Dublin market lower ahead of Lehman decision

The Dublin market was almost 2 per cent lower today as the main financial stocks tracked lower ahead on an announcement from Lehman Brothers at 12.30pm.

At 12.29pm the Iseq index of Irish shares was 1.9 per cent lower at 4,468, a drop of 90 points.

Analysts said many stocks were broadly flat although Kerry Group and Smurfit Kappa were attracting interest.

Smurfit was the day's highest riser, up 2.8 per cent to €4.99 while Kerry Group added 50 cent, to rise 2.5 per cent to €20.50.

Among the banking stocks AIB was over 1 per cent lower at €8.63 while Irish Life and Permanent was €1.5 per cent down at €7.05. Bank of Ireland stock was off 2.3 per cent at €5.76, while Anglo shed over 3 per cent to €5.51.

Other fallers today include Elan, down 7.5 per cent to €8.10 and Kingspan shares which fell 4.3 per cent to €7.86.

World stocks fell after the collapse of Korean-led talks to rescue US investment bank Lehman Brothers.

The dollar initially lost ground after the Korean Development Bank confirmed it ended talks with Lehman due to disagreements over terms and its assessment of financial market conditions but the US currency later bounced back.

A casualty of the one-year-old credit crunch, Lehman brought forward the release of quarterly results and key strategic initiatives after its shares sank to a decade low on yesterday's growing concern over its ability to raise capital.

The FTSEurofirst 300 index fell 0.6 per cent while the MSCI main world equity index lost half a percent, approaching a two-year low that was set last week.

US stock futures were up 0.8 per cent, indicating a firmer open on Wall Street later. Lehman shares traded in Frankfurt more than halved gains to stand up 5 per cent on the day, with investors still entertaining hopes for asset sales and eventual capital raising.

The bank is in talks with BlackRock to sell a package of British real estate assets, people familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal.

The dollar rose 0.2 per cent against a basket of major currencies, having earlier traded down 0.15 per cent. It hit a one-year high earlier this week. The yen trimmed losses after the Lehman talks collapsed and was down 0.4 per cent at 107.39 per dollar.

Additional reporting Reuters