Meanwhile Anglo American slumped after billionaire Anil Agarwal said he would divest his stake.

The FTSE 100 index added 0.2% by 0710 GMT, while the midcaps were largely unchanged.

Vodafone surged 8% after laying out plans to separate its mobile mast infrastructure in 10 European markets into a new organisation that it potentially could list.

Pearson, the world's biggest education company, climbed nearly 7% after saying it had traded well in the first half of 2019 as its strategy to shift away from textbooks towards digital begins to pay off.

Miners, however, weighed on the main bourse with a 4% drop in Anglo American after its biggest shareholder Agarwal said he was divesting the nearly 20% stake, and as copper prices fell after comments from the European Central Bank dampened rate cut hopes.