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Insurers plummet on Stock Exchange in Q1

08.04.2008, 20:19 6

The four insurance companies listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange have seen their shares fall by as much as 53.8% since the beginning of this year, following the general trend of the market. Asirom, Astra, Ardaf and Agras lost almost 143 million euros of their capitalisation in the first quarter of the year. The value of the four insurers declined from 364.2 million euros, at the beginning of the year, to 221.5 million euros at the beginning of this month. Asirom's shares saw the sharpest decline -53.8%, followed by Agras shares - 30.7%, Astra shares -28.9%, and Ardaf- 21.8%. In comparison, the BET index, which gauges the performance of the most liquid companies on the market, has dropped by around 25% since the beginning of the year. During the same period, the BET-FI index, which follows the progression of financial investment companies (SIF), has gone down by over 28%, and the general index of the market, which includes all Stock Exchange-listed companies, dropped 22%.