European shares edge up as AI worries ease; InPost rallies

By Johann M Cherian

Feb 9 (Reuters) – European shares edged higher on Monday, tracking a global equity rebound after last week’s selloff, as investors digested a flurry of dealmaking that included parcel locker group InPost surging ‍on news of a $9.2 billion buyout.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index was up 0.3% at 618.94 points, as of 0853 GMT.

Global equities have been recovering from a volatile patch last week, triggered by concerns about artificial intelligence disrupting traditional software businesses even as industry leaders such as Alphabet and Amazon.com set fresh spending targets to develop the technology.

Friday’s rebound helped the ‌STOXX 600 notch a weekly gain, although uncertainty surrounding the ‌technology sector remains in focus.

The tech sector gained 0.7% on Monday, with STMicroelectronics up 4.8% after the French company said it was expanding its engagement with Amazon Web Services on compute infrastructure.

“This is still healthy rotation within broader European stocks,” said Chris Beauchamp, chief ​market analyst at IG Markets, while comparing it to gains on Wall Street that has been relatively small.

“The kind of heady cocktail of worries that have ‍hampered European stocks over the course of time ​continue to abate. There’s no euphoria in this rally… but ​overall I think we’ve seen further strength and that continues to underpin the outlook.”

In ‍a relief for Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk that has been struggling in a highly competitive weightloss market, U.S.-based Hims & Hers said it will stop offering its low-cost GLP-1 pill, following a warning from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that it would take action against the product.

The Wegovy maker’s shares jumped 8.3%, while ‍peer Zealand Pharma added 3.5%.

M&A news also dominated the newsflow on Monday. A consortium led by holding firm Advent and FedEx has agreed to buy parcel locker company InPost ‍in a $9.2 billion deal, ‍sending shares of the Polish company up 13.6%.

NatWest fell 5.6% ​after a report said the UK lender is closing in ​on a ⁠2.5 billion pound takeover of wealth manager Evelyn Partners.

On ‌the earnings front, UniCredit , Italy’s second-largest bank by total assets, gained 5.3% after saying it aims to lift profit to 11 billion euros ($13 billion) this year, helping euro zone.

Italy’s benchmark index gained the most among major markets in europe, while STOXX’s EUROSTOXX banks index climb 1.3% and led sectoral gains.

(Reporting by Johann M Cherian in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry ⁠Jacob-Phillips and Tasim Zahid)