Fortis to announce future of stock trade on Tuesday

Former Belgian-Dutch insurance and banking giant Fortis is due to announce whether trade in its stock will resume on Tuesday.

The Belgian watchdog for the financial markets, CBFA, said that until Fortis released a statement at 12:00 pm (1000 GMT), trading in Fortis stock would not be possible.

Trade in Fortis stock was suspended on Monday after the Netherlands nationalized the entire Dutch Fortis division on Friday, while France's BNP Paribas and the Belgium and Luxembourg governments took over the remainder of Fortis' activities on Sunday.

At closing time on Friday, Fortis was worth 5.41 euros (7.32 dollars) per share.

On Monday, analysts calculated the current value of Fortis to be between 2.80 and 3.50 euros per share.

Meanwhile, the main index on the Amsterdam stock exchange, the AEX, on Tuesday posted a slight gain - up 0.24 per cent - at 10 am, slipping down from a gain of 2.4 per cent at opening time one hour earlier.