Dena Bank stocks will be in focus as its has got board approval for dilution of government holding to up to 52 per cent and raise capital up to Rs 2,500 crore from various bonds. (Express photo)

The BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty are expected to open in negative terrain tracking global cues. The BSE Sensex closed 231.23 points down at 25,886.62, while Nifty50 index settled 67.20 points down at 7,864.15 on Thursday.

Below are the stocks that are likely to be in focus today:

Dena Bank: Public sector lender Dena Bank has got board approval for dilution of government holding to up to 52 per cent and raise capital up to Rs 2,500 crore from various bonds. “To raise equity capital of the Bank by diluting GOI holding up to 52 per cent, on obtaining necessary approval government,” the bank said in a BSE filing.

Aditya Birla Nuvo Ltd: Aditya Birla Group, the world’s largest viscose staple fibre (VSF) maker, is driving an initiative to handhold a large number of textile value-chain partners across the country by supporting them from design development and technical support to marketing and buyer linkages. With this initiative, the $41-billion company wants to help propel the country to be the world’s top cloth manufacturing hub.

Mastek Ltd: IT solutions company Mastek on Thursday said it will make no further investments towards development of ‘Veyo’, a platform built to help in conveyancing process.

SKS Microfinance: SKS Microfinance on Thursday said it has raised loan ticket size for one and two years of tenure to Rs 30,000 and Rs 50,000. The company has decided to revise the ticket size of loan to be extended to its borrowers with effect from December 7, 2015, it said in a regulatory filing.

Havells India Ltd: Foreign fund house Citigroup Global Markets Mauritius on Thursday offloaded 61 lakh shares of Havells India, an electrical and power distribution equipment firm, for over Rs 178 crore through an open market transaction. However, the buyer(s) of the shares could not be ascertained immediately.

Tech Mahindra: Tech Mahindra on Thursday said it will expand ‘Saral Rozgar’ service to the Middle East and Southeast Asia as it aims to provide jobs to over 100 million people over the next five years. Launched in 2014, Saral Rozgar was launched to connect people and employers for blue-collar and entry-level jobs in India. The platform has six million users.

Coal India: A total of 16 mining projects of Coal India have received green nod in the current fiscal, Parliament was informed on Thursday. The clearances come at a time when the government has set an ambitious one billion tonne production target for Coal India Ltd (CIL) in the next five years.

Dabur Ltd: Dabur has become the first major private Indian company to be hit by prevailing political tension in Nepal as the homegrown FMCG giant is expecting its juice sales to dip 10-15 per cent in October-November due to disruption of supplies from its plant in the Himalayan nation.

Apollo Tyres: Global carmakers and auto part manufacturers in India’s flood-hit southern city of Chennai are being forced to keep factory gates closed till Dec. 5 at least, which is likely to hit local sales and exports in coming months. Component maker Apollo Tyres  will decide on Saturday whether to resume production, whereas BMW will keep a plant closed until Dec. 7, as heavy rains inundate the city’s streets limiting movement.

IDBI Bank: Fitch Ratings has assigned ‘stable’ grade to IDBI Bank’s $350 million green bonds. “Fitch Ratings has assigned India-based IDBI Bank’s (BBB-/stable) $350 million senior unsecured notes due November 2020 a final rating of BBB-,” Fitch Ratings said. The tenor of the issue is five years and the notes are issued by IDBI Bank’s Dubai International Financial Centre branch.

Indian Railway Finance Corporation—the finance arm of Indian Railways—is set to come out with its public issue of tax-free bonds next week.

Bond arrangers said the coupon rates stand at 7.07%, 7.28% and 7.25% on its 10, 15 and 20-year tax-free bonds, respectively, for categories that include institutionals, corporates and HNIs.

For retail individual investors, the coupon rates are at 7.32%, 7.53% and 7.50% on 10,15 and 20 year bonds respectively, arrangers said adding that the issue is set to open on December 8 and close on December 21.

Yields on tax-free bonds are at least 100-125 bps lower than those on regular bonds issued by the same companies, according to bond market participants.

IRFC plans to raise up to R4,532 crore through the public issue route out of a total quota of R6,000 crore it has been allotted this fiscal.

