Rob Mann, analyst at Collins Stewart, said: “We think the Unilever management is under pressure. The confidence it claims to feel does not appear to be grounded in anything particularly tangible.”

Unilever has already drawn comparison to HJ Heinz, the lumbering American foods giant, whose board is under pressure from activist investors.

Mr Mann rates Unilever a “buy”, despite the weak performance, on the ground that the shares are cheap. He also argued that Unilever’s management would run out of goodwill soon “in the absence of compelling recovery newsflow”. Oriel Securities reiterated its “add” recommendation, but said that Unilever was a long-term investment story.

Unilever firmed 8p to £12.22 as the wider market ended the week on a positive note. The FTSE 100 rose 51 points to 5,889.4.

PartyGaming was the sector’s best performer, jumping 10p to 120p as investors warmed to its £70 million acquisition of Gamebookers this week. It is the first time in a month that PartyGaming’s shares have traded above their 116p float price of a year ago. The momentum also pulled along its smaller rival 888 Holdings, which jumped 20½p to 162¾p, also buoyed by talk in America that US regulators would find it difficult to prosecute offshore betting groups.

Wm Morrison, up 6½p to 219½p, enjoyed another day in the sun on the back of this week’s round of analyst upgrades — the first in two years.

Sir John Sunderland, chairman of Cadbury Schweppes, down 1½p to 534½p, made a £117,600 profit on the exercise and sale of 200,000 share options. His share sale, at 541.3p, came after Wednesday’s 24 per cent lift in underlying interim pre-tax profits to £402 million.

British Airways led the small band of FTSE 100 companies to fall, easing 13½p to 375½p on profit-taking after the release of solid first-quarter figures that were tempered by a cautious outlook statement.

Shire Pharmaceuticals fell 8½p to 846½p as investors digested details of a court ruling in America late on Thursday on Amgen’s longstanding patent battle to prevent two drugmakers from selling a product that would compete with its Epogen anaemia treatment. The ruling was a partial victory for Amgen, whose action was against Transkaryotic Therapies, now owned by Shire, and Hoechst Marion Roussel.

Standard & Poor’s placed Xstrata, off 8p to £22.49, on credit watch with negative implications pending the outcome of the London-based miner’s £11.5 billion cash takeover of Falconbridge, of Canada. The ratings agency also assigned a BBB+ long-term rating to Xstrata, which expects to complete the takeover on August 14. The miner is planning a rights issue to repay some of the debt used to fund the deal.

• NEW YORK: Data showing slower job growth, and thereby raising chances that the US Federal Reserve would leave rates unchanged next week, failed to give the market a boost as the Dow Jones industrial average closed down 2.30 points at 11,240.30.

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