STOCKS NEWS EUROPE-Barco at 6-mth high on 3D cinema deals

Shares in Barco (BAR.BR) rise as much as 4 percent to a six month high, continuing a rally which started on Friday last week, as investors take heart from a number of deals for digital projectors.

The rally has reversed all of the declines suffered by the Belgian projector-maker in January when it warned of a "substantial" net losses in the final quarter of 2009. [ID:nLDE60L08R]

Barco said on Thursday it had completed a 3,000 projector deal with DCIP to supply Cinemark Holdings (CNK.N) and on Monday agreed to supply projectors for 320 screens of Marco Theatres Inc.

"Last week they announced the DCIP funding and now you have this (Marco) contract so I guess it's digital cinema driving the share price," says analyst Nico Melsens at KBC Securities.

"It's again confirmation that digital cinema is taking off."

For an analysis on the growth of digital cinema click on [ID:nLDE6211ET] Reuters Messaging rm://ben.deighton.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net