Europe shares cut gains after D.Bank stake comment
LONDON, June 11 (Reuters) - European shares pared Wednesday's early gains after a Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) comment on its largest stakeholders took the edge off a rally in banks, which had gained on a media report of Russian stake-buying.
By 0817 GMT the FTSEurofirst 300 index .FTEU3 of top European shares was up 0.2 percent at 1,274.08 points, after having risen earlier by as much as 0.54 percent. Banks' net contribution to the rise in the index amounted to just 1.2 points, compared with a net rise of 4 points at 0720 GMT.
Shares in Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse (CSGN.VX) and UBS (UBSN.VX) were among early gainers following a report in Kommersant business daily which said Russian billionaire Suleiman Kerimov was selling Russian assets to buy stakes in these three banks and Morgan Stanley (MS.N).
One source in a major investment bank told Kommersant Kerimov owned 3 percent of Deutsche in the end of last year. Deutsche said it was only aware of two shareholders with stakes of more than 3 percent and those were Barclays (BARC.L) and AXA (AXAF.PA).
This knocked shares in Deutsche Bank and UBS off the day's highs to show gains of 1.2 and 0.4 percent, respectively, while Credit Suisse was flat.
(Reporting by Amanda Cooper)
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