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ISEQ makes ground after weak trading

Tuesday, October 16 17:36:00

The main Dublin shares index made good ground this afternoon after two days of weak trading with CRH clawing back most of its morning losses.

At the close, the ISEQ was up 26.30 points to 3,271.03.

European shares held onto early gains, buoyed by upbeat U.S. earnings and economic data and underpinned by talk that Spain could ask for a bailout as soon as next month. The FTSEurofirst was up 4.93 points, or 0.5 percent at 1,103.29. "The talk that Spain will ask for a bailout sooner rather than later continues to linger, preventing most investors from taking up too bearish a position in this market," a London-based trader said.

Sportingbet has announced (October 16th) that it has reached agreement with William Hill and GVC Holdings on a revised proposed bid to acquire the entire issued and to be issued share capital of Sportingbet. The revised price values Sportingbet at 61.1p per share, comprising 48.9p in cash (William Hill), 0.0475 GVC shares per Sportingbet share and the final proposed Sportingbet dividend of 1.1p. On a dividend-free basis, the agreed price is 60p per share. Shares in Ireland's Paddy Power fell 21c to E57.59.

CRH's stocks dipped 1c to E13.89 after steep early losses. The value of US highway contracts awarded in September declined by 23pc compared to September 2011. This brings the year-to-date decline to 11.2pc. The US government approved a new two-year federal highway bill (MAP-21) at the end of June. This provides for an unchanged level of federal highway funding until September 2014. At the time, it was felt that this would provide more certainty to state Departments of Transport (DOTs) which were reticent about starting new, longer-term highway projects in the absence of longer-term federal funding guarantees. Since June however, the value of US highway contracts awarded to contractors has declined by 13pc. This is the best leading indicator of highway construction activity and therefore is not encouraging for the prospects for this end-market in 2013.