Philippines shares gain

Philippines share prices closed 3.01 percent higher Friday, lifted by buying in index heavyweight Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co (PLDT), dealers said. The composite index added 53.64 points to 1,833.90 points while the all shares index rose 2.04 percent to 1,200.69 points. There were 64 gainers, 19 losers and 41 unchanged.
Turnover totalled 1.026 billion shares worth 2.996 billion pesos (62 million dollars). The peso traded at 48.267 to the dollar on Friday morning from 48.28 on Thursday afternoon. "PLDT is rising because more information about its investment in Meralco (Manila Electric Co) is filtering to investors," Jomar Lacson of Campos, Lanuza and Co told Dow Jones newswires.
A holding firm of the Lopez family sold a 20-percent-stake in Meralco to PLDT for 414 million dollars last week, apparently trying to foil a rumoured hostile take-over bid by food and beverages giant San Miguel Corp Joseph Roxas, president of Eagle Equities, told Dow Jones that the market had risen because investors were starting to realise that the "American market has already bottomed out."
PLDT rose 3.42 percent to 1,965 pesos while the Manila Electric Co rose 5.42 percent to 87.50 pesos. Bank of the Philippine Islands gained 4.61 percent to 34 pesos and Ayala Corp rose 2.96 percent to 209 pesos. San Miguel Corp saw its A shares rise 1.19 percent to 42.50 pesos while its B shares rose 1.17 percent to 43 pesos.