Rio shares jump on talk of fresh BHP offer

LONDON/PARIS (Reuters) - Shares in miner Rio Tinto (RIO.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) rose nearly 4 percent to their day's high on Tuesday on market talk that BHP Billiton (BLT.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) was planning to offer 3.8 of its shares for every Rio share in a takeover bid, traders said.

BHP declined to comment.

At 1419 GMT (10:19 a.m. EDT), Rio shares were up 3.5 percent at 66.42 pounds, making it the top gainer on Britain's FTSE benchmark .FTSE, which was down 0.2 percent.

Over 90 percent of the 30-day daily average volume in Rio had changed hands by 1418 GMT (10:18 a.m. EDT), compared with about 65 percent on the FTSE 100.

BHP was up 2.3 percent.

(Reporting by Sitaraman Shankar, Amanda Cooper and Blaise Robinson)