UTI Mutual unveils new open-ended scheme
Mumbai: UTI Mutual Fund on Thursday announced the launch of a new open-ended income scheme, UTI Liquid Fund aimed at attracting surplus funds from high net worth individuals, corporates and institutions. The scheme seeks to generate steady and reasonable income with low risk and high level of liquidity, from a portfolio of money market securities and high-quality debt. The initial offer period will be for two days from June 23 to 24 with the sale of units reopening from June 27. "In its new avatar, as UTI Mutual Fund, the Liquid Fund is a first among a series of products that we will be offering investors," saidr M. Damodaran, chairman and managing director, UTI Mutual Fund.
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BSES on bull run
Mumbai: The stock of the Reliance group power utility, BSES, hit a 52-week high at Rs 282.35 on the bourses on sustained fund support. The stock has now risen more than 30 per cent from its levels of Rs 217.75 on June 6, 2003. Brokers said that there has been a sustained run up in the stock over the last three consecutive trading sessions with the counter recording good volumes.
According to market talk, an FII has reportedly been mopping up shares at this counter. However, opinions remained divided over whether an US-based FII was supporting the counter, to purchases being made by the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, to reports of the promoters also actively supporting the counter.
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VST stock touches 52-week high
Kolkata: The VST Industries Ltd stock, which has been seeing an upward price movement for the last three days, Thursday touched its 52-week high of Rs 150.45, but retraced to close at Rs 144 on the Bombay Stock Exchange. According to market sources, the stock is moving on a fresh revaluation jig triggered by the Andhra Pradesh Government's proposal to sell its 7.23 lakh shares (4.69 per cent stake) in the company. The Andhra Pradesh Government has appointed UTI Securities Ltd as the merchant banker . ``Following a thumb rule method, the market is expecting a bid price of Rs 204 per share of VST at the minimum since the last open offer and counter offer in 2001 by the contending parties had valued the stock at Rs 151,'' commented a NSE broker. Factoring in the additions to the earning per share following the bid closure in June 2001 and the dividend earned on the share (EPS additions of Rs 65.79 minus dividend earning of Rs 12.50 per share for 2000-01, 2001-02 and 2002-03), one was likely to arrive at a minimum bid price of Rs 204.29 per share this time, brokers felt.
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Parent buys Nestle shares again
Mumbai: After a long gap, the counter of FMCG company Nestle India Ltd was in limelight both in terms of price rise and also increase in volumes. There were several block deals in the counter amounting to over 7 lakh shares. Dealers said the buyer of these shares was the Swiss parent (Nestle SA) and the seller was a leading domestic mutual fund and an FII. The shares were bought by the parent of the company through the creeping acquisition route. Earlier also the parent has been continuously buying the shares from the open market. On Thursday, the stock gained 5.31 per cent at Rs 575.05 with volume of 7.78 lakh shares on the BSE. On the NSE, it closed at Rs 577.80, up 5.90 per cent with volume of 1.93 lakh shares.
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BSE offers single order book for RSEs' illiquid scrips
Hyderabad: Suporting the suggestion of the Federation of Indian Stock Exchanges (FISE) made to the Securities and Exchange Board of India on the need to develop an exclusive nation-wide electronic order book for illiquid scrips of regional stock exchanges (RSEs), the Bombay Stock Exchange has expressed its willingness to create such single order book platform. In a communiqué to the chiefs of RSEs, the BSE management said the objective was "to provide a larger market by creating a single order book for small cap quality scrips listed on RSEs, Inter-Connected Stock Exchange (ISE) and BSE which currently record low trading volumes." The number of active scrips in all stock exchanges of the country having consistent and considerable liquidity were limited to not more than 100 out of a total of about 10,000 scrips listed on the 23 stock exchanges across the country, according to the FISE report submitted to the market regulator.
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Maruti IPO oversubscribed by about eight times
Mumbai: The Maruti Udyog Ltd IPO has been oversubscribed by around eight times with the maximum number of bids received being for Rs 125 per share as against the floor price of Rs 115 per share. The bid prices, however, ranged from Rs 115 per share to Rs 390 per share. Thursday was the closing date of the IPO. According to data available with the stock exchange Web sites till late in the evening today, the MUL IPO received bids for 57.46 crore shares against the issue size of 7.22 crore shares. Merchant bankers to the issue, however said, the data on the IPO application is still being uploaded and the issue would have been over-subscribed by 9-10 times. They said the total number of applications received was over 2.5 lakh out of which 1.6 lakh applications were received today, the last day of the issue. Of the total applications, around 1.25 lakh were from retail investors. The issue has also received good response from mutual funds and FIIs, they said.
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Rupee firmer; gilts inch up
Mumbai: The rupee closed strong at 46.55/56 against the dollar on Thursday, as compared to Wednesday's closing at 46.58/59 in a thin forex market. The domestic currency opened at 46.62/64. Dealers said the heavy rains that lashed through the city kept many at bay, so the market was not in full attendance. Some those who were present were seen buying dollars in the morning in expectation of some demand for the greenback. However, when the anticipated demand did not materialise, banks started liquidating their dollar positions, said a dealer. Meanwhile, forwards inched up slightly, with the six month premium ending at 2.34 per cent (2.15 per cent) and the premium for one year ended at 2.14 per cent (2.07 per cent).
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