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Europe: Oil prices weigh on markets

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Date: Friday 09 May 2008

LONDON (ShareCast) - Europe's leading exchanges were lower, in line with US futures, with oil prices above $125 a barrel weighing on the broader markets.

Drug giant Sanofi-Aventis was one of today’s main fallers after its Swiss rival Schweizerhall said it was close to winning approval for a generic version of the French firm's blockbuster drug Plavix.

Allianz reported a 65% drop in first-quarter profits after its Dresdner Bank unit wrote down €845m.

Linde fell after the industrial gases group’s first quarter results came in slightly lower than expected.

Carmakers took a hit after Toyota saw quarterly profits fall by a larger-than-expected 28% and said it expects net profit for the year to be down 27%.

The German Dax fell 88 points to 6,983, the French CAC is down 117 points to 4,938, while the Swiss market lost 133 to 7,452.

In other corporate news, German newspaper Handelsblatt reported that utility giant RWE will not bid for UK nuclear power group British Energy.

Germany's wholesale prices rose 0.6% in April from March and 6.9% year-on-year, according to the Federal Statistics Office.