LONDON (ShareCast) - A near-15% jump in the share price of metals and alloys treatment firm Bodycote (LSE: BOY.L - news) lifted the industrial engineering sector to the top spot today. Bodycote announced this morning that profits surged 68% after strong demand at its aerospace and defence unit and robust sales overseas. Pre-tax profit from continuing operations rose to £75.8m for the year ended 31 December 2011 from £45.2m previously. Revenue from continuing operations increased to £570.7m from £499.8m the year before. In a separate announcement Bodycote said it has signed a five-year contract with ZF Lenksysteme, a joint venture between Robert Bosch GmbH and ZF Friedrichshafen to provide heat treatment services in China for heavy truck steering components. Shares were up 14.93% at 387.3p in afternoon trade. Meanwhile, engineering giant Weir was in demand after submitting a binding offer and raising its offer price to buy Australian mining equipment supplier Ludowici, matching the recently-upped offer from Danish rival FLSmidth. Back on February 10th, Weir announced that it would pay A$7.92 per Ludowici share, representing a 10% premium to FLSmidth's indicative proposal of A$7.20 a share, announced on January 23rd. FLSmidth then raised its offer to A$10 per share a week later and entered into a scheme implementation agreement. However, Weir claims that FLSmidth filed a 'no increase statement' on January 23rd, an issue that Weir has raised with the Takeovers Panel and which is currently being considered. Weir was trading 0.97% higher at 2,175p this afternoon. BC Top performing sectors so far today Industrial Engineering 8,164.35 +1.77% Support Services (Euronext: SSP.NX - news) 4,825.24 +1.27% General Industrials 3,214.61 +1.24% Life Insurance (Other OTC: LINS.PK - news) 4,439.78 +1.11% Electronic & Electrical Equipment 3,430.12 +1.02% Bottom performing sectors so far today Food & Drug Retailers 3,915.41 -1.31% Insurance (Euronext: SIN.NX - news) (non-life) 1,440.40 -0.90% Travel & Leisure 4,457.87 -0.78% Oil Equipment, Services & Distribution 25,518.89 -0.51% Electricity 8,112.88 -0.47%
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