Standard Chartered, Royal Bank of Scotland shares advance in banking sector By Sarah Turner, MarketWatch LONDON (MarketWatch) -- European shares jumped, with banks in the lead, after Abu Dhabi provided $10 billion of finance to debt-laden Dubai to stave off a potential default of securities maturing on Monday. The pan-European Dow Jones Stoxx 600 index (ST:SXXP 246.80, +1.67, +0.68%) rose 0.7% to 246.75, the third straight session of gains for the index. In the banking sector, shares of Standard Chartered (UK:STAN 1,567, +57.00, +3.78%) were up 4.1% and Royal Bank of Scotland (UK:RBS 30.84, +0.29, +0.95%) (RBS 10.02, -0.16, -1.57%) shares rose 1.3%. British banks are thought to be some of the most exposed to Dubai's debt woes. Dubai's conglomerate Dubai World roiled global markets in late November when it said that it wanted to suspend debt payments for six months. However, on Monday it said that it has received $10 billion in financing from fellow emirate Abu Dhabi, which it will use to pay part of the debt held by Dubai World and its property unit Nakheel. Read more on Dubai finance. "Clearly, this is a short term market positive, and regional markets have rallied across the board on the back of the news," said strategists at Royal Bank of Scotland. On a national level, the U.K. FTSE 100 index (UK:UKX 5,309, +47.23, +0.90%) climbed 0.9% to 5,308.28, the German DAX index (DX:DAX 5,809, +52.87, +0.92%) rose 0.9% to 5,809.41 and the French CAC-40 index (FR:PX1 3,826, +22.42, +0.59%) advanced 0.6% to 3,827.56. Asian shares were mostly higher, while U.S. stock futures were pointing to a higher open on Wall Street. Equity strategists at Nomura said that they expect European stocks to extend this year's gains into 2010, with one driver for that move likely to be an increase in merger and acquisition activity. "It is usual for M&A to follow the stock market and, given the dearth of deals in the past twelve months, we expect there to be pent-up demand," they said. Prices are still relatively low in absolute terms, they said, and corporations are relatively cash rich. "Deals are likely to be strategic intra-sector deals," they added. Chocolate company deal-making has been on the cards of late and on Monday Cadbury (UK:CBRY 791.50, +1.00, +0.13%) (CBY 51.45, -0.01, -0.02%) , up 0.3% to 792 pence, reiterated its rejection of Kraft Foods's (KFT 26.79, +0.11, +0.41%) roughly 727 pence-per-share offer to buy the firm on Monday. It made that statement while detailing that its performance to the end of November has been in line expectations and that full-year constant currency revenue growth is expected to be in the middle of its 4% to 6% goal range. Cadbury is targeting 5% to 7% revenue growth over the next four years, on margins between 16% and 18% in 2013. Axa (FR:CS 15.90, +0.28, +1.79%) shares were up 1.4% in Paris after AXA Asia Pacific Holdings (AU:AXA 5.72, -0.10, -1.72%) said that it will "carefully consider" a revised $11.7 billion bid from AMP and AXA. Bwin shares jumped 3.9% in Austria. The Financial Times reported that the firm is in informal talks with PartyGaming (UK:PRTY 258.50, +2.40, +0.94%) , up 2.6%, although a deal isn't imminent. Hotel and restaurant operator Whitbread (UK:WTB 1,377, +46.00, +3.46%) , up 3.6%, also updated investors on trading, saying that its expecting fiscal 2010 results to exceed analyst estimates after cost cutting. Positive sales momentum has also helped, the firm said, with third-quarter comparable sales up 0.3%.

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