SMALL cap shares were in focus on the stock market yesterday, with interest on K&G Complex – widely speculated to be the target of a takeover bid — spiking demand in the stock, which ended the day with a staggering 5.2 million shares changing hands.
All seven sectors of the market registered increases, led by a 7.16 per cent jump in tourism shares — boosted by strong gains in Libra Holidays, Astarti and Dome Investments — and a six per cent jump for commercials. In the latter sector, Ceilfloor,
Mallouppas and Papacostas and Orphanides jumped between 19 and 34 cents.
The all-share CSE index showed a 2.24 per cent gain, closing at 467.6 points on a turnover of £19.1 million. The market showed a steady advance throughout the session, with its opening and closing level the intraday low and high respectively.
Of 101 securities traded, 73 rose and 23 fell while five were unchanged. There were 5,126 deals.
"The market is at a stage of stabilising. If one looks at the performance of the bourse for the past 12 weeks, then today’s advance was a natural outcome of some very attractive valuations at the moment," said an investment analyst at one brokerage.
K&G Complex, which is associated with the Galatariotis group of companies, has been snapped up by investors over the past two days amid widespread speculation that it might be taken over by another company.
Its stock closed down by a whisper to 25.2 cents.
Banking stocks ended 1.6 per cent firmer, underperforming higher advances in the rest of the market. Bank of Cyprus staged a strong recovery to add 17 cents, closing at £7.57 on a total of 290,000 shares changing hands while Laiki climbed 10 to £12.12. Hellenic was up eight cents to £2.75.
Louis Cruise Lines continued to languish at £1.45, down two cents on a volume of 628,819 shares. Traders reported that institutional investors, and especially banks, were expected to prop up the stock ahead of a forthcoming rights issue to shareholders, which sets an exercise price of £1.60. Since the exercise price is higher than the current market price it was expected to be shored up before the option to exercise rights is exercised, one said.
"There is no way Louis would get money from an issue at £1.60 — it would be better for the beneficiaries to get it straight from the market," one said.
Louis have given a seven-week postponement to the deadline for the rights issue until May 18.
Retailing group Mallouppas and Papacostas said yesterday sales of the group rose 33 per cent and its pre-tax profit was up 183 per cent last year.
Sales in the year under review rose to £7.9 million compared to £5.9 million the previous year, while pre-tax profits rose to two million pounds.
Blue Island Fish Farm said sales jumped 114 per cent last year to £883,438. An expansion of its retailing network and higher exports brought pre-tax gains of £285,351 pounds, climbing 78 per cent compared to the previous year.
The company said it expected to post a 150 per cent increase in sales for the current year.
Logicom said yesterday its turnover rose to £8.3 million, almost doubling the £4.4 million turnover posted in 1998.
Pre-tax gains rose to £1.01 million while earnings per share rose to 8.9 cents over five cents of 1998. The company said it had proposed dividends to shareholders amounting to £242,000 — spreading more than 30 per cent of the year’s total gains.
Vassiliko Cement’s sales dropped to £22.5 million last year on the back of a slowdown in the construction sector, a two per cent decrease compared to 1998.
The firm said pre-tax gains reached £3.8 million, marginally lower than the £3.9 million posted in the previous year while net profits for 1999 were £3.18 million. There was a loss from foreign currency fluctuations of £280,000, believed to be a result of a surge in the value of the dollar against the Cyprus pound.
