LONDON, March 6: European stock markets rose strongly Monday as news of a takeover of Bellsouth by telecoms giant AT and T in the US helped offset pre-weekend losses on Wall Street.

London’s FTSE 100 index of leading British companies moved above 5,900 points as investors also drew comfort from consensus-beating full-year results from global banking giant HSBC.

The FTSE 100 jumped 1.05 per cent to 5,920.30 points in early afternoon deals, Frankfurt’s DAX 30 climbed 0.60 per cent to 5,756.07, and in Paris the CAC 40 increased 0.93 per cent to 5,035.30 points.

The DJ Euro Stoxx 50 index of leading eurozone shares won 0.73 per cent to 3,761.30 points.

The euro stood at 1.2034 dollars.

Ahead of the weekend, US stocks had finished lower in a volatile session Friday as a profit-warning from chip giant Intel Corp. was only partly offset by a strong report on the US services sector.

European traders concentrated on news from the telecommunications sector on Monday.

The deal would create the country’s largest telecommunications group by market capitalization, overshadowing rival Verizon Communications.

In Paris trading, France Telecom saw its share price rise 1.82 per cent to 18.48 euros, while across in Frankfurt, Deutsche Telekom shares gained 2.57 per cent to 13.99 euros.

Telecoms also performed well in London, with BT Group lifted by renewed bid speculation, while Vodafone gained as brokers reacted positively to the possible sale of its Japanese division, which had been announced late Friday.

BT shares leapt 3.06 per cent to 227.25 pence while Vodafone shares surged 3.70 per cent to 126 pence.

Meanwhile, global banking giant HSBC on Monday announced record annual pre-tax profits for 2005, up 11 per cent to 20.996 billion US dollars (17.422 billion euros) compared with 2004.

The share price of HSBC climbed by 1.49 per cent to 989.5 pence as investors welcomed the results.

BOC Group’s share price dipped 0.58 per cent to 1,535 pence in London trading.

However in Frankfurt, Linde shares surged 6.64 per cent to 69.86 euros.

Back on Wall Street on Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.04 per cent to 11,021.59 points after zig-zagging throughout the day.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite shed 0.37 per cent to 2,302.60 while the broad-market Standard and Poor’s 500 index dipped 0.15 per cent to 1,287.23.

—AFP