By Hamza Hendawi
THE EXECUTIVE Chairman of Louis Cruise Lines came out in defence of two of his top executives yesterday, saying he was satisfied with the explanations they gave for selling a huge number of shares and warrants on the very day the stock hit the market.
Costakis Loizou said the two — Managing-Director Stelios Kiliaris and General Manager (Finance) Spyros Spyrides — continued to enjoy the trust of the board and that their actions were justified.
“The public should not be misled by rumours and seditious talk and instead should concentrate on the financial realities and prospects of every company,” said Loizou in a statement.
He was apparently responding to various negative rumours about Louis Cruise Lines, which began to make the rounds when Kiliaris and Spyrides sold tens of thousands of shares and warrants on the market on Tuesday.
Traders blamed the plunge of the Louis share price on Wednesday and Thursday on news of the sale, seen by investors to suggest little confidence in the future of the company, one of the world’s largest cruise operators.
Kiliaris has said that he had only sold 14 per cent of his holdings in Louis and that he intended to hold on to the 400,000 he still owns. His decision to sell last Tuesday, he said, was agreed in advance with the company and was necessary to repay a loan he took to buy the stocks. He and his wife sold nearly 100,000 shares and warrants, but he dismissed suggestions that his action was responsible for the stock’s unexpected skid on Wednesday and Thursday.
No details were available on the sale by the other executive, Spyrides.
The Louis share yesterday regained some of the ground it had lost, inching up by 17 cents to close at £2.29 with some 1.8 million shares changing hands. The Louis warrants, however, dipped 3 cents to close at £1.87 with a turnover of some 60,000.
The all-share index closed 2.96 per cent up at 290.60, less than four points below its all-time high of 294.29 reached last month, and will remain at its current level until it reopens on August 17.
The Cyprus Stock Exchange decided to close the market for the whole of next week to allow brokerages and listed companies time to weed through a backlog of backroom work which had accumulated due to the dramatic increase in volume in recent months.
The market was closed on July 26 and 27 for the same purpose but the two- day break proved insufficient to tackle the problem. When the market reopened on Wednesday July 28, volume was an awesome £68.98 million and the index jumped an unprecedented 18.62 per cent.
In yesterday’s trade, the Bank of Cyprus went up by 45.5 cents to close at £12.28 on its last trading day before its two-for-one split comes into effect in about two weeks’ time.
The Popular Bank also had a good market day yesterday, going up by 18.5 cents to close at £7.18. Hellenic Bank, heading toward a four-for-one split next month, appreciated by 39.5 cents to close at £8.86.
