May 17 (SeeNews) - The share indices of the Bulgarian Stock Exchange (BSE) recorded a second straight winning session on Tuesday, on the back of a 51% surge in IT services business Sirma Group Holding [BUL:DUH] and a 9.84% gain in First Investment Bank, or Fibank, [BUL:FIB], bourse data showed.
The SOFIX index closed 1.45% higher at 609.43 points. Fibank was the top blue-chip gainer, closing at 2.12 levs in a trading volume of 7,592 shares.
Sirma Group Holding ended the day at 0.75 levs, with 649,081 company shares bought and sold. As Tuesday's biggest gainer, it was also the most liquid stock on the Sofia bourse, generating a turnover of 490,056 levs ($264,070/250,560 euro).
Earlier in the day, the IT services company announced its board has given initial approval to an offer for the purchase of a majority stake in its subsidiary Sirma AI, trading as Ontotex, by London-based Integral Venture Partners. The target business is valued at 28.5 million euro ($30 million).
A 7.67% rise in Chimimport [BUL:CHIM] to 0.92 levs boosted both the SOFIX and the BGTR30 index, in which companies with a free float of at least 10% have equal weight. The BGTR30 edged up 0.76% to 724.25 points.
Parcel delivery firm Speedy [BUL:SPDY] paced the decliners in the BGBX40 index, which tracks the 40 most traded shares on the Sofia bourse. Speedy retreated 12.17% to 101.0 levs as 56 units changed hands.
The BGBX40 finished 0.95% higher at 144.02 points, buoyed by the gains in Sirma Group along with a 13.13% jump in Zarneni Hrani Bulgaria [BUL:ZHG] to 0.22 levs.
The BGREIT, which comprises seven real estate investment trusts, also advanced, by 0.50% to 181.99 points, as both Bulgarian Real Estate Fund REIT [BUL:BREF] and Advance Terrafund REIT [BUL:ATER] climbed, by 1.8% and 0.57%, respectively.
Total turnover on the BSE nearly doubled, rising to 1.57 million levs from 995,681 levs on Monday.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)
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