Public issue of tax-free bonds had seen a good response this year after being absent from the markets in the previous fiscal.

Earlier, Power Finance Corporation (PFC), NTPC and Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) had come out with their public issue of tax-free bonds and all three companies raised R700 crore each through this route with considerable response from investors.

REC’s public issue even witnessed a coupon below 7% on its 10-year tax-free paper for categories that included institutionals, corporates and HNIs.

Bharti announced that its plans to spend R600 bn or $9-10bn over the next three years on various network elements, predominately in the domestic business (see below). This is called Project Leap and it focuses on coverage expansion and network modernization, targets broadband homes and SMEs and also looks to implement more energy efficient solutions.

We are increasingly finding more positive data points and developments on this stock – such as relatively better domestic trends, strong spectrum holding, tower sales etc.

However, for re-rating, we will need to see more consistency, the R-Jio launch to be out of the way and improvement in Africa.

Good networks can help with customer churn and pricing power, which can lead to higher revenues and margins, and, in turn, higher future cashflows. See Figure below for select regional examples. However, we note stocks do not always tends to perform during the spend phase.

Project Leap’s $10-bn capex spread over three years is around 40% higher than our current cumulative forecast for Bharti’s Indian business. Its current Indian capex is around $2.2 bn per annum and total Bharti capex, including Africa, is around $10 bn over the next three years.

Bhushan Steel share price gained as much as 18 per cent on Thursday on media reports that the debt-laden company is in the process of getting Rs 3,000 crore from sale and lease-back arrangement for two of its assets, oxygen and coke oven plant in Odhisha. (Photo: Reuters)

Bhushan Steel share price gained as much as 18 per cent on Thursday on media reports that the debt-laden company is in the process of getting Rs 3,000 crore from sale and lease-back arrangement for two of its assets, oxygen and coke oven plant in Odhisha.

At 2.39 pm, the share price of Bhushan Steel was trading 15.47 per cent up at Rs 49.65. The scrip opened at Rs 45 and had touched a high and low of Rs 50.75 and Rs 45, respectively, in trade so far. Sensex was down 111.66 points, or 0.43 per cent, at 26,006.19.

The company later clarified on BSE that as refferred in the news, its discussion regarding sale and lease back arrangement of Cock Oven Plant-1 and Oxygen Plant-V of the company is at final stage.

In the past one year, the share price of the company slid 57.12 per cent to Rs 43 on December 2. The scrip was trading at Rs 100.30 on the same day last year. Sensex slid 8.17 per cent during the same period.

For the quarter ended September 30, 2015, the company posted net loss of Rs 732.79 crore against net loss of Rs 297.19 crore in the corresponding quarter a year ago.

The company’s total debt stood at Rs 39,078.65 crore at the end of the financial year ended March 2015.

Sun Life’s stake in BSLI will increase from current 26 per cent to 49 per cent while ABNL will continue to hold the controlling stake at 51 per cent. (Photo: PTI)

Shares of Aditya Birla Nuvo (ABNL) gained as much as 1.5 per cent on Thursday after the company informed BSE on Wednesday post market hours that it has entered into an agreement with the Canadian insurance major Sun Life to sell around 437 million equity shares constituting 23 per cent of the issued and paid up equity share capital of Birla Sun Life Insurance (BSLI).

On completion of the transaction, Sun Life’s stake in BSLI will increase from current 26 per cent to 49 per cent while ABNL will continue to hold the controlling stake at 51 per cent. The 23 per cent stake sale will fetch ABNL Rs 1,664 crore, valuing BSLI at Rs 7,235 crore.

At 11.22 am, shares of ABNL were trading 0.84 per cent up at Rs 2,136. The scrip opened at Rs 2,139 and had touched a high and low of Rs 2149.95 and Rs 2,121.95, respectively, in trade so far. Sensex was down 124.42 points, or 0.48 per cent, at 25,993.43.

The BSE group ‘A’ stock of face value Rs 10 has touched a 52 week high of Rs 2,340.10 on 07-Aug-2015 and a 52 week low of Rs 1,518.70 on 27-Apr-2015.

Last one week high and low of the scrip stood at Rs 2,149.95 and Rs 2,032.00 respectively. The current market capitalisation of the company is Rs 27,743.42 crore.