SMG was under the cosh again yesterday after its customer ITV cancelled a new series of Inspector Rebus.

Rebus is one of only two big series, along with Taggart, that SMG makes, and the cancellation is a blow to the company’s strategic plans. It also comes only weeks after SMG raised £95 million from a rights issue of new shares priced at 15p. SMG shares dipped ¾p to 14¼p.

SMG is digesting final bids for its Virgin Radio arm, thought to be worth about £70 million, with the intention of slimming down to focus on its two Scottish television franchises and TV programme production. After yesterday’s fall the company is worth £142.6 million.

Advent, the Lloyd’s insurance broker, rose ½p to 25p, as its sector kicked off what is likely to be a closely watched reporting season.

Sub-prime victims have emerged in unusual places, and next week investors will be busy looking at the London insurers to see whether the tentacles of the crisis have ensnared them. The exposure is thought possible in two ways, through a firm’s own investment portfolio, or through directors’ and companies’ liability insurance contracts that it has written.

A wave of litigation related to subprime claims is gathering pace. Credit Suisse likes Brit, down ½p at 224½p, and raised Amlin, off 1p at 267¾p, but downgraded Beazley, which fell 6½p to 165p.

Smaller oil companies generally outperformed, but White Nile, the explorer backed by the former England cricketer Phil Edmonds, continues to be a sticky wicket for investors. Its shares, which traded above 180p in 2006 on hopes its exploration deal with the South Sudanese government would come good, plumbed fresh depths yesterday, down 4p at 34p.

The 150-year-old estate agency Humberts highlighted “going concern” issues, sending its shares down ¾p to 10¼p. Savills fell 3¼p to 339p.

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