British blue chips fall despite Trump tariff ruling

(Reuters) -British equities were mixed on Thursday, as losses in utilities offset positive sentiments on a U.S. court's decision to block President Donald Trump's proposed tariffs.

The blue-chip FTSE 100 fell 0.1%, while the domestically focussed FTSE 250 rose 0.3%.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled that Trump overstepped his authority by imposing duties on trading partners, invalidating most of his tariffs since January. However, the ruling did not address some industry-specific tariffs on automobiles, steel, and aluminium.

However, U.S. White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said three trade deals were nearly done and he expected more despite the judgment.

Bond-proxy utilities were the biggest laggards on the blue-chip index, falling 2.1%. National Grid and Severn Trent fell 3.8% and 2.3%, respectively, after trading without entitlement to their latest dividend pay-outs.

Shares of automotive platform Auto Trader tumbled 11.3% to a more than one-month low after missing annual revenue estimates.

Hollywood Bowl fell 10.3%, leading the decline in mid-cap index. The company which runs tenpin bowling centres in the UK and Canada, posted 9.4% fall in half-year pretax profit to 28 million pounds ($37.7 million).

Precious and industrial metal miners' sub-indexes both gained nearly 1% as prices of gold and London metals rose. [GOL/] [MET/L]

Meanwhile, as a part of a wider drive to channel more investment into the economy, the British government said it wants many pension schemes to merge to become "megafunds" with at least 25 billion pounds ($34 billion) of assets by 2030.

The government also confirmed it would create a "backstop" power to potentially force investment firms to meet set allocation targets for illiquid assets such as domestic infrastructure projects.

Data showed business confidence in Britain's services sector hit a two-and-a-half-year low in the May quarter, with cost pressures rising partly due to employment tax rises.

(Reporting by Twesha Dikshit and Sanchayaita Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Shreya Biswas)