Smurfit Kappa gains 4.6% while banks lose ground

Iseq: 2,937.12 (–4.73) Settlement date: February 15thSMURFIT KAPPA dominated activity in Dublin yesterday, after shareholders Cinven and CVC together placed 25 million shares at €8.50. The deal represented 11 per cent of Smurfit Kappa, which ended the session 4.65 per cent stronger at €9.00.

The market as a whole slipped back a touch, in line with European bourses, closing 0.16 per cent weaker.

Financial stocks performed fairly poorly on the day, with Bank of Ireland down 2.49 per cent, or 0.9 cent, to 35.3 cent and AIB, on the junior market, shedding 1.82 per cent, or 0.5 cent, to finish at 27 cent. Irish Life Permanent slid by 1.9 cent to 93 cent, with investors now looking to results due at the start of next month.

Results came yesterday for CRH peer Heidelberg, with poor weather eating into numbers. Shares in CRH closed 11.5 cent higher at €16.485, with the outlook for US highway spend likely to be the short-term driver for the stock.

Results are due on March 1st.

Elsewhere, Greencore dropped by 3.6 cent to €1.15 after its rival for Northern Foods, Boparan, issued an offer document on Wednesday. Fellow food stock Kerry, which will report later this month, rose by 55 cent to €25.25.

The Iseq’s two aviation stocks slipped, with Aer Lingus down by 2.5 cent to €1.02, and Ryanair falling by 3.6 cent to €3.609. Aer Lingus is also among stocks due to issue numbers at the end of the month.

Paddy Power fell back by 32 cent to €29.70, despite winning approval from the Australian Foreign Investment Review Board for its purchase of the portion of Sportsbet that it does not already own.

Kingspan, FBD and Independent News Media fell back, while rising stocks included Readymix, Origin and CPL.