Chile shares end firmer on retail gains; peso flat
(Updates with bourse close)
By Manuel Farias
SANTIAGO, May 28 (Reuters) - Chilean stocks closed sharply higher on Thursday, led by retail shares as La Polar LAP.SN received a merger offer and underpinned by gains on Wall Street, while the peso closed flat, traders said.
The blue-chip IPSA index .IPSA rose 1.55 percent to 3,102.26 points, preliminary closing data showed, closing back in on near-18-month highs hit earlier in the week, while the all-market IGPA index .IGPA gained 1.18 percent to 14,604.09 points.
Chile's bourse has risen sharply in the past few weeks, led by sectors such as construction, retail and commodities. The IPSA is up 30.5 percent year-to-date.
La Polar LAP.SN said in a statement to Chile's market regulator that the proposed merger would be with a supermarket chain called Omega, which is controlled indirectly by the private equity fund Southern Cross Latin America, sending its shares surging 15.2 percent to 1,945.60 pesos a share.
"The proposed merger between La Polar and the supermarket unit of Southern Cross ... boosted the share sharply as well as some other retail stocks," he said Diego Celedon, deputy director of research at the Banchile brokerage.
Shares in retailer Falabella FAL.SN rose 2.39 percent to 2,193 pesos, while fellow retailer Ripley RIP.SN surged 6.66 percent to 395.17 pesos a share.
Shares of Cencosud CEN.SN, one of Latin America's largest retailers, rose 1.09 percent to 1,434.70 pesos.
Shares in steelmaker CAP CAP.SN were 3.75 percent firmer at 12,854 pesos, while Soquimich SQM_pb.SN, Chile's leading exporter of fertilizer and one of the world's biggest producers of iodine and lithium, rose 2.64 percent to 20,150 pesos.
The Chilean peso CLP=CL closed 0.04 percent firmer at 563.80/564.10 per dollar compared with Wednesday's close of 564.00/564.50.
The peso briefly fell in early trade on data that showed industrial production slid 11.1 percent in April compared with the same month a year earlier, before recovering.
The peso is up 13.7 percent against the dollar year-to-date after slumping 22.3 percent in 2008. (Additional reporting by Froilan Romero and Alexia Vlahos. editing by Simon Gardner)
