Financial News

LONDON (ShareCast) - European bourses suffered in a broad sell-off Monday, with carmakers, miners and energy shares among the worst hit.

Semiconductor giant STMicroelectronics fell 7% in Paris after boss Pier Francesco Guarguaglini said Finmeccanica (Milan: FNC.MI - news) wants to sell its stake in by the end of the year.

Switzerland's Holcim (Virt-X: HOLN.VX - news) has agreed to buy the Australian operations of Mexico's Cemex (VCM-2.CR - news) for A$2.02bn ($1.61bn).

The world's second-biggest cement maker also announced plans to raise about 2bn Swiss francs ($1.84bn) by selling around 55.4m shares to finance the deal.

Under the proposed deal, Holcim will buy Cemex Australia and a 25% stake in Cement Australia, in which it already has a 50% shareholding.

Across the markets, Frankfurt slumped 179 points to 4,889, the French Cac 40 tumbled 106 to 3,219 as car firms Peugeot (Paris: FR0000121501 - news) and Renault (Paris: FR0000131906 - news) weakened, while Zurich lost 121 points to close at 5,400.

Energy shares, including Total, ENI (Milan: ENI.MI - news) and Royal Dutch Shell (Amsterdam: RDSA.AS - news) , also dropped after crude oil futures retreated following the recent rally.

Among the banks, Banco Santander (Madrid: BSCH.MC - news) , Deutsche Bank (Xetra: 514000 - news) and Societe Generale (Paris: FR0000130809 - news) and BNP Paribas (Paris: FR0000131104 - news) were all lower.

Elsewhere, rumours did the rounds that Dutch media giant Endemol (Amsterdam: EML.AS - news) could take a stake in struggling Irish sports broadcaster Setanta.

The maker of reality TV show Big Brother is thought to be interested in buying 49% of the Irish business with other investors.

In economic news, the European Union statistics office Eurostat reported that the eurozone lost a record 1.22m jobs in the first quarter of 2009.

The 0.8% quarter-on-quarter drop was the largest decline since records began in 1991 and twice as fast as the seasonally adjusted 0.4% fall seen in the same period last year.