The nightmare for Eircom's army of small shareholders shows no signs of coming to an end, with the share plunging 12 cents to a new low of €2.40 in turnover of 1.6 million shares. The shares are now down almost 39 per cent on the €3.90 flotation price and less than half the €5.00 high.
It was a generally weak day for the Irish market with the major financial stocks like AIB and Bank of Ireland both sharply lower. AIB lost 12 cents to €9.42, while Bank of Ireland was 18 cents lower on €6.89.
Industrials were mixed with the biggest volume in Waterford Wedgwood after its excellent first-half results. But despite these results and an upgrade from Morgan Stanley, Waterford closed down one cent on €1.28. Morgan Stanley has upgraded Waterford to "outperform" and set a €1.48 target for the shares.
Smurfit's strong run came to an end and the shares were 10 cents lower on €2.20. IWP was 10 cents higher on €1.70 after the company confirmed the report in this column yesterday of another share buyback as well as a 1.5 million share purchase by chief executive Joe Moran.
Grafton jumped 70 cents to €22.50 after the announcement of its London property windfall profit, but Glanbia fell three cents to 55 cents.
Tullow was one cent lower on €1.08 as the company disclosed that its open offer of 39 million new shares had been taken up by 74 per cent of shareholders. The rump of the open offer was placed in the London market at the 57 1/2p sterling issue price by Henderson Crosthwaite.
The best of the Irish technology shares was Baltimore which jumped 45 1/2p to £7.10 sterling in London, but Smartforce, Parthus and Conduit were all also stronger.
