British booze giant, Diageo, has confirmed it is in talks to invest in Indian outfit United Spirits.

United Spirits is listed on the National Stock Exchange in Mumbai and rumours of the transaction have seen the shares rise 8% since Monday. That, in turn, has seen the Beverages sector edge up a couple of per cent in the last week.

Diageo, with a market capitalisation of £43.2bn, dominates the sector along with the similarly valued SABMiller.

SABmiller, meanwhile, has appointed Catherine May as its new Director of Corporate Affairs.

May will join SABMiller's Executive Committee, reporting to Executive Chairman Graham Mackay, and will be responsible for media, investor relations, political affairs, corporate affairs, corporate social responsibility and internal communications.

May held a similar role at Centrica between 2006 and 2011, and before that she was Group Director of Corporate Relations at Reed Elsevier.

Russian steel firm Evraz continues to be an extremely volatile stock since its interim results at the end of August. Today, it has dragged down the Industrial Metals & Mining sector.

The shares eased to 227p after a downbeat interim update on August 30th but by September 14th had recovered to 294p, since when they have drifted back into the low 250s.

Top performing sectors so far today
Beverages 12,762.97 +1.65%
Technology Hardware & Equipment 781.89 +1.53%
Forestry & Paper 6,678.24 +1.47%
Food & Drug Retailers 4,269.19 +1.23%
Media 4,660.81 +1.08%

Bottom performing sectors so far today
Industrial Metals & Mining 2,753.38 -2.63%
Construction & Materials 3,491.51 -0.63%
Personal Goods 16,403.18 -0.60%
Mining 18,395.46 -0.43%
Automobiles & Parts 5,096.98 -0.41%

JH

Related share prices
Diageo (DGE) share price
SABMiller (SAB) share price
Evraz (EVR) share price