During this morning's trading session on the Stock Exchange, the share price of Bank of Valletta plc recovered some of the recent declines with a 2.3 per cent rise to regain the €2.70 level.
Fifteen trades totalling almost 23,700 shares were transacted today with further bids unsatisfied at the closing price and lowest offers now placed at €2.73. Investors in the La Valette Multi-Manager Property Fund have until June 30 to reply to the bank's offer of €0.75 per share.
On the other hand, five equities closed the day lower.
FIMBank plc slumped 5.9 per cent to a fresh 74-month low of US$0.80 on high volumes of over 116,000 shares.
Shareholders also have until June 30 to submit their acceptance form with respect to the "share-for-share exchange" whereby shareholders will receive shares in the new holding company FIM Holdings plc. This new holding company was set up to improve the tax efficiency of the FIMBank Group.
A small trade of 300 Middlesea Insurance plc shares was transacted at the €1.02 level representing a 0.9 per cent drop from the previous close. Details have still not been disclosed of the acquisition of Munich Re's shareholding by Mapfre Internacional and the subsequent mandatory bid to all other shareholders.
MIDI plc dropped a further 2.4 per cent lower to a new all-time low of €0.41 on volumes totalling 2,100 shares. Selling pressure was also evident in Island Hotels Group with the equity dropping five per cent to a new six-month low of €0.85 on very low volumes of 400 shares.
Following today's downturn, IHG shares are 15 per cent below the IPO price of €1 per share.
MaltaPost plc's share price slumped 5.6 per cent back to the €1.02 level across two trades amounting to just over 2,000 shares.
During May, the MSE Share Index edged marginally higher to 3,350.670 points but still remains 11.4 per cent below its value at the beginning of the year.
The best performers in May were Middlesea Insurance plc (+20 per cent) and International Hotel Investments plc (+14.3 per cent). Meanwhile BOV dropped -6.3 per cent during the past four weeks mainly in response to the announcement that the Bank is offering to buy back the shares of the La Valette Multi-Manager Property Fund.
On the bond market, the Rizzo Farrugia MGS Index ended May marginally higher at 976.458 points reflecting the sharp downturn in yields in the latter part of the month as the Eurozone debt crisis was reignited.
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