STOCKS NEWS EUROPE-Greene King rises after fundraising

Shares in Greene King (GNK.L) rise as much as 5 percent after the British pubs group says it plans to raise 207.7 million pounds through a rights issue to repurchase debt and make acquisitions.

Greene King, which has around 2,500 pubs in England and Scotland, also says trading has improved since the start of 2009 and that it expects its underlying pretax profit for the year to be not less than 115 million pounds, in line with expectations.

"The rights issue will enable Greene King to repair its balance sheet as well as taking advantage of distressed asset prices in the sector. Recent trading confirms the stronger trend in recent weeks ... and the pretax profit forecast is 5 percent above our estimate," says KBC analyst Paul Hickman.

However some are less positive on the stock with Numis tempering its rating to "add" from "buy" and the stock retreats to a 0.4 percent gain on the day by 0859 GMT.

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Reuters messaging rm://rhysl.jones.reuters.com@reuters.net

08:24GMT 23Apr2009-ITV reverses gains, no rights issue yet

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Shares in ITV (ITV.L) fall 5 percent, reversing earlier gains, after the UK's main free-to-air commercial broadcaster says a new covenant-free financing and plans to dispose of digital channel operator SDN mean it does not currently need a rights issue.

ITV also announces the start of a search for a Chief Executive to replace Michael Grade, who will move to a non-executive role once a regulatory review of advertising rules is complete.

One trader says investors have been selling after the shares gained over 10 percent on Wednesday on the back of bid speculation from Italy's Mediaset (MS.MI). [ID:nLM51501]

"People were buying yesterday on bid speculation and so have sold off after there was no mention of that in this morning's statement," says Sam Wright at Spreadex.

Analysts also point to SDN being one of ITV's more successful units.

"We believe SDN is an excellent business, and view it as a hidden gem within ITV," write Numis analysts in a note.

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Reuters messaging rm://victoria.bryan.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net