Sensex in India Drops; L&T and Bajaj Auto Net Soar

Chandrasekhar Atreya
19 Oct, 2010
New York City

Mumbai stocks fell for the fourth trading day in a row as investors seek to invest in Coal India offering and State Bank of India bonds. Larsen & Toubro and Bajaj Auto reported sharply higher earnings. Adani Enterprises is looking to invest $6.9 billion in Australia projects.

[R]5:00 PM Mumbai – Mumbai stocks fell for the fourth trading day in a row as investors seek to invest in Coal India offering and State Bank of India bonds. Larsen & Toubro and Bajaj Auto reported sharply higher earnings. Adani Enterprises is looking to invest $6.9 billion in Australia projects.[/R]

Stocks in Mumbai declined for the fourth day in a row as Coal India public offering was fully subscribed on the first day and State Bank of India bond offering was oversubscribed 17 times. Indian Oil is preparing raise as much as Rs 19,000 crore.

The BSE Sensex dropped 0.92% or 185.76 and close at 19,983.13 and the CNX Nifty on the National Stock Exchange fell by 48.65 to close at 6,027.30.

The rupee fell 87 paisa to close at 44.29 to a U.S. dollar.

Adani Enterprises will invest $6.9 billion in developing its recently acquired Australian coal mines, the company said Monday.

“Adani is committed to invest $6.9 billion (about Rs 35,000 crore) in Australia for developing mine, rail and port project in its Galilee Basin coal mine in Queensland, Australia to produce up to 60 million tons of coal a year at its peak,” it said in a statement.

Buoyed by cuts in custom tariffs following a market opening agreement, trade between India and Singapore soared 98.6% in the first nine months of 2010 over the same period last year.

The bilateral trade aggregated S$22.68 billion Singapore between January and September according to data released Monday by the International Enterprise Singapore.

BP agreed to sell its energy assets in Venezuela and Vietnam to its Russian joint venture for $1.8 billion, the companies said in a statement on Monday. ONGC and several Indian companies were looking to acquire the assets in Vietnam.

ING Vysya Bank second quarter net increased 41% beating forecasts. Net profit for the period was Rs 752.6 crore from a total income of Rs 8,320.5 crore against Rs 534.7 crore and Rs 6,904.7 crore in the same period a year earlier.

State Bank of India’s first retail bond issue of Rs 1,000 crore was over subscribed 17 times on the first day.

The issue which opened on Monday will close on October 25.

Biocon entered into a $350 million strategic alliance with the U.S. based Pfizer on Monday for marketing Biocon’s insulin products. The agreement includes the commercialization of biosimilar versions of insulin and insulin analog products, recombinant human insulin, glargine, aspart, and lispro.

Indian Oil Corp will start short listing merchant bankers next week for its public issue to raise about Rs 19,000 crore, exceeding the current largest offering scheduled from Coal India.

Half the proceeds would go to the government for the sale of its 10% stake to meet its disinvestment target of Rs 40,000 crore in the current fiscal year. In addition, the company will issue new share equivalent of 10% of its equity capital to help build new refining units.

Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar are in the final race for the bid to connect 3,75,000 Gujarat government employees in the country’s largest closed user group network.

However, state government sources said that Vodafone is leading the bidding race with overall 91 points, followed by Airtel’s 79.5 points, Tata’s 55 points, BSNL’s 50 points and Idea’s 40 points.

The board of Emami group approved a plan to raise up to Rs 5,000 crore through debt and equity and fueled the speculation that the company may pursue Paras Pharmaceuticals despite its high valuation.

“We are keeping cash reserves ready, so that whenever the need arises, we don’t have to delay the process of raising funds,” said Aditya Agarwal, director, Emami Group.

Larsen & Toubro on Monday reported a 32% rise in second quarter profit, beating market estimates.

Net profit rose to Rs 765 crore in the quarter ended September from Rs 580 crore a year ago. Total income rose to Rs 9,331 crore from Rs 7,921 crore in the same period.

Aided by an increase in volumes and spread on loans over cost of borrowings, HDFC posted a 21.63% increase in its net profit for the quarter ended September at Rs 807.54 crore as compared to Rs 663.94 crore in the same period a year ago. The total income in this quarter was Rs 2,970.22 crore as compared to Rs 2,850.23 in the year-ago period.

Bajaj Auto Ltd said net income in the second quarter soared 69% as sales soared 50%.

Net profit in the quarter ended September rose to Rs 682 crore from Rs 403 crore a year earlier.