Kurdistan oil groups on the rise The change could be transformational for Kurdish explorers and producers, who have been held back by low-volume, low-margin domestic sales and trucked exports. The KRG said it will pay an initial $75m (£47.3m) to Kurdistan-focused oil producers, a sum that will be followed by regular payments. Elsewhere in the oil and gas sector, news that Cairn Energy had made an oil discovery at its SNE-1 well off the coast of Senegal sent the explorer surging 19.1p to 177p. Lucas Herrmann, also of Deutsche Bank, said the find could add about 25p a share to consensus estimates for Cairn's net asset value. Canny punters were betting last week on good news from Senegal. Shares in Cairn rose 3.5pc on Friday after some traders picked up on an announcement from FAR Ltd, which also has an interest in SNE-1. Australia-listed FAR asked for trading in its shares to be halted pending an update from Senegal. The wider market also gained ground, with the FTSE 100 advancing 44.01 points to 6,611.25 and the FTSE 250 up 131.7 at 15,596.23. Serco was the focus for many investors. Its shares plunged in heavy trading volume to close down 102.1p at a 10-year low of 215p, after sounding another profit warning and disclosing plans to raise £550m from a rescue rights issue. Other corporate updates received a more positive response. Shares in Aveva, which rattled investors with a warning of its own in September, climbed 105p to £15 in the wake of half-year results from the engineering software group. Analysts had downgraded their forecasts following Aveva's profit alert and the numbers posted by the company yesterday met the reduced estimates. Annuities group Just Retirement added 6p to 131½p on a well-received set of first-quarter numbers. Meanwhile, Lonmin, the South African platinum miner, said it had identified costs cuts and ways of improving productively equal to 2bn rand (£112m) over three years, sending the shares 7.6p higher to 195p. The group was hit by the unrest in South Africa's platinum belt and is attempting to shore up its balance sheet. Analysts at Liberum said, if platinum prices did not improve, "Lonmin will have to consider a further capital raise in the next 18 months." J Sainsbury is due to announce its own shake-up on Wednesday, when it unveils the results of a strategic review to combat falling sales. Shares in the grocer were down 6.9 at 254.7p on Monday amid concern about the measures bosses will take to fight discounters Aldi and Lidl. "We expect to hear about re-engineering, cost cutting and productivity opportunities but, with sales densities falling, cost ratios rising and gross margins restricted due to competitive pressures, we see little prospect for growth," said David McCarthy, at HSBC. Mr McCarthy repeated his "underweight" rating and 220p target price on Sainsbury's shares. While Sainsbury's was the biggest faller in the FTSE 100, rival Tesco enjoyed the single biggest rise. The grocer jumped 8.45p to 192.9p after an influential analyst turned positive on the company's prospects. Bruno Monteyne, of Sanford C Bernstein, upgraded his rating on Tesco to "outperform" after concluding that a rights issue by the company is now less likely, putting a 25pc probability on a fund-raising. "New CEO Dave Lewis missed his first opportunity to announce [a rights issue] and made it clear he had much preferred options: selling non-core assets," Mr Monteyne told clients. We agree and rating agencies give him two years to generate at least £3bn. We think he will do £6bn or more.