European Stocks Drop Sharply; Bouygues Loses Bidding Fight

European stocks dropped Monday, hit in the wake of Friday’s selloff on Wall Street that left the Nasdaq Composite COMP -2.60% with its worst drop in two months.

The Stoxx Europe 600 XX:SXXP -0.81% , which finished last week with its third straight weekly rise, fell 0.8% to 336.60. Bouygues SA shares FR:EN -5.14% were among the biggest losers, down 6% after its bid for Vivendi SA’s FR:VIV +0.02% French mobile unit was rejected in favor of a bid from Altice SA NL:ATC +7.32% .

On the winning side, however, shares of Holcim Ltd. CH:HOLN +4.36% led the pan-European index higher, surging 5.9% after the Swiss company and France’s Lafarge SA FR:LG +3.62% agreed to merge into the world’s biggest building-materials group.

Among country-specific indexes, the U.K.’s FTSE 100 UK:UKX -0.66% fell 0.8% to 6,643.10, Germany’s DAX 30 DX:DAX -1.35% slumped 1.5% to 9,553.91, and France’s CAC 40 FR:PX1 -0.81% declined 0.8% to 4,449.58.

Source: Market Watch

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