a cash and share offer valuing the natural gas outfit at £47bn.

Accendo Markets senior trader Marc Kimsey said "we're just getting started" with M&A in the oil sector, with the Shell-BG deal likely to prompt a bout of industry consolidation.

"The decline in oil price over the past year has battered some stocks which are clearly now looking attractive," he said.

Meanwhile, press reports were also highlighting the possibility of an approach by French media giant Vivendi for Sky and a Google takeover of Twitter.

Stocks to watch

Shell's bid values BG at around 1,350p per share, a 50% premium to its closing price of 910.4p on Tuesday. The offer has been recommended by BG's board, with chairman Andrew Gould saying it represents "an attractive return" for shareholders.

Budget airline Easyjet has reported an acceleration in annual passenger growth and fuller planes for March. Passengers, as measured by the number of earned seats flown, rose at a year-on-year rate of 7.5% last month to 5.49m, compared with the 6.1% growth seen in February. The load factor for March improved by 1.1 percentage points (pp) over March 2014 to 92.6%.