Telecoms lift European stocks after Sunrise buyout offer

(Reuters) – Telecoms stocks boosted European bourses on Wednesday following Liberty Global’s takeover offer for Sunrise Communications, while London’s FTSE 100 gained on bets of domestic stimulus after a collapse in quarterly economic output.

The pan-European STOXX 600 <.stoxx> was up 0.2%, gaining for a fourth straight session.

Sunrise Communications surged 26.8% after Liberty Global launched a takeover offer for the Swiss telecoms group in a deal valued at 6.8 billion Swiss francs ($7.40 billion).

Wall Street indexes fell overnight on growing uncertainty about a stalemate in Washington over a fiscal stimulus deal, while data showed Britain’s economy shrank by a record 20.4% between April and June, the largest contraction reported by any major economy so far. [.N]

London-listed shares of European food-ordering firm Just Eat Takeaway.com NV also rose 3.3% after reporting higher revenue and underlying profit for the first half of 2020.

British online fashion retailer ASOS jumped 9.9% as it forecast full-year sales and profit significantly ahead of market expectations.

(Reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)