European markets decline as trade worries, German politics bite

European markets opened lower on Monday as on-going worries about the U.S. trade policies and concerns about German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition weighed on sentiment.

The pan-European STOXX 600 was down about 1.2 percent by 0730 GMT in line with Germany’s trade-sensitive DAX.

In London, the FTSE 100 was down 1.1 percent and British gambling technology company Playtech posted the worst performance, losing over 20 percent after it disappointed investors with a trading update.

Among rare winners, British software company Micro Focus International was up 3.3 percent after it said it had agreed to sell its Linux operating system SUSE business to a private equity fund advised by Sweden’s EQT Partners for $2.535 billion.

In the mid-cap segment of the market, Vedanta Resources surged over 25 percent after chairman Anil Agarwal’s family trust agreed to a deal that values the mining conglomerate at 2.3 billion pounds.

Milan’s FTSE MIB was down 1.9 percent with Italian pharmaceutical group Recordati falling over 15 percent after a consortium of investment funds controlled by CVC Capital Partners has agreed to buy a stake at a discount.

Source: Reuters