Victoria Oil & Gas grabbed the attention of investors today, announcing a £14 million cash injection thank to an equity placing with institutional and private investors at 3.25 pence.

The oil and gas exploration company climbed to fourth place in the most purchased stock list after the company announced plans to use some of the money to complete drilling and testing operations in Logbaba, Cameroon.

Victoria’s chairman, Kevin Foo, said that the equity placing – which was 40 per cent oversubscribed - would not only allow further drilling in Cameroon, it would fund further geochemical surveys at the company’s West Med operation.

He explained, ‘We took this opportunity to increase our working capital and we are most pleased with the response.

‘The over subscription and the interest of major institutional investors in our company vindicates our belief that Victoria Oil & Gas manages its assets correctly.’

Victoria’s share price was down 8.4 per cent at 3.48 pence (1505 hrs). Elsewhere, investors continued to snap up HSBC, despite news of further impairments dragging on its performance.

The bank was the last of the big banks to issue its annual results this morning, reporting a 24 per cent drop in profits to £4.7 billion.

Despite this, investors saw new of further impairments as inconsequential given that HSBC has still refused government support. As a result it climbed up the most traded list to third place, accounting for 14.2 per cent of all purchases.

Investors also continued the recent trend of buying insurers.

Prudential, Aviva and Legal & General all made the top ten buys, with Prudential leading the way having announced a rights issue to back its takeover of AIG’s Asian arm, AIA.

TD Waterhouse
Top ten trades
Monday 1 March (morning session)

Buy
1. Lloyds Banking Group, 29.0 per cent
2. Royal Bank of Scotland, 16.1 per cent
3. HSBC Holdings, 14.2 per cent
4. Victoria Oil & Gas, 9.4 per cent
5. Prudential, 8.6 per cent
6. Barclays, 7.7 per cent
7. Aviva, 6.7 per cent
8. Legal & General, 2.9 per cent
9. Gulf Keystone, 2.7 per cent
10. Xstrata, 2.6 per cent

Sell
1. Lloyds Banking Group, 20.9 per cent
2. Xstrata, 16.2 per cent
3. Royal Bank of Scotland, 13.5 per cent
4. Barclays, 10.4 per cent
5. Kazakhmys, 10.3 per cent
6. BP, 9.4 per cent
7. HSBC Holdings, 7.7 per cent
8. Rio Tinto, 4.5 per cent
9. Victoria Oil and Gas, 3.6 per cent
10. Aquarius, 3.6 per cent