Holcim sees share price rise

Swiss cement producer 680 Holcim has seen its share price increase following Thomas Schmidheiny's move to increase his stake in the company to 20% and Filaret Galchev's decision to almost double his stake in Holcim to 10.1%.

There are rumours that Holcim could become the object of a take-over bid by 3704 Eurocement.

However, in a recent report, Patrick Appenzeller, an analyst at 3705 Helvea, has said that such a purchase is unlikely given the difficult loans and credit market.