LONDON — The pan-European Stoxx 600 ended Thursday down 0.4%, with HSBC‘s London-listed shares sliding 5% after a privatization bid for its Hong Kong-based subsidiary Hang Seng Bank. Europe’s largest lender, HSBC, put forward a privatization proposal to shareholders for Hang Seng on Thursday. It is a controlling shareholder of the bank, with a 63% stake.
“If approved, Hang Seng will become a wholly owned subsidiary of HSBC Asia Pacific and will be delisted from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange,” HSBC said. Hang Seng’s shares soared upon the news.
The privatization offer weighed on European banks, which ended the session 1.4% lower.
In London, the FTSE 100 fell 0.4% while France’s CAC 40 lost 0.2%, as the DAX notched a 0.2% gain.
Shares of Danish pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk ended trading down 1.3% after the company announced plans to acquire U.S. biotech firm Akero Therapeutics.
The deal will see Novo pay $54 per share, valuing Akero at $4.7 billion, with the acquisition also including a contingent value right of $6 per share, potentially adding another $500 million to the offer.
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Novo Nordisk shares
Shares of New York-listed Akero were up around 16.7% on Thursday morning.
Market attention remained on France, after President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday that he will name a new prime minister within 48 hours, following the resignation of Sebastien Lecornu on Monday. Macron is being urged to pick a PM who is not another centrist ally.
Earlier, Asia Pacific markets saw shares of SoftBank jump as much as 13% a day after the Japanese giant announced a deal to buy the robotics division of Swiss engineering firm ABB for $5.4 billion, further advancing SoftBank’s AI footprint.
In the U.S., S&P 500 was down 0.3% ahead of midday trading in New York, after the benchmark index rose to all-time highs earlier in the week.
— CNBC’s Alex Harring and Nur Hikmah Md Ali contributed to this market report.
