Sensex plunges 81 points
Mumbai: Profit-booking in index heavyweight stocks led to panic-selling across the board on the stock exchanges on Wednesday. The Bombay Stock Exchange Sensex plunged 81 points, bringing the six-day long rally to a halt, in volatile trade. Up nearly 30 points in early trades, the Sensex ended with a loss of 81.26 points, or 1.87 per cent, at 4,257.94 points.

The NSE S&P CNX Nifty shed 26.10 points to settle at 1,359.35 points. FMCG heavyweight Hindustan Lever (down 3.13 per cent to Rs 185.95) declined on reports that its retail sales in the three months to July dropped 10.1 per cent from a year earlier.
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BAG seeks expansion, to enter film-making
Mumbai: BAG Films, which plans to enter the capital market with its initial public offering, plans to expand its businesses, moving into films apart from production of television content. At present, the company is primarily into the production of television software, which accounts for 85 per cent of its revenue. Targeting for an expanding revenue base, BAG will prefer a revenue mix of 40 per cent from television content, 40 per cent from films and the remaining from new media and education films.

Its turnover for the year ended March 2003 was Rs 14 crore and a net profit of Rs 2.6 crore. The company's IPO is of 1.48 crore shares of Rs 2 each at a premium of Rs 8 per share aggregating to Rs 14.86 crore. The issue, which opens on September 6 and closes on September 17, is lead managed by KJMC Global Market (India) Ltd.
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Sebi glare on warrant deals
Hyderabad: Securities and Exchange Board of India chairman G N Bajpai said the watchdog has taken note of promoters who are selling a part of their holding at higher levels and then picking up shares at a lower price by converting warrants issued to them earlier through preferential offers.

SEBI is also looking at loopholes in the existing insider trading rules, wherein promoters need not inform stock exchanges about the sale of shares by them on the same day. Bajpai said SEBI will take corrective steps if the actions of the promoters were found to be detrimental to the interests of the investing public. He said the regulator is on a high alert and keeping a close watch on the current stock market boom.
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UCO issue fully subscribed on opening day
Mumbai: UCO Bank's public issue has received an overwhelming response, gathering the entire subscription amount of Rs 240 crore on the opening day. Market intermediaries said retail investors were big investors in the issue. UCO Bank has entered the market with an IPO of twenty crore equity shares of Rs 10 each for cash at a premium Rs 2 per share aggregating Rs 240 crore is open for subscription from 3 September 2003, until 10 September 2003.

UCO Bank and Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) are the first issue to hike the investment limit in a public issue to Rs 50,000 for individual investors. According to the offer document of the two banks (UCO Bank and IOB), a minimum of 50 per cent of the net offer of equity shares to the public will be made available for allotment in favour of those individual applicants who have applied for not more than Rs 50,000 worth of shares.
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Moody's raises Reliance outlook
Mumbai: Moody's Investor Services has changed the outlook on the ratings of Reliance Industries' debt securities from negative to stable. "The current Ba2 rating on debt securities issued by Reliance as well as the senior unsecured issuer and senior implied ratings have been affirmed at Ba2," the international ratings agency said in a press release.

Moody's cited the Reliance group's strong operating performance as reflected in its first quarter results, the belief that risks associated with its investment in affiliated companies like Reliance Infocomm was abating and a better understanding of the group's ongoing capital expenditure, "which we believe will be manageable within the context of the group's own cash-flow generating capacity", as reasons for changing its outlook
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