European stocks close

European stocks were little changed, after the benchmark Stoxx Europe 600 Index yesterday extended its highest level since June 2008.

National benchmark indexes retreated in 12 of the 18 western-European markets. The U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index slipped 0.1 percent, Germany's DAX Index added 0.1 percent, while France's CAC 40 lost 0.1 percent.

Zurich Insurance lost 3.3 percent to 261.30 Swiss francs after Switzerland's biggest insurer reported a 7 percent decline in first-quarter net income to $1.06 billion. That missed the $1.14 billion average estimate in a Bloomberg survey.

Suedzucker tumbled 6.7 percent to 27.34 euros after Europe's largest sugar producer forecast that full-year operating profit will fall "significantly" to about 825 million euros.

Vivendi SA dropped 2.7 percent to 15.30 euros after Activision Blizzard Inc. (ATVI) was said to have shelved a plan to buy back shares held by its French parent amid a disagreement on price. The world's largest video-game publisher planned to buy at least part of Vivendi's stake as recently as last month, people with knowledge of the talks said. Vivendi, which has a 61 percent Activision holding valued at more than $10 billion, is still exploring how to extract cash from its stake, including a possible dividend recapitalization, one of the people said.

3i Group Plc lost 4.8 percent to 345.8 pence after the U.K.'s largest publicly traded private-equity firm reported a net value of its assets of 311 pence a share for the full year. That missed the 315 pence to 325 pence estimate of Iain Scouller, an analyst at Oriel Securities Ltd. in London who rates the stock a sell. The shares have still surged 59 percent so far this year.

Richemont jumped 7.6 percent to 88.80 francs after the owner of the Cartier brand reported full-year net income of 2.01 billion euros ($2.58 billion), beating analyst estimates for 1.96 billion euros. The company also proposed a dividend of 1 franc, topping forecasts.