(MENAFN- AFP) European stocks climbed Friday, with London striking a fresh record peak on takeover news and after Greece pledged new plans to reform its bailout, dealers said.
In morning deals, London's benchmark FTSE 100 index soared to a record-high 6,987.92 points, extending this week's gains won on the back of the British budget and cooling US rate hike hopes.
The FTSE stood at 6,977.1 points in midday deals, up 0.21 percent from Thursday's closing level.
The CAC 40 index in Paris won 0.52 percent to 5,063.20 points and Frankfurt's DAX 30 index jumped 1.24 percent to 12,046.
"It is understandably a quiet day in the financial markets with the lack of any major market moving events. But that has not stopped the FTSE from edging to a fresh record high today," said Forex.com analyst Fawad Razaqzada.
"The index of top UK shares is led by ... CRH, which rallied on announcement of a planned multi-billion-euro merger with Holcim and Lafarge."
Rivals Lafarge and Holcim announced Friday that they had agreed new terms and repaired cracks that had threatened their merger to create the world's biggest cement company.
In reaction, Ireland's London-listed building materials group CRH saw its shares surge 5.54 percent to 1,848 pence.
Last year Holcim and Lafarge announced plans to create a cement titan employing more than 130,000 people which would generate annual underlying profits of 6.5 billion euros.
But with the sharp rise in the Swiss franc having driven up Holcim's value since the merger was agreed last year, the Swiss firm had declared Sunday that the previous terms were no longer appropriate.
- Sabadell snaps up TSB -
In the banking sector, Lloyds Banking Group shares rose 0.60 percent to 79.98 pence after its TSB division backed a £1.7-billion takeover from Spanish lender Sabadell.
The two banks announced in a statement that they have agreed terms on the bid which was pitched at 340 pence per share and worth 2.3 billion euros or $2.5 billion.
TSB, which is 50-percent owned by Lloyds, saw its share price leap 2.02 percent to 333.62 pence on the London stock market.
In foreign exchange activity, the European single currency edged up to $1.0694 from $1.0660 late on Thursday in New York, pushing higher on the Greek news.
Traders moved into the single currency after Greece's deal with its key European partners, who agreed to finish work "as fast as possible" on completing its EU-IMF rescue programme.
"Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras promised EU creditors that Greece is soon to present a detailed list of economic reforms to enable loans to continue and prevent the country running out of cash," said CMC Markets analyst Jasper Lawler.
"Exactly a month ago on February 20, a provisional list of reforms was offered by Greece to allow a four-month extension of its bailout."
Analysts said they expect the dollar to resume its advance as the US Federal Reserve prepares for a rate hike at some stage.
The euro had leapt to a two-week high of $1.1043 on Wednesday after the US central bank poured cold water on investors' expectations for a rate hike any time soon.
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