The news in Frankfurt was dominated by talk of a bid by Deutsche Telekom for VoiceStream, the US mobile operator. Shares slid sharply after reports that Deutsche Telekom may pay $53 billion (€57.11 billion) for VoiceStream, a premium of more than 40 per cent over Wednesday's share price. By 5.30 p.m. Deutsche Telekom was trading €4.03 lower at €56.37.
But the Xetra DAX index was still 78.69 higher at 7,445.26, helped by healthy gains in SAP and Karstadt Quelle.
Paris rallied during the afternoon after US markets opened strongly, with the CAC 40 index closing 1 per cent higher at 6,563.77. But all eyes were on the flotation of Vivendi Environnement which started trading at €34, the price it was offered to institutional investors.
Trading volumes were very high, with 36 million shares changing hands in the first three minutes and turnover for the day of more than 1.5 billion outweighing the total for all 40 shares on the CAC index.
Vivendi Environnement drifted down to close at €33.65, which still represented a premium of 3.5 per cent to the €32.50 that retail investors paid for the offering. Parent group Vivendi closed at €90.90. France Telecom was down 2.5 per cent at €147.50.
Amsterdam's AEX index closed 3.7 higher at 684.02 as new economy stocks returned to favour. ASM Lithography closed €1 up at €48.40. Philips gained 75 cents to €54.60.
Stockholm reversed course after two days of losses as telecoms giant Ericsson rebounded from lows seen earlier in the week ahead of first-half earnings today. The general index finished with a rise of 96.82 or 1.6 per cent at 6,180.74 . Market heavyweight Ericsson pushed over the SKr200 (€23.85) mark to close SKr9.50 higher at SKr205.50 (€24.51). Earlier it announced a GPRS deal with Turkey's mobile operator Turkcell, but no financial details were given.
Helsinki overcame weakness in the last hour of trade to close flat with Wall Street providing support as IBM's results helped tech shares. The HEX general index closed 11.98 higher at 16,480.00. Nokia closed unchanged at €58.49, with investors waiting eagerly for its Swedish rival Ericsson's results today.
