…three-way merger with Marfin & Egnatia denied
The price adjustment of 23 cents yesterday on the Laiki Bank shares as they traded ex-rights forced the CSE lower on Tuesday, with market participants lacking direction as the price of Bank of Cyprus on the ASE matched the close on the CSE.
At the open, the Laiki shares lost 23 cent from their Monday close of CYP 2.79, fully matching the ex-rights adjustment when trading started at CYP 2.55, only to lose 1 cent more at the closing price of CYP 2.54 bringing their total losses to 8.96% on volume amounting to CYP 814.000.
The ex-rights adjustment is calculated by taking the last price of CYP 2.79, multiplying by 6 (1:6 ratio), adding the exercise price of CYP 1.20, then dividing by seven.
Market participants will lack direction when trading starts on Wednesday after the BOC shares ended at the same price on both the ASE and the CSE.
On the ASE, the BOC shares closed 1.5% lower at EUR 6.56 or CYP 3.78 on EUR 6 mln or CYP 3.8 mln volume, while on the CSE, the BOC shares ended 1.8% lower at CYP 3.78 on total volume of CYP 986.000.
Technical charts prepared by the Financial Mirror point to further range trading in the market within a broad range of 4.00 to 3.60 on the BOC shares, while on Laiki, the next support is the CYP 2.40 level.
The CSE GENX meanwhile tracked the two major bank stocks lower, ending Tuesday trading down 1.49% at 2416.56 points, on total volume of CYP 2.36 mln and 1505 trades.
Other active stocks behind BOC and CPB were the shares and warrants of Hellenic Bank, closing 1.11% lower at 89 cent for the shares and up 0.53% for the warrants at 37.8 cent.
The title of CLR Investments was the fourth most active stock, ending 5.5% lower at 5.1 cent, followed by LUI, down at 26 cent and SFS, unchanged at 10.6 cent.
Three-way merger denied
In a separate development, rumours from Greece suggesting that Marfin is set to create a new grouping combining its operations with those of Laiki Hellas and Egnatia Bank were denied in Nicosia.
Laiki General Manager Michalis Louis hotly denied a report on the Greek financial web site Reporter.gr suggesting that Marfin, which owns a 9.9% stake in Laiki and recently acquired a minimum 34% stake in Egnatia wants to combine the three to create a new powerful grouping.
Louis referred to the previous comments made by Laiki Chairman Kikis Lazarides and Marfin Vice-Chairman Andreas Vgenopoulos to the Financial Mirror during a press conference, where both officials had denied reports that Marfin would be allowed to gain control of Laiki Hellas.
“Laiki and Marfin are looking to broad based cooperation at all levels, something which probably has strengthened in scope following the addition of Egnatia, but there are no discussions regarding the sale of Laiki Hellas operations to a new grouping or to Marfin,” said Louis.
