(Reuters) - Australian stocks eased on Monday as financials were weighed by insurers, while shares of MYOB surged after recommending a takeover offer from a U.S. private equity firm.
With markets winding down to the Christmas break, trading was light as the S&P/ASX 200 index <.AXJO> gave up 0.1 percent to 5,461.5 by 0010 GMT. It was off in early deals to a two-year low, still shaky having suffered its biggest weekly loss in over a month on Friday.
The market will close early on Monday for the Christmas holidays.
MYOB Group Ltd <MYO.AX> shares jumped as much as 14.5 percent for its biggest gain in 11 weeks after the accounting software maker said it would recommend U.S. private equity giant KKR & Co's <KKR.N> buyout offer.
Last week, KKR cut its A$1.8 billion buyout proposal for the Australian company, to A$3.40 per share, from A$3.77, a move that sent its shares tumbling.
Australian insurers were in the red, with top players Suncorp Group <SUN.AX>, QBE Insurance <QBE.AX> and Insurance Australia Group <IAG.AX> falling between 0.5 percent and 1.5 percent.
This followed broad declines in the industry on Friday, after the some insurers flagged the cost of claims from a hailstorm in Sydney.
IAG, which said it had received more than 6,500 claims due to the storm and flagged an estimated A$169 million in costs, fell as much as 1.8 percent to its lowest in over one-year.
Among the Big Four banks, Westpac Banking Corp <WBC.AX> dropped 1.3 percent, despite an Australian court dismissing a regulator's claim that the country's second-biggest bank breached its licence during a drive to boost its pension funds.
However, the court criticised the bank for failing to treat its customers honestly - an accusation the sector has struggled to shake-off this year in the face of revelations of widespread misconduct.
New Zealand's benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index <.NZ50> closed marginally higher at 8,700.78, following a 1 percent drop on Friday.
Gains of 1.6 percent and 2 percent from Fisher & Paykel Healthcare <FPH.NZ> and NZX Ltd <NZX.NZ> helped boost the index.
(Reporting by Nikhil Kurian Nainan in Bengaluru; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)
