Europe shares rise on miners and M&A activity

European shares rose on Monday, with miners up on hopes that the election results in Australia would end plans for a new mining tax, while Old Mutual gained after HSBC said it was in talks to buy a stake in Nedbank.
By 0704 GMT, the pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index of top shares was up 0.3% at 1,032.84 points, rebounding after falling to a one-month closing low on Friday.
Miners were boosted by hopes that Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard would fail to form a government, spelling the end of her 30% tax on major iron ore and coal mines. BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Xstrata were up 0.8 to 1.2%.
"Macroeconomic figures are still likely to come in worse than expected and could push down the market. On the other hand we have some relief from M&A activities but that is not going to be able to offset the bad economic numbers," said Koen de Leus, economist at KBC Securities.
Old Mutual was up 4.9% after HSBC said it wanted to buy up to 70% of South Africa's Nedbank, in which Old Mutual has a controlling stake.
HSBC was up 0.1%.