Belgian brewery giant Interbrew took a 24.5 per cent tumble on news that Britain had blocked its purchase of the brewing assets of UK leisure group Bass.
By the close, the shares were quoted at €28.33, sharply below Interbrew's issue price of €33 when the brewer listed on the Brussels exchange on December 1 last year.
The UK government said the deal would have led to higher beer prices in Britain and an effective duopoly with Britain's biggest domestic brewer, Scottish & Newcastle. It added that Interbrew must now sell the business to an officially approved buyer.
The ruling raised the prospect that Heineken or Carlsberg, two other original bidders for Bass, might bid again. And it sparked a round of rumours about possible management changes at Interbrew. "Heads could well roll after this," said one trader.
Heineken put on 2.8 per cent to €65 as analysts suggested that its interest in Bass would not depend solely on the price of an acquisition but also on how it could restructure its UK operations.
Carlsberg traded 5.3 per cent higher at DKr495 although the company made clear it would not consider making any bid until it was certain any approach would receive UK regulatory approval.
While technology and telecom stocks in recent months have often moved in tandem, the past couple of days have seen a significant divergence with techs getting the worst of it.
Yesterday the software companies in particular continued very weak. Europe's biggest company, SAP, fell 6 per cent to €123.30 , having fallen 11 per cent the day before, weighed by global weakness and market talk of an imminent profit warning.
SAP is now back down to levels last seen in August 1999, having shed all of last year's TMT surge and more.
Deutsche Bank said: "We do not rule out a profit warning from SAP in the next couple of weeks and see further downside potential from these levels.
"We expect SAP revenues to be hit by the US and believe this will show in the upcoming Q4 results.`
SAP's smaller German rival Intershop also continued to fall, losing 15 per cent to €8.26 following its profit warning on Tuesday. UBS Warburg downgraded it from "strong buy" to "hold".
