Shacolas titles sharply up ahead of CTC meeting

By Hamza Hendawi

RUMOURS swirling around the Shacolas Group companies on the eve of CTC’s general annual meeting sharply lifted prices of the conglomerate’s titles yesterday, helping the all-share index to a new record close.

F.W. Woolworth rose by 1.5 cents to close at £0.57, while its sister Shacolas company CTC notched up 9.5 cents to close at £1.69. Orphanides Supermarkets, the only other title in the trading companies sector and Woolworth’s fierce competitor, rose by 5.50 cents to close at £1.14.

Volume in the small sector accounted for 20 per cent of the day’s total trade at a value of £1.62 million, surpassing the usually dominant banks sector by almost £500,000.

The impressive run of the Shacolas titles helped the market to finish the day up 0.37 per cent at 155.66. The close was the latest all-time high in a market that has so far this year appreciated by about 70 per cent.

Nicos Shacolas, perhaps the island’s best known businessman, was scheduled to meet brokers last night to discuss the future prospects of his companies ahead of today’s meeting of CTC shareholders.

Woolworth’s annual general meeting is scheduled for next week.

“Something is definitely cooking,” said Neofytos Neofytou of AAA United. “Perhaps spinoffs, but there can also be good news on an Athens listing or Christis dairies going public,” he told the Cyprus Mail.

Like most other shares in the Cyprus Stock Exchange, the Shacolas titles have become used to living in the shadow of the blue-chips of the bank stocks. It is only in the past week that investors’ interest shifted to other stocks after they cashed in their bank shares at high levels.

The Shacolas shares have long been thought to be undervalued, along with several other stocks.

In the tourism sector, Salamis Tours Holdings made by far the biggest gains in yesterday’s trade, appreciating by 6.50 cents with transactions worth nearly £1 million. Closing at £1.24, trade in the share took 10.9 per cent of the day’s entire volume. The sector’s sub-index also rose by a decent 2.19 per cent to close at 115.02.

In the unusual place of runners-up, shares of banks saw unusually slow activity yesterday. The Bank of Cyprus, the island’s largest, was the only stock to end the day in positive territory, rising by 2.50 cents to close at £6.77.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.