At the end of a buoyant trading session the Indian indices moved into strong positive territory. While BSE Sensex closed higher by around 372 points (up 1.9%), Nifty was up around 120 points (2.0%). Mid and small caps both saw significant buying interest as the BSE-Midcap Index and the BSE-Smallcap indices were both higher by around 1.3% and 1.5% respectively.
All major indices closed in the positive today, with the banking index seeing the maximum gains (up almost 2.6%). Most Asian markets closed mixed today whereas Europe is trading positive currently. The rupee was placed at Rs 45.33 to the dollar at the time of writing.
According to a leading business daily, the Japanese company Honda Motors has made an offer to buy Hero's 26% stake in Hero Honda from the Munjal family. As per earlier reports Hero (the Munjals) had made an offer to buy out Honda's 26% stake earlier. According to the article Honda was unhappy with the offer made by Hero, as it was a 40% discount to current market price. This news has not been confirmed by the company so far.
Leading soda-ash manufacturer Tata Chemicals announced that it has put on hold the Rs 38 bn expansion plan of its urea manufacturing unit at Babrala, Uttar Pradesh. This is due to non-availability of gas, which was scheduled to be allocated by October-November, 2010. The company announced that it will set up two more units to produce nutrient-based fertilisers with an investment of Rs 550 m each, but did not specify where they would be located.
The company stated that it expects capex of around of Rs 4-5 bn in FY11. A 15-18% growth in sales was also expected for the current fiscal, according to the Managing Director.
The entire fertilizer pack was trading lower on a positive day for the Sensex. Chambal Fertilizer and National Fertilizer were among the top losers. The fertilizer department of the government decided not to follow the finance ministry's recommendation for decontrolling urea prices. It has instead decided to go ahead with its former plan to implement the next stage of the new pricing scheme.
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