UK Shares Join European Rally; Airtel Africa Falls After Money Unit's London Debut

11:47 AM EDT, 10/09/2026 (MT Newswires) -- British stocks rebounded at the end of the week, with the blue-chip FTSE 100 index up 1.13% at closing on Friday, in line with a broader rally across European equity markets. Oil prices and bond yields stabilized after US President Donald Trump said Washington would not attack Iran before the November midterm elections and that the two countries were having "productive discussions." Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran was reviewing a US proposal and would respond within the next few days, Iran's Tasnim news agency reported. "So both sides acknowledged that talks were happening, which took some of the pressure off oil prices into the close. Yet even with that, the negative headlines still won out yesterday, and it was clear investors were pricing a longer period of disruption into next year," Deutsche Bank Research said. In corporate news, Airtel Africa (AAF.L) was the biggest faller, losing 6.20% following the London listing of its mobile payments business, Airtel Mobile Commerce (AMC.L), which operates under the Airtel Money brand. The telecommunications and mobile money services company did not sell any shares in the unit as part of the initial public offering, which was priced at 1.96 pounds sterling, implying a market capitalization of 5.3 billion pounds. Moody's affirmed The Weir Group's (WEIR.L) long-term issuer rating at Baa3 and revised its outlook to stable from positive, citing the engineering and mining company's potential difficulty in meeting the leverage and cash flow targets required for an upgrade. Weir shares closed 3.86% higher. Shell (SHEL.L), meanwhile, agreed to take a 30% interest in the Bay du Nord project offshore Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada from Norway's Equinor, which will hold the remaining 70% stake and remain the operator of the project. The companies will work to mature the project toward a final investment decision targeted for early 2027. The British energy group edged up 0.40%. On the economic calendar, investors await upcoming UK data releases, including the British Retail Consortium's retail sales figures and August data on gross domestic product, industrial production and manufacturing output.