Further demand emerged for the shares of RS2 Software plc ahead of the company’s extraordinary general meeting to be held on Wednesday.
The meeting is being convened for shareholders to consider and approve a number of proposed changes to the memorandum and articles of association.
The changes are part of an agreement between ITM Holding Ltd (the major shareholder in RS2) and Barclays Bank plc for the latter to acquire a 10 per cent shareholding in RS2 from ITM.
Barclays have also revealed their intentions to acquire a further 10 per cent stake from the secondary market.
Moreover, Barclays also acquired a licence from RS2 worth an initial £8.5 million. The equity this morning jumped 6.4 per cent to a new all-time high of €2 before a last minute deal of just 300 shares forced the equity back to the €1.95 level which still represented a 3.8 per cent increase over the previous close.
A total of 28,845 shares changed hands today.
The share prices of the two large banks also performed positively.
Bank of Valletta plc edged 1.3 per cent higher to regain the €2.40 level on low volumes of 3,000 shares.
Higher volumes were transacted in HSBC Bank Malta plc with the equity rising by one per cent to recapture the €2.50,5 level across eight trades totalling 17,300 shares.
Tigné Mall plc also ended this morning’s trading session in positive territory with a one per cent rise to the 51c level on a single trade of 6,000 shares.
Meanwhile, the only other active equity, namely Crimsonwing plc, ended the session unchanged at the 74c level on a deal of 3,150 shares.
On the bond market, the Rizzo Farrugia MGS Index slipped a further 0.1 per cent lower to 1,020.152 points to end the week in negative territory reflecting the downgrade of Malta’s credit rating by Fitch from ‘A+’ to ‘A-‘. In fact, this week’s movements in the local MGS benchmark contrasted the 15 basis point drop in Eurozone yields to 1.8 per cent thereby reversing some of the increases registered since mid-July.
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