Greek shares sharply lower in late afternoon trade, led down by Bank of Cyprus

Greek shares sharply lower in late afternoon trade, led down by Bank of Cyprus

	Published : Tue, 30 Jan 2007 13:44 By : Agencies Print this Story

ATHENS (AFX) - Shares were sharply lower in late afternoon trade, led down by Bank of Cyprus, amid profit-taking by investors who preferred to cash in some of the strong year-to-date gains produced by the Greek market, dealers said.

At 2.20 pm the ASE general index was down 0.7 pct at 4,662.5 points, with decliners outnumbering advancers, 170 to 67. The bluechip index was down 0.8 pct to 2,541.7 points. Mid-caps were flat at 5,536.3 points, and small caps were down 0.5 pct at 917.1 points.

Bank of Cyprus was dipping 2.2 pct to 11.3 eur after it said it received Marfin Popular Banks tender offer document because this was also submitted to the Cyprus Stock Exchange.

The Bank of Cyprus said in a filing to the Cypriot Stock Exchange that it believes Marfins public offer breaches the law. The board of Bank of Cyprus also said that the offer cannot be taken seriously and entails high risk, and is also not in the best interest of shareholders.

Marfin Popular Bank was 0.5 pct lower to 8.06 eur on the same news.

Construction holding group Hellenic Technodomiki was up 1.3 pct at 10.74 eur. Analyst Panos Panagiotou of Proton Securities said that unconfirmed market speculation of an acquisition or a merger with peer construction group Pantechniki is persisting and may explain its recent share price rise. Broker Citigroup also recently praised the company in a sector report.

Alpha Bank was down 1.7 pct to 24.86 eur and refiner Motor Oil was down 1.5 pct to 20.44 eur, both on profit-taking.

Lottery operator OPAP was down 1.6 pct to 29 eur on press reports that fourth-quarter flagship fixed-odds betting game Stihima sales are little changed from the third quarter.

Hellenic Telecomms (OTE) was dipping 1.3 pct to 22.48 eur on news it selected Merrill Lynch as its further privatisation advisor.

Bank of Piraeus was 0.3 pct higher to 27.26 eur and is expected to post its full-year results tomorrow as well as announcing its business plan. An analysts' consensus poll by Euro2day expects group net profits to rise 62.4 pct year-on-year to 428.7 mln eur.

National Bank of Greece was 0.2 pct lower to 39.24 eur on news that it had raised its stake in Turkeys Finansbank to 89.4 pct at the conclusion of its public offer yesterday.

Source: Euro2day.gr NewsWire

skrekas@euro2day.gr

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