Helsinki shares higher at midday led by Nokia, Oriola-KD down on Q4 report

Helsinki shares higher at midday led by Nokia, Oriola-KD down on Q4 report

	Published : Thu, 01 Feb 2007 11:00 By : Agencies Print this Story

HELSINKI (AFX) - Heklsinki shares were higher in midday trade led by Nokia on bargain-hunting after recent losses, with Oriola-KD slipping after reporting a fall in its fourth quarter earnings, traders said.

At 11.37 am, the OMX Helsinki 25 was 1.01 pct higher at 3,025.53 points and the OMX Helsinki up 1.13 pct at 10,167.90 points on 491 mln eur turnover.

Nokia added 1.61 pct to 17.06 eur as it was following its solid gains on Wall Street overnight, brokers said.

Oriola-KD B -- down 2.45 pct at 3.19 eur -- was the sharpest faller among the key stocks after its fourth quarter report showed a fall in earnings.

Pretax profit came in at 5.7 mln eur, down from last year's pro forma of 6.7 mln eur, due to weakness in its pharmaceutical trade unit.

Earnings per share for the quarter were a touch lower, recording 0.3 eur against pro forma 0.4 eur a year earlier on 278.6 mln eur.

October-December sales were also slightly lower at 343.7 mln eur, versus pro forma 346.9 mln a year ago.

In other news, Oriola-KD said it will shut down automatic packing line in Sweden in the second half of 2007 as the demand for the line's services has turned out not to be extensive enough to run the business further.

It also revealed that its Finnish unit Oriola Oy has bought the marketing business of Medith Oy to strengthen its healthcare business in Finland for an undisclosed sum.

Uponor was 0.17 pct higher at 30.05 eur, not reacting to a downgrade by Carnegie to 'underperform' from 'neutral'.

In a note to clients, Carnegie said that the company's price/earning ration (P/E) was above the peak last year.

The brokerage said that the company's fourth quarter is expected to be strong, but 'priced in'.

The note advised investors to 'take profits ahead of (the fourth quarter) report'.

In energy, Neste Oil was 1.71 pct stronger at 23.77 eur after it said it has sold its into-plane aviation fuels business at Riga airport in Latvia to Norway's Statoil, but gave no financial details.

Fortum added 0.71 pct to 21.27 eur.

Among paper stocks, UPM-Kymmene was little changed -- up 0.10 pct at 19.67 eur -- ahead of its fourth quarter resuls at noon.

Peers Stora Enso R was 0.16 pct lower at 12.75 eur and M-real B added 3.26 pct to 5.39 eur.

M-real confirmed that it will close Wifsta mill in Sweden by the end of june.

Outokumpu, which is due to release it fourth quarter result this afternoon was 2.25 pct firmer at 31.35 eur.

Of other industrials and steels, Kone was 0.88 pct higher at 45.64 eur, Wartsila B added 0.96 pct to 44.36 eur and Rautaruukki K was 1.02 pct firmer at 30.56 eur.

In telecoms, TeliaSonera was 1.63 pct firmer at 6.24 eur after it said it will acquire service provider debitel Denmark A/S for a price of up to 140 mln eur to strengthen its position as number two on the Danish telecommunications market.

Elisa was 1.55 pct higher at 22.93 eur.