Benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty slid for a seventh straight session on Monday, logging their longest losing run in the past five months, following a bearish trend in global markets amid concerns over aggressive rate hikes by developed economies. Fresh foreign fund outflows and losses in IT, auto and oil stocks also dented investor sentiments. The BSE Sensex declined by 175.58 points or 0.30 per cent to close at 59,288.35 with 17 of its shares posting losses.
Construction major Larsen & Toubro is set to hike its topline to Rs 20,000 crore (Rs 200 billion) and said it will soon come up with a new business plan to ensure a 20 per cent annual sales growth by 2009.
Among the Sensex firms, Tech Mahindra, Wipro, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, HCL Technologies, Larsen & Toubro, ITC, Sun Pharma, NTPC and Titan were the major gainers. Nestle, Axis Bank, Tata Motors, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Bharti Airtel were the laggards.
Larsen & Toubro Ltd will shortly file with the Bombay Stock Exchange its plans for a trust scheme for its employees to pick up 15 per cent stake of Grasim Industries Ltd.
Anil Manibhai Naik, managing director and CEO, Larsen & Toubro, has stayed away from the media glare ever since the A V Birla-owned Grasim Industries Ltd made an open offer for the engineering and cement major about six months back.
Workaholic CEOs find their job appealing, but their subordinates find that appalling.
Benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty gained around half a per cent to close at nearly five-month high levels on Monday following continuous foreign fund inflows and firm trends in Asian and European markets. Rising for a second straight day, the 30-share BSE Sensex climbed 317.81 points or 0.51 per cent to settle at 62,345.71, the highest closing level since December 14. During the day, it rallied 534.77 points or 0.86 per cent to 62,562.67.
Mumbai-based L&T Infotech, a part of the Larsen &Toubro group, is evaluating acquisitions of $50-200 million (close to Rs 200-820 crore) in the US, Europe and India in a bid to boost revenues.
From the Sensex basket, Tata Motors, State Bank of India, Tata Steel, Power Grid, NTPC, Bajaj Finserv, Bajaj Finance and Asian Paints were the major laggards.
Late selling in the market saw the Sensex close seven points lower at 9,374.
From the Sensex pack, Tata Steel, IndusInd Bank, Infosys, UltraTech Cement, NTPC, Bajaj Finance, Hindustan Unilever, Tata Consultancy Services, ICICI Bank and Maruti were among the major winners. Titan, Nestle, Larsen & Toubro, Axis Bank, ITC and Asian Paints were among the major laggards.
Investors, who invested in capital goods companies like Larsen & Toubro, Siemens, BHEL and ABB, would have made money even in falling markets.
The successful launch of Aditya-L1 - the country's maiden mission to study the Sun - is expected to garner increased investor interest in the Indian space sector and trigger more funding for private players. Several private sector players, including Larsen & Toubro (L&T), MTAR Technologies, and Ananth Technologies, have played a pivotal role in the Indian Space Research Organisation's (Isro's) solar observatory mission. Aditya-L1 on Saturday set off on a 125-day journey on a PSLV-C57 rocket, in its attempt to study various elements relating to the nearest star from the halo orbit around Lagrange point 1 (L1) of the Sun-Earth system, which is about 1.5 million km from Earth.
Collectively, these companies spent Rs 628 crore (Rs 6.28 billion) on political contributions in the past five years, according to their annual reports.
Larsen & Toubro on Monday said it has recorded a 30 per cent jump in net profit at Rs 132.35 crore (Rs 1.32 billion) for the quarter ended December 31, 2004 compared to Rs 101.8 crore (Rs 1.01 billion) in the year-ago period.
As much as Rs 47,810 crore was spent on share buybacks by 48 companies in 2023 -- the highest amount since 2017. This surge in value was largely driven by a few large-sized issues, including those by Tata Consultancy Services (Rs 17,000 crore), Larsen & Toubro (Rs 10,000 crore), and Wipro (Rs 12,000 crore). In 2022, 58 companies had repurchased shares worth Rs 38,305 crore, according to data from Prime Database.
'If you take any ministry of defence project, Nibe is up there, getting orders.'
L&T was beset by buying in early trades on Thursday after the company announced that it bagged a Rs 1,242-crore (Rs 12.42 billion) order from IOC to set up a PTA plant at the latter's refinery at Panipat.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Ltd climbed eight spots to the 45th rank, the highest for an Indian company on Forbes' latest Global 2000 list of public companies worldwide.
The ground floor of the three-storey Ram temple in Ayodhya is in its final stages and the work on ancillary structures is going on in full swing for their completion by October this year, the temple authorities said on Monday.
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