By Carla Mozee, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Gains for European stocks were limited
Wednesday by sharp losses within the telecommunications industry,
as a potential tie-up involving French company Orange SA was
shelved.
The Stoxx Europe 600 index was up 0.1% at 345.23. It closed
Tuesday's session up 0.9%, the strongest percentage rise in two
months, according to FactSet data.
Wading near the bottom of the Stoxx 600 was Orange , with shares
dropping 3% after the telecoms company ditched its pursuit of a
potential merger or acquisition in France. After examining
possibilities that would lead to consolidation in the French
telecoms market, Orange said it "believes that it cannot pursue
this avenue at the present time as the conditions that the group
has set have not been met."
In recent weeks, Orange was reported to be in talks to acquire a
stake in Bouygues Telecom , amid a push by the French government
for telecom-sector consolidation. Bouygues shares fell 3.3%. Shares
of Iliad SA , which had previously put up a bid for the Bouygues
unit, were down 5%.
But on the winning end, shares of Alcatel-Lucent were pushed up
4.1% after the telecommunications-equipment maker's rating was
raised to overweight from neutral at J.P. Morgan Cazenove. "With
the restructuring proceeding at a faster pace than guided
originally and the stock having pulled back because some investors
have taken profits, not because progress has stalled, we upgrade
the stock to overweight," wrote analyst Sandeep Deshpande.
France's CAC 40 equity index was down 0.3% to 4,449.91.
Meanwhile, the U.K.'s FTSE 100 rose 0.2% to 6,816.58 and
Germany's DAX 30 gained 0.2% to 9,918.65.
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