By Carla Mozee, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- These stocks made notable moves in
European trade Friday.
Balfour Beatty PLC shares surged 9.1% as the construction and
services company said it is in preliminary merger talks with rival
Carillion PLC . Carillion shares gained 7.2%.
British Sky Broadcasting Group PLC shares pulled back 5.5% after
the broadcaster said it will pay 4.9 billion pounds ($8.3 billion)
to buy Sky Italia and a 57.4% stake in Sky Deutschland from 21st
Century Fox Inc. (NWS). The deal paves the way for BSkyB to create
a pay-TV business across Europe.
LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton shares dropped 6.8% after the
luxury-goods firm said first-half profit fell 4%, highlighting the
sector's exposure to fluctuations in foreign-exchange rates.
Shares of Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC leapt 11% as the
company said it expects pretax profit of GBP2.65 billion for the
first half of the year, compared with GBP1.37 billion in the
year-ago period. Second-quarter net profit fell on charges.
Vodafone Group PLC gained 2.1%, with the mobile-phone industry
heavyweight saying there's signs of stabilization in some key
European markets, even as quarterly revenue grew at a
lower-than-expected pace.
More must-reads from MarketWatch:
Follow U.S. stock market action
Greenspan says bubbles can't bet stopped without 'crunch'
Was your brokerage account hacked? Here's how to know
Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires