With international markets in retreat on foot of another day of woes in Asia, Dublin performed surprisingly well, finishing 15.93 points, or 0.31 per cent down. Trading, however, was light, after many fund managers attended a Ryanair presentation yesterday. "World Cup-itis" was also mentioned as reason for absence.
Yesterday's surprise news came from London, where Powerscreen dealt up 23p sterling (27p) to 70.5p sterling (82p), with publication of the KMPG report on irregularities at its former Matbro subsidiary expected shortly, possibly as early as today. The financials took the brunt of the day's knocks and further fallsare expected today. One dealer said that, if there had been any liquidity in the market, prices would have slipped further. AIB saw eight deals, closing down 6.5p sterling (7.5p) to 832.5p sterling (971p), while Bank of Ireland shed 7p when it dipped from £11.68 sterling (£13.62) to £13.55. Anglo Irish Bank reversed the trend among the
banks, closing up 4p at 189p. Irish Permanent and Hibernian held their ground, at 845p and 780p respectively. Irish Life was down 5p to 618p, while Norwich Union shed 0.5p to close at 548p.
The main industrial stocks, CRH and Smurfit, also lost ground, with CRH dropping 2p to 925p sterling (£10.79), and Smurfit slipping back 6p to 240p.
Athlone Extrusions, which announced its first interim results since its flotation in February, dealt up 1p to 100p as pre-tax profits of £2.2 million were announced. The share price at flotation was 91p. Jones Group, signalling this week the completion of the sale of its non-core businesses later this month, dealt up 5p to 195p. Independent Newspapers, which said it was increasing the size of an earlier announced preference share issue on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange, was unchanged in one deal at 440p. Also in the news, but unchanged at 540p on the day, was Green Property after the firm said it was hopeful of a high level of acceptances for its bid for Britain's Trafford Park Estates.
Green said it would be holding a series of meetings with institutional shareholders to convince them of the merits of its offer of 46 shares for every 100 of Traffords, and a cash alternative of 190p per share. Trafford Park last traded in London at 193p sterling. Other second-liners saw some movement. Fitzwilton saw one deal, at
48p, up 1p on its last deal on June 3rd of 40.5p sterling, but 2p short of Dr Tony O'Reilly's and Mr Peter Goulandris's 50p offer.
Among the mining stocks, Ovoca has been drawing some attention in recent days. Yesterday it had three deals and closed 1p up at 25p Silvermines notched up 1p to 63p, while IWP maintained investor confidence above the 450p level, jumping back up 5p to 455p. On the Nasdaq, Esat was down $2 3/8 at $33 3/8, Elan shed $3/8, going to $59 3/4, and Ryanair was unchanged at $36 1/12.
