Maltacom gain as BOV declines

Sustained weakness in Bank of Valletta shares continued to drag the market lower during the final session of the week at the Malta Stock Exchange.

Bank of Valletta shares continued to decline yesterday, dropping by a further 5c to close in negative territory for the week. During the day's session all 4,970 shares were exchanged across seven transactions at the Lm5.05c level. BOV shares touched Lm5.22c on Wednesday.

Contrary to this, FIMBank gained 0.9 per cent as two shareholders swapped 20,000 shares at the price of $1.24. In an announcement the company informed that an extraordinary general meeting has been called for shareholders to approve amendments to the Memorandum of Association and authorise a share buy-back programme.

Low volume trades in the other two banks, namely HSBC Bank Malta and Lombard Bank, did not affect their previous closing prices of Lm5.60c and Lm5.64c respectively.

Maltacom closed the week on a positive note, when fresh buyers entered the market and scooped up shares all the way to the Lm1.37c level. This represents a 2c or 1.5 per cent premium to Thursday's closing price, although the equity still lost 4.8 per cent in aggregate over the past five sessions.

Simonds Farsons Cisk shares gave back a penny to trade at Lm0.87c, while 5,700 Plaza Centre shares changed hands without affecting their previous closing price of Lm0.60c.

Valletta Fund Management and BOV Stockbrokers Ltd