LONDON (Thomson Financial) - Leading European bourses gained in opening deals after yet another record close on Wall Street on Friday with a slew of European M&A and earnings news helping to lift the mood, dealers said.
At 08.28, the STOXX 50 was up 2.26 points at 3897.26 and the STOXX 600 was up 0.33 points at 389.6.
On Friday, the DJIA closed up 153.35, or 1.20 pct, at 12,961.98, after setting a new session high of 12,966.29. The Nasdaq rose 21.04 to 2,526.39 rebounding from the week's selling as investors celebrated a week of surprisingly strong US earnings reports.
Over in Asia, the Nikkei 225 index closed the morning session up 164.89 points at 17,617.51, while in Hong Kong the Hang Seng hit the half-way mark up 30.04 points at 20,596.63.
ABN Amro topped the STOXX 50 risers after Barclays confirmed it has agreed to offer 36.25 eur for ABN-Amro. ABN also announced that it agreed to sell its LaSalle unit to Bank of America for 21 bln usd.
One analyst said the price for LaSalle was 10 pct ahead of forecasts and synergies were at the high end of the range -- albeit through cost savings.
He said the deal is earnings neutral before any benefit from revenue synergies. Barclays added 0.07 pct.
But the end game is not yet in sight as a spokeswoman for Royal Bank of Scotland -- down 0.79 pct -- told Thomson Financial News that chief executive Sir Fred Goodwin will meet with ABN's board today along with other members of the consortium and will provide it with full details about how their offer will be structured.
The Sunday Times had suggested the other parties would only be silent financial backers, stumping up the cash to acquire ABN's Latin American, Italian and Benelux operations should the bid succeed.
Elsewhere in the banking sector, Societe Generale dropped 2.84 pct after it said late Friday it is not involved in any talks over a possible strategic merger.
'Given the movement of its shares and the volumes traded, Societe Generale specifies that no negotiations of this type are currently underway,' the banking group said, following a rise in its shares of 7.74 pct after a newswire reported it was in preliminary talks with Unicredito. deborah.hyde@thomson.com dlh/bsd COPYRIGHT Copyright AFX News Limited 2007. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of AFX News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of AFX News.
© 2007 AFX News
