Busy day of movement on ISEQ

There was plenty of activity on the Irish stock exchange today with movement among mineral shares.

Zinc producer Arcon has placed 200 workers on protective notice after management and unions failed to reach agreement on a pay agreement for 2004.

Shares in the company closed 1c down at 4c.

Exploration company Kenmare remained static at 22c. Earlier the company announced that it had completed the dismantling of its mineral separation plant at Beenup in Western Australia.

Independent News and Media closed at €2.02 down 3c.

This morning it announced the sale of 23 of its London regional newspaper operations to Archant Regional Limited for £62.0m (€88.7m).

Luxury goods group Waterford Wedgwood saw its chairman purchase 1.2m shares in the company.

Redmond O’Donoghue paid 20c for each share giving a total cost of €240,000.

Ryanair was up 5c to €6.18 after the low fares airline released customer service figures for November and announced its website Ryanair.com would partner with hostelworld.com to provide an online accommodation booking facility.

Hotel group Jury’s Doyle dipped 2c to €9.80.

Tourism Ireland, the organisation charged with marketing Ireland as a tourist destination, earlier launched an ambitious plan to attract more visitors to Ireland in 2004.

In the financial sector, Anglo-Irish bounced back after yesterday’s losses to close up 25c to €12.10.

AIB finished up 1c to €12.21 while Bank of Ireland was up 3c to €10.53.