Lacklustre Monday for ISEQ

The ISEQ index of Irish shares fell by 31.58 points to 6791.71 today.

Eircom fell 12c to €2.09 in morning trade, amid renewed takeover speculation. Australian investment fund Babcock & Brown Capital and its manager have acquired a combined 12.5% stake in eircom, the fund announced today.

The stake acquisition has sparked takeover rumours at eircom, just weeks after it announced its plan to buy Meteor. Last month, eircom got approval to sell 313 million shares to existing shareholders to fund the €420m purchase of Meteor, which is owned by Western Wireless Corp.

Bank of Ireland was alone among the financial stocks in seeing a rise in share value, up 2c to €13.20.

AIB was down 6c to €17.89 while Anglo Irish Bank fell 4c to €11.45. Irish Life and Permanent was down 1c to €14.94.

Parmaceutical company Elan recorded one of the biggest increases of the day, rising 17c to €6.77.

Takeover target Jurys fell 5c to €18.70.