Utilities lifted by Severn Trent bid interest Severn Trent's shares are already up more than 18 per cent after the water utility, long linked with potential bid interest, named its suitors and helped the wider London index hold steady. The stock easily topped the leaderboard, up 18.5 per cent to £21.62 after the statement named Borealis Infrastructure Management, the Kuwait Investment Office and Universities Superannuation Scheme as the bidders. There was a read-across for Severn's peers on hopes more dealmaking could follow - United Utilities rose 3.7 per cent to 767p and took second place. National Grid, the electricity distributor, was 1 per cent higher at 842.5p. Mid-cap water stock Pennon Group was 6 per cent higher at 705p. The gains helped keep the FTSE 100 steady - it ticked 3 points higher to 6,635.90 - while wider European indices were also flat, but with a slight bias to the downside. Resource stocks were knocked by profit-taking after their lead role in the wider risk rally. Anglo American opened down 1.8 per cent at 925.5p, while Vedanta slipped 1.2 per cent to £12.65. Shares in Babcock were prominent on the leaderboard after the engineering support services provider reported a 16 per cent rise in annual profit before tax of £317.8m. It also lifted its dividend to 20p per share, giving a total payout for 2013 of 26.3p, also up 16 per cent. Betfair fell 3.4 per cent to 864.5p after it ended takeover discussions with CVC Capital Partners. The private equity firm said it would not make a third revised offer for the online gambling company. CVC and its consortium partners had raised their offer twice from the 880p a share they proposed on April 22. On the FTSE 250, numbers from ICAP were well-received as profit at the interdealer broker fell, but met expectations. It said earnings were 20 per cent weaker at £284m after what it called "an extraordinarily tough year" in the financial markets. The FTSE 250 index was up 0.1 per cent to 14,320.9 by mid-morning.