Brussels shares lower midmorning; UCB leads blue-chips

Brussels shares lower midmorning; UCB leads blue-chips

	Published : Fri, 12 Jan 2007 11:54 By : Agencies Print this Story

BRUSSELS (AFX) - Shares were modestly lower midmorning on profit-taking, with UCB leading the gainers after KBC Securities upped its target price on optimism over its long-term performance, analysts said.

At 10.59 am, the Bel 20 was off 1.90 points or 0.04 pct at 4,471.68.

UCB was up 0.90 eur or 1.67 pct at 54.70 eur. KBC Securities upped its target price to 55.0 eur from 53.0.

Christophe Vanvaeck, analyst at KBC, said: 'Although UCB's profit and loss will in the coming years be negatively affected by the patent losses of Zyrtec at the end of 2007 and Keppra in early 2009, and the additional research and development and sales and marketing costs from the acquisition of Schwarz, we are convinced that UCB has made good moves to show strong growth rates from 2010 on.'

KBC held its 'accumulate' rating unchanged.

Earlier, UCB said it and German peer Schwarz Pharma are starting talks on a domination and profit transfer agreement as required under German law.

Imaging technology group Agfa-Gevaert was up 0.12 eur or 0.63 pct at 19.25 eur.

For the heavyweight financials, Fortis was up 0.16 eur or 0.49 pct at 32.92 eur, KBC Group fell 0.35 eur or 0.36 pct to 96.95 eur and Dexia slipped 0.04 eur or 0.18 pct to 21.63 eur.

Belgacom was up 0.12 eur or 0.34 pct at 35.14 eur. ING upped its target price on the telecoms group to 32.0 eur from 29.5 after increasing its long-term forecasts.

Brewer InBev rose 0.14 eur or 0.29 pct to 48.33 eur.

For the fallers, imaging technology group Barco was down 0.55 eur or 0.81 pct at 67.45 eur.

Delhaize's target price was raised to 70.0 eur from 68.5 at KBC Securities, in anticipation of strong full year sales next week for the supermarket group.

Pascale Weber, analyst at KBC, said in a note to clients: 'We expect positive surprises related to the group's sales momentum to lift the share price over the coming year.'

Weber added that the stock showed upside potential, as it is trading at a discount to its peers.

Rabo Securities added that its expects Delhaize and peer Colruyt to have benefited from Carrefour's disappointing fourth-quarter sales result.

'We believe that in Belgium (Carrefour's) GB format has continued to lose market share to Delhaize and Colruyt during the fourth quarter,' the broker said.

Delhaize was off 0.45 eur or 0.68 pct at 65.45 eur and Colruyt slipped 0.70 eur or 0.42 pct to 167.60 eur.

Outside the Bel 20, Cumerio's target price was cut to 19.25 eur from 19.80 at UBS. The copper manufacturer was up 0.14 eur or 0.81 pct at 17.40 eur.

simon.zekaria@thomson.com

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