Sensex, Nifty rangebound; GAIL, HUL, NTPC top gainers

Moneycontrol Bureau 11:45 am Exclusive: Essar Steel's stake sale plan is likely to have hit a roadblock with Tata Steel, Liberty House and JSW Steel possibly having backed out after initial talks, reports CNBC-TV18.

Essar Steel, part of Essar Group controlled by billionaire brothers Shashi and Ravi Ruia, is under debt of nearly Rs 40,000 crore following a recent slump in commodity prices, weak demand and lower capacity usage at its units. Currently, capacity utilisation is around 70 percent.

Tata Steel, Liberty House and JSW Steel are believed to have begun talks with Essar's lenders in May to restructure debt, consider fresh fund infusion and an increase in the moratorium period.

ICICI Bank, State Bank of India (SBI), Punjab National Bank (PNB), IDBI Bank and Axis Bank are bankers to the stake sale process.

11:30 am Interview: Maruti is used to dealing with a strong yen, is the word coming from the company’s chairman RC Bhargava. Yen rose almost 7.2 percent on Friday post the Brexit. Speaking to CNBC-TV18, Bhargava said that Maruti is taking measures to mitigate the strong impact of yen especially on its import side. “Export of cars to Japan provides a hedge against import impact of stronger yen,” Bhargava said adding that it only hedges a part of the exposure. Maruti Suzuki, early this year, started exporting the India-made Baleno to Japan.Don't miss: Which Indian IT stocks can weather Brexit storm as uncertainty rises

The market seems to be stuck in a range with the Nifty attempting to draw closer to 8100. The 50-share index is down 1.50 points at 8087.10 and Sensex is down 15.53 points at 26382.18. About 1597 shares have advanced, 499 shares declined, and 124 shares are unchanged.

SBI, NTPC, GAIL, HUL and L&T are top gainers while TCS, Infosys, Maruti, Tata Steel and Bharti are losers in the Sensex.

Oil prices suffered fresh losses today as the fallout from last week's decision by Britain to leave the European Union batters confidence and ushers in a period of uncertainty.

Global markets took a beating Friday, with some USD 2.1 trillion wiped off valuations and the British pound plunging to 31-year lows against the dollar, while oil prices slumped more than five percent.