Greek shares sharply lower in early afternoon trade, in line with Europe

Greek shares sharply lower in early afternoon trade, in line with Europe

	Published : Mon, 12 Feb 2007 12:42 By : Agencies Print this Story

ATHENS (AFX) - Shares were sharply lower in early afternoon trade, as sentiment was hit by Friday's weakness on Wall Street and heavy losses on peer European markets today, dealers said.

At 1.10 pm the ASE general index was down 1.5 pct at 4,615.2, with decliners outnumbering advancers 210 to 22. The blue chip index was down 1.6 pct at 2,503.9. Mid caps were down 1.4 pct at 5,560.0, and small caps dipped 1.9 pct to 897.7.

Greek Postal Savings Bank was down 2.9 pct to 19.9 eur on market talk that its further privatisation may be delayed.

Hellenic Telecomms (OTE) was down 2.5 pct to 21.96 eur, and Bank of Cyprus was down 2.2 pct to 11.42 eur, both on negative market sentiment.

Bank of Piraeus was down 2.4 pct to 26.34 eur after sources said its EGM, which is set to decide on a capital increase to acquire Marfin Popular Bank, has been postponed till Feb 26 due to lack of quorum.

ATEBank was down 2.4 pct to 4.04 eur and EFG Eurobank was down 2.1 pct to 29.06 eur, both on profit taking.

Construction holding company Hellenic Technodomiki was down 1.7 pct to 10.34 eur on news that its board decided to take over another local construction company Pantechniki.

Mobile operator Cosmote was 0.9 pct lower at 22.78 eur on news that its mobile and tech retail unit Germanos' has EGM approved the company's delisting from the exchange.

Betting technology company Intralot was 0.8 pct lower at 25.4 eur on press reports that its major shareholders may sell a significant stake in the company to private equity funds.

Of the few advancers, chemical group Neochimiki was up 1.1 pct to 21.06 eur after it said 2006 full year net profits were 97.1 mln eur against 12.6 mln eur in 2005 due to capital gains from placements.

Neochimiki unit Lamda Detergent rose 3.3 pct to 8.14 eur after it said net profits were up 65.6 pct year on year to 13.2 mln eur.

In other news, the board of directors of Lamda, bik, Elpharma and Veterin decided yesterday to propose to the shareholders' general meetings a merger of the companies by absorption of the first three by Veterin.

Source: Euro2day.gr NewsWire

skrekas@euro2day.gr

ns/har

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