London - European shares resumed their upward trend on Thursday as mergers and acquisitions and a solid update from France's Schneider Electric fuelled a rally in the industrial sector.
Shares in Alstom jumped 10.8% to the top of the FTSEurofirst 300 after Bloomberg reported that General Electric was in talks to buy the turbine and train maker for about $13bn. The French firm said it had not been informed of any potential public tender offer.
Scania was the second-biggest riser, up 10%, after its fourth-largest shareholder said it would accept Volkswagen's takeover offer for the truck maker.
M&A activity in Europe is gathering momentum and has helped European shares advance in recent days, as drug companies GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis disclosed an asset swap and speculation emerged about a Pfizer bid for AstraZeneca.
"The markets at the moment are constantly looking for reassurance, with all that is going on in Ukraine, and M&A activity shows in the corporate world at least it's business as usual," said Farhan Ahmad, a trader at Tradenext.
The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index was up 0.6% at 1 346.81 points at 09:57, recouping most of the losses suffered the previous day and resuming an advance begun last week. The eurozone Euro STOXX 50 index was up 0.8% at 3 199.81 points.
The STOXX 600 Europe Industrial goods and services index was up 1%, also supported by a 4.8% rise in Schneider Electric. The electrical-gear maker reported a rise in first-quarter sales and said business in Western Europe had improved.
Tech shares also rebounded after US consumer giant Apple approved another $30bn in share buybacks and social network Facebook said its mobile advertising business accelerated in the first three months of the year, helping it beat forecasts.
About a quarter of S&P 500 companies have reported results so far in the earnings season. Seventy-two percent have reported earnings in line with or beating forecasts, with profits up 2.8% overall, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine data.
In Europe, about 10% of STOXX 600 companies have reported results so far, with 54% in line with or beating forecasts.