DFDS shares at record after Eurotunnel says to exit ferry service

COPENHAGEN, June 3 (Reuters) - Shares (Berlin: DI6.BE - news) in Danish ferry operator DFDS (Copenhagen: DFDS.CO - news) spiked to a near eight-year high on Wednesday as a decision by Groupe Eurotunnel (Paris: FR0010533075 - news) to exit its ferry operator MyFerryLink was seen as positive for the Copenhagen-listed company.

The decision by Eurotunnel, operator of the rail tunnel linking Britain and France, promises to remove a competitor from the cut-throat cross-Channel route and could create an acquisition opportunity for DFDS, which said on May 21 it was looking for possible targets.

"It is now very likely that Groupe Eurotunnel will give up the ferries completely and DFDS could buy one or two of the company's ferries and avoid any new player in the channel," shipping analyst Stig Frederiksen at Nordea Markets said.

No-one at DFDS, whose ferry routes between Dover and the French ports of Dunkirk and Calais are direct competitors to MyFerryLink's Dover-Calais service, was immediately available for comment.

Shares in DFDS, which also runs ferries between Newhaven in southern England and Dieppe in France, were up 2.9 percent at 844 Danish crowns by 1410 GMT after rising as high as 854 crowns, their highest since November 2007.

The main Copenhagen index was up 0.3 percent.

Eurotunnel announced the MyFerryLink plan on May 28 despite a British court ruling in favour of the company's appeal over its ferry operations, clearing the way for it to continue operating the service.

Britain's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) had been examining Eurotunnel's move into the ferry market since late 2012 and a tribunal earlier this year ruled Eurotunnel should cease its MyFerryLink operation. But on May 15 this was overruled by the Court of Appeal. [DI (KSE: 003160.KS - news) :nL5N0Y632J]

"We fear that the CMA has not given up. We have therefore reopened the sale process," Chairman and Chief Executive Jacques Gounon wrote in a letter to shareholders.

P&O Ferries, owned by port operator DP World, also runs ferries between Dover and Calais and all three services were loss-making last year.

DFDS lost around 40 million crowns last year on its activities in the Channel, after suffering a 100 million crown loss the year before, but Chief Executive Niels Smedegaard told Reuters on May 21 the unit had recovered. (Reporting by Ole Mikkelsen; Editing by David Holmes)