Jurys takeover drama enlivens flat trading day

Dublin Report: Jurys provided the most excitement on a flat Iseq yesterday, with the Takeover Panel, Jurys itself and Precinct all holding forth on takeover developments at the company.

The upshot of the three announcements was that Precinct has until July 29th to make a firm bid or walk away.

The news of the extension of the bid deadline, which was due to fall yesterday, offered a fillip to the hotel group's shares, which closed 15 cent higher at €15.60. While still a bit off from Precinct's latest approach at €16.50, they did manage to touch a high of €15.90 in afternoon trade. Volume was robust at almost 1.2 million shares.

The financials were fairly quiet as a group, with none managing to trade more than two million shares in Dublin.

AIB continued to lose ground as investors took profits in the wake of the stock's recent Eurostoxx-50 related buoyancy. Shares fell by five cent to €17.57, having touched a low of €17.42.

Bank of Ireland was again the beneficiary of some switching trade. Its shares added five cent to finish at €13.65.

Anglo also strengthened, adding one cent to end the week at €10.40. Irish Life and Permanent also rose by one cent, closing at €14.40.

Abbey suffered as analysts moved to reduce their forecasts for the firm in response to Thursday's disappointing results. The house builder shed 13 cent to finish at €9.30.

Grafton was busy as attention continued to focus on the likely effect on its profits of a slowdown in UK consumer spending. Shares closed at €8.55, 11 cent weaker.

CRH fell back too, losing five cent to end at €22.14. The move came in spite of a new report from Goodbody, which has raised its price target on the stock to €26.00.

Eircom gave up a portion of Thursday's gains as it declined by two cent to €1.88.

Ryanair did well on the back of a good performance from its ADRs in New York. It closed at €6.65, up four cent.