Big trade on Audi shares

Arranged deal on three million stocks

The Beirut Stock Exchange (BSE) saw a cross trade transaction involving three million Bank Audi shares on Thursday (March 14). The transaction was valued at over $20 million. The Audi share price closed the day at $6.75, inching up by 0.14 percent from its previous closing.

Toufic Karam, Head of Capital Markets at FFA Private Bank, said this transaction was a block trade. “This process is an arranged deal whereby the buyer and the seller agree on the price and perform the transaction through the market,” he said. This type of transaction occurs mainly in cases when stocks are being transferred from one owner to another, as in cases of inheritance.

The BSE activity has been down since the beginning of 2013 with an average daily transaction value of less than $1 million. “The market has not seen any significant trading so far this year and this is explicable considering the prevailing economic and political deadlock,” said Karam. Foreign and Arab investments have been absent from the local stock market since early 2012. “The good thing is that prices of stocks are not going down, which is a sign of the resilience of the listed companies,” Karam said.