Market Live: Sensex slips on profit booking but Nifty still holds 10,200 at open

10:20 am Market Check: Equity benchmarks continued to consolidate after the rally in previous three consecutive sessions.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was down 67.46 points at 32,566.18 and the 50-share NSE Nifty fell 12.90 points to 10,218.

The broader markets outperformed benchmarks, with the BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices rising 0.3 percent each. About 1,093 shares advanced against 903 declining shares on the BSE.

10:12 am SEBI Approval: HDFC Standard Life Insurance Company has received capital markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI)’s go ahead to raise an estimated Rs 7,500 crore through an initial public offering.

The insurance firm had filed draft papers with SEBI in August and obtained its “observations” on October 13, which is very necessary for any company to launch public offer, latest update with the markets watchdog showed.

The public issue comprises sale of 1,91,246,050 equity shares, amounting to 9.55 percent stake, by HDFC Ltd and up to 1,08,581,768 scrips, or 5.42 percent, holding by Standard Life Mauritius, according to the draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) filed with Sebi.

Currently, HDFC owns 61.41 percent stake in HDFC Standard Life and Standard Life has about 34.86 percent, while the remaining is with employees and PremjiInvest.

9:59 am IPO: Mahindra Group’s logistics arm has received the go-ahead from markets regulator Sebi to garner about Rs 700 crore through an initial share-sale offering.

Mahindra Logistics had filed its draft red herring prospectus with Sebi on August 4 and obtained “observations” on October 6, which is very important for any company to float a public offer, as per the latest update with Sebi.

The public issue of Mahindra Logistics comprises sale of 1,93,32,346 equity shares. This includes the sale of 96,66,173 shares, amounting to 13.74 percent stake, by the parent firm Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd.

Besides, Normandy Holdings would sell 92,71,180 shares, while Kedara Capital would offload 3,94,993 scrips.

Normandy Holdings is a 100 percent subsidiary of Kedaara Capital.

9:50 am Direct US-North Korea talks? The United States is not ruling out the eventual possibility of direct talks with North Korea, Deputy Secretary of State John J. Sullivan said on Tuesday, hours after Pyongyang warned nuclear war might break out at any moment.

Talks between the adversaries have long been urged by China in particular, but Washington and its ally Japan have been reluctant to sit down at the table while Pyongyang while it continues to pursue a goal of developing a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the United States.

“Eventually, we don’t rule out the possibility of course of direct talks,” Sullivan said in Tokyo after talks with his Japanese counterpart.

“Our focus is on diplomacy to solve this problem that is presented by the DPRK. We must, however, with our allies, Japan and South Korea and elsewhere, be prepared for the worst should diplomacy fail,” he said.

9:33 am Capex: Sajjan Jindal-controlled, JSW Cement said it is investing around Rs 1,800 crore towards expansion of cement capacity to 20 million tonnes (MT) and looking at initial public offer (IPO) in 2019-20.

“We expect huge demand for cement in the country and plan to expand our cement manufacturing capacity from 12.5 MT to 20 MT by 2020. We are adding 4.5 MT at our Dolvi unit in Maharashtra and 1.2 MT in Vijaynagar unit in Karnataka, apart from 1.2 MT adding in Odisha unit. We will incur capex of around Rs 1,800 crore for capacity expansion over the next three years period,” JSW Cement managing director Parth Jindal told PTI.

“We will come out with IPO in 2019-20 by diluting 15-20 percent stake, depending on price band. We will wait for the outcome of general elections in 2019 and create healthy EBITDA profile before launching our IPO,” Jindal said.

Post-IPO, according to Jindal, the company will be targeting at reaching 30 MT capacity by 2025 and 50 MT by 2030, both through organic and inorganic growth.

Despite JSW Cement is one of the recent entrants into the cement market, it is aiming to be in top-5 cement players in India in the next 7-8 years, Jindal added.

9:25 am Tata Steel ruled out on Monday a flotation in the next two to three years of the planned merger of its European steel operations with those of ThyssenKrupp.

T.V. Narendran, Tata’s managing director for India and South East Asia, told Reuters that the capacity of Tata’s Kalinganagar plant in India would like be expanded to 5 million tonnes.

9:20 am Buzzing: Share price of Jaiprakash Power Ventures has locked at 10 percent upper circuit, testing 52-week high of Rs 8.80 Tuesday as it has received non-binding bids for acquisition of equity stake in the company.

There were five bidders who put in non-binding bids for 35 percent equity stake in Jaiprakash Power.

Brookfield Asset Management, India Power Corporation, Resurgent Power, a joint venture between Tata Power and ICICI Ventures, JSW Energy in partnership with Piramal and Bain Capital assets have bid for about 35 percent equity stake in Jaiprakash Power’s assets, one of the persons directly involved with the development said.

Additionally, Edelweiss Asset Reconstruction Company (ARC) too is in the race and has bid for the debt of the sustainable portion of the company

9:15 am Market Check: Equity benchmarks opened mildly lower on profit booking Tuesday after the rally in three consecutive sessions.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was down 33.86 points at 32,599.78 and the 50-share NSE Nifty fell 15.10 points to 10,215.80.

Axis Bank, Reliance Industries, GAIL, Bajaj Auto, Yes Bank, IOC and Bharti Airtel were early gainers while Wipro, Bajaj Finance and BPCL were losers.

DCB Bank, JM Financial and Colgate were down 1.5-2.5 percent.
Persistent Systems, Federal Bank, Delta Corp, Radico Khaitan, DHFL, Prime Focus, Aries Agro, Jaiprakash Power and Jaiprakash Associates gained up to 20 percent.