16 June 2004, 12:20  European Stocks Including Bouygues, Invensys, Comdirect Rise

European stocks advanced for a second day. Bouygues SA, owner of France's No. 3 mobile-phone company, rose after reporting first-quarter profit that beat analysts' estimates. Invensys Plc and L'Oreal SA also gained. The Dow Jones Stoxx 50 Index rose 0.2 percent to 2715 as of 8:17 a.m. in London. The Stoxx 600 advanced 0.2 percent. The Euro Stoxx 50, a benchmark for the 12 countries sharing the euro, climbed 0.3 percent. Bouygues, which is also the world's third-biggest construction company, gained 1.5 percent to 28.64 euros. The French builder had first-quarter net income of 69 million euros ($84 million), beating a median forecast of 46 million euros from seven analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News.
Invensys, the U.K. engineer that racked up 3 billion pounds ($5.5 billion) in debt expanding into software, jumped 4.8 percent to 16.25 pence, pacing gains on the Stoxx 600. The company said it will repurchase as much as $122.1 million of its 7 1/8 percent notes due 2007. L'Oreal led the advance on the Stoxx 50, rising 0.9 percent to 64.65 euros. The world's biggest cosmetics maker said it will spend as much as 1 billion euros to buy back shares in the next 12 months. Some shares will be canceled, others will be used for a stock-options plan.
Comdirect Sells Unit
Comdirect Bank AG, Germany's biggest online broker, climbed 2.4 percent to 7.18 euros. The lender sold its U.K. subsidiary to Lloyds TSB Group Plc for 16.5 million euros to focus on its home market. Comdirect will book a pretax gain of 2.4 million euros from the sale, said Daniel Fard-Yazdani, the investor relations manager. Nokia Oyj, the world's biggest mobile phone maker, added 0.5 percent to 11.83 euros. The Finnish company and Nortel Networks Corp. may get an order worth 40 billion rupees ($881 million) from Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd., India's biggest phone company, Indian newspaper Business Line newspaper reported, without saying where it got the information. Amadeus Global Travel Distribution SA, the world's largest travel-reservations company, fell 0.6 percent to 5.15 euros after agreeing to buy 55 percent of Opodo, an Internet travel agency set up by airlines including Air France SA and British Airways Plc, for 62 million euros. It aims to complete the purchase in July. ///www.bloomberg.com

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