ISEQ ends week on a low
A positive profits announcement from Fyffes failed to excite a sluggish ISEQ today as the index ended the week down 66.51 points at 7820.81.
Pharmaceutical giant Elan, the financials and the construction sector combined to blight the index's performance.
Fruit distributor Fyffes saw its share price rise more than 5% today following their announcement of a 27.9% increase in pre-tax profits for the year to the end of December 2005 thanks to high banana prices.
The company said trading in 2006 so far had been in line with expectations.
Pre-tax profits rose to €105.8m last year from €82.7m in 2004 while revenues rose by 11.3% to €2.2bn from €1.9bn the previous year.
Adjusted to exclude amortisation and separately disclosable items, fully diluted earnings per share (EPS) rose to 25.23 cent from 20.14 cent in 2004 - a gain of 25%. Basic earnings per share climbed 28.2% to 23.79 cent.
Fyffes' stock was up 11c to €2.15 by the end of today's trading.
Elan suffered the heaviest loss of the day as they saw their stock tumble 91c to €10.25.
The financial heavyweights all suffered losses. AIB had the heaviest with a 39c slump to €18.96. Anglo Irish Bank fell 14c to €13.59 while Irish Life and Permanent went down 9c to €18.26. Bucking the trend was Bank of Ireland who climbed 5c to €15.08.
Building materials company Readymix also received a boost today rising 5c to €2.30.
This follows their report of a 148% jump in pre-tax profits to €32.3m for the year to the end of December 2005, up from €13m in 2004.
Profits were boosted by the sale of a disused quarry in Co Antrim for €20m.
Sales for the year came to €248.1m, just marginally higher than the 2004 sales figure of €247.5m.
Its rivals in the construction sector had a bad day as both Abbey and Kingspan fell 10c to €10.50 and €11.90 respectively, while the Grafton group went down 15c to €10.16.
Elsewhere, FBD Holdings set a positive note with a 24c rise to €40.74, as did shipping firm Irish Continental saw their share price go up 18c to €11.85.
