Milan shares close slightly higher on Wall Street gains UPDATE

Milan shares close slightly higher on Wall Street gains UPDATE

	Published : Sun, 14 Oct 2007 20:53 By : Agencies Print this Story

(Updating with full report)

MILAN (Thomson Financial) - Share prices closed slightly higher, recovering from earlier losses thanks to a positive start on US markets, with Telecom Italia and Atlantia leading the way.

The Mibtel index ended up 0.16 pct at 32.018 points and the blue-chip S&P/Mib index added 0.20 pct to 41,106, while volumes were 6.94 bln eur.

Fallers outnumbered gainers 204 to 151, and eight shares ended flat.

Telecom Italia soared 2.82 pct to 2.18 eur, moving in line with other European telecom stocks.

Dealers said that the sector was benefiting from bullish sentiment on Telefonica after the Spanish operator's investor day yesterday.

Telefonica, through the Telco consortium, is also set to become the major shareholder of Telecom Italia by acquiring a stake from Pirelli.

Pirelli rose 1.81 pct to 0.867, on hopes that the Telecom Italia stake sale would be finalised.

Lottomatica fell 2.09 pct to 27.15, on the weak dollar trend.

Among other US-exposed companies, Autogrill was down 1.37 pct at 13.94 and Luxottica down 1.29 pct at 25.99.

Banking shares were weak, with Intesa Sanpaolo down 0.24 pct at 5.5, amid vague rumours it could be interested in Commerzbank, while Unicredito fell 0.15 pct to 6.16.

Italease rose 1.46 pct to 14.05, after confirming reports it has obtained a 950 mln eur financing from Banco Popolare and other members of its shareholder pact.

Banco Popolare was down 0.50 pct at 17.06.

Enia added 5.44 pct to 11.6 and Iride fell 0.79 to 2.63, on merger speculation.

Officials said Enia and Iride will start studying the possibility of an alliance which then could be extended to other utilities to form a large company serving northern Italy.

danilo.masoni@thomson.com

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