If Siemens is wanting to distance itself from talk it could have Invensys in its sights, the German giant is not making a great job of it.
After releasing disappointing first-quarter figures today, Europe's largest engineering group helped fuel the persistent takeover speculation around Invensys by announcing it could be interested in making bolt-on acquisitions.
The reason, said Siemens' boss Peter Loescher, was that valuations of potential targets were starting to look more attractive.
The comments unsurprisingly prompted traders to turn towards Invensys, which is currently trading not far off 50% lower than a year ago, with a profits warning earlier this month the latest in a line of major blows.
The rail and signalling equipment maker's severe slide has prompted bid speculation to be a common sight for a while now, with Siemens among the names frequently put forward by market gossips as a potential suitor.
However, many are also bearish over the idea, saying Invensys's large pension scheme is just one of a number of barriers that need to be resolved before a bidder can be attracted.
Despite Siemens' comments, Invensys ended up easing down 3.9p to 196.85p as investors preferred to focus on the negative read-across from the German group missing forecasts with its numbers.
In fact, given the conglomerate's position as a bellwether company, the results were being seen as a downer for the economic outlook as a whole.
After closing at its highest for almost six months last night, an eagerness to take profits left the FTSE 100 45.16 points weaker at 5737.4 today while the news that Greek debt talks appear to be in deadlock did not help.
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The leaderboard was mainly full of defensive stocks, with utilities National Grid and Severn Trent rising 8p to 622.5p and 17p to 1533.5p.
Meanwhile, Shire managed to creep up 1p to 2121p despite the drugs maker's rival Genzyme winning US regulatory approval for its new plant. European authorities have already given the green light to the factory that is expected to solve the shortage issues of Genzyme's Fabrazyme drug, used to treat Fabry disease, which Shire has been benefiting from.
Traders decided to bank profits in Cable & Wireless Worldwide after it spurted up over a third last night.
While yesterday's move was accompanied by a reheat of familiar takeover speculation, traders put it down to a major seller in the stock recently been cleared, and the group was 2.66p, or 11.13%, lower at 21.21p.
Elsewhere, penny stock Leed Petroleum, which has seen its share price more than double in 2012 alone, plummeted 0.08p, or 15.69%, to 0.43p following the news that major shareholder Viridas has sold almost 600 million shares for a total of
£2.87 million.
On its first day of public trading, Ruspetro edged back by 0.5p to 128.25p.
The Russian explorer, whose IPO last week is the only one in the Square Mile this year, already priced its float at 134p, the bottom end of the expected range.
