Sensex, Nifty remain sluggish; Adani Ports, Hero, DRL gain

Moneycontrol Bureau1:55 pm Indian companies raised more than Rs 27,000 crore through retail issuance of non-convertible debentures (NCDs) in the ongoing financial year to meet business requirement.

This is much higher than Rs 9,713 crore garnered by firms in the entire last fiscal.

Most of the funds have been mobilised for expansion, to support working capital requirements and other general corporate purposes.

NCDs are loan-linked bonds that cannot be converted into stock and usually offer higher interest rates than convertible debentures.

1:45 pm M&A deals: The year 2016 started on a rather subdued note for mergers and acquisitions in the country as M&A deal value in January declined by nearly 50 percent, largely because of lesser big-ticket deals.

According to assurance, tax and advisory firm Grant Thornton, there were 44 M&A transactions worth USD 1.7 billion in January this year as against 48 deals worth USD 3.4 billion in January 2015.

The decline in M&A deal tally was largely because of decreased cross-border activity and fewer big-ticket transactions. January saw only one deal valued above USD 500 million compared with three such deals in January 2015.

1:30 pm Breaking: The Supreme Court has directed the Reserve Bank of india to furnish details of entities in default of loans in excess of Rs 500 crore restructured in the last 5 years, reports CNBC-TV18  

The SC has impleaded RBI and issued notice to provide write-off details in a sealed envelope.

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The market remains in bear trap as the Sensex is down 136.67 points or 0.6 percent at 23417.45. The Nifty slips 50.40 points or 0.7 percent at 7112.55. About 711 shares have advanced, 1674 shares declined, and 106 shares are unchanged.

Adani Ports, NTPC, ONGC, Hero MotoCorp and Dr Reddy's Labs are top gainers while SBI, L&T, Axis Bank, Sun Pharma and Lupin are major losers in the Sensex.

Asian shares extended gains as a combination of stabilising Chinese markets, rebounding oil prices and solid US consumption data prompted investors to look for bargains after last week's rout. European shares were also expected to build on Monday's strong start, with spreadbetters seeing both Germany's DAX and France's CAC 40 rising up to 0.7 percent and Britain's FTSE 0.4 percent.

Concerns over the health of European banks, the pain of cheap oil prices on energy producers and worries about slowdowns in the US and Chinese economies pushed the world's share prices to 2-2.5-year lows last week.