Sensex in green; FMCG, metals, oil&gas advance

Buying activity near support levels helped the equities bounce-back in the positive terrain. FMCG, metals and oil&gas provided support while rate sensitive sectors like realty, auto and banks were marginally lower.

At 2:50 pm; Bombay Stock Exchange's Sensex was at 18584.22, up 65.41 points or 0.35 per cent. The 30-share index hit a high of 18643.58 and low of 18367.21 intraday.

National Stock Exchange's Nifty was at 5565.85, up 14.40 points or 0.26 per cent. The broader index touched a high of 5586.05 and low of 5502.40 in trade so far.

BSE Midcap Index was up 0.24 per cent and BSE Smallcap Index moved 0.14 per cent higher.

Amongst the sectoral indices, BSE FMCG Index was up 1.36 per cent, BSE Metal Index gained 1.04 per cent and BSE Oil&gas Index advanced 0.32 per cent. BSE Auto Index was down 0.73 per cent, BSE Bankex declined 0.06 per cent and BSE Realty Index edged 0.01 per cent lower.

Bharti Airtel (3.62%), Tata Power (2.39%), Hindustan Unilever (1.58%), Sterlite Industries (1.43%) and Jindal Steel (1.27%) were the major Sensex gainers.

Tata Motors (-1.74%), Jaiprakash Associates (-1.68%), Maruti (-1.52%), Hero Honda (-1.27%) and Reliance Infrastructure (-1.19%) were the top losers.

Market breadth was negative on the NSE with 1412 losers as compared to 1284 gainers.

Hold Bharti Airtel; target of Rs 410: KRChoksey

KRChoksey has maintained hold rating on Bharti Airtel with a target price of Rs 410 in its May 4, 2011 research report.

“Bharti Airtel, India’s the largest telecom service provider may raise up to USD 1 billion in the form of debentures and will have a tenure of 10 years. The proposal will be put up before the company's board on May 4, when it meets to discuss results for the financial year-ended March 11. The proposal is expected to be cleared during the meeting.Banks and individuals in the global market will subscribe the debentures. The final amount to be raised will depend on the interest rate the company gets and the response from promotional roadshows, the official added.The proceeds of the issue will go towards refinancing part of the debt raised by Bharti to acquire Kuwaiti Zain's operations in 15 African countries.”

“Bharti has debt of USD 13.5 billion as on end of Q3FY11. The average interest rate for the same is 5.5% per annum. We assume that the company will raise USD 1 billion via bonds with coupon rate of 3.5%. Considering this money will be used to retire debt taken for Zain acquisition, it would have a very small impact on net profit margin. Although net profit margins will improve, we believe it will have a neutral impact on valuation as net debt remains unchanged.”

“In the current environment which is growing increasingly competitive, Bharti’s leading market share and diversified business model will give it a strategic advantage over peers. While the results of Q1FY10 clearly indicate a plateau in terms of profitability from the mobile business, the company’s dominant volume growth, visibility of earnings and diversified business model justify its premium compared to peers. 3G roll out; increasing revenues from African market will boost revenues going forward. We have HOLD recommendation on the stock with target price of Rs 410, by assigning 9.5 EV/Ebitda to FY12E earnings,” says KRChoksey research report.

FIIs holding more than 30% in Indian cos

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To read the full report click on the attachment

Attachments : BhartiAirtel_KRC_050411.pdf

Bharti Airtel and Aircel to launch Apple's iPhone 4 in India

Bharti Airtel Ltd, India's top mobile phone carrier, and its smaller rival Aircel separately said on Monday they would launch Apple's iPhone 4 in India in the coming months.

Both companies declined to give specific dates for the planned launch.

Bharti and Vodafone Essar already sell earlier models of the iPhone in India.

With nearly 800 million mobile subscribers, India is the world's second-biggest market for mobile phone services and is also the fastest-growing. But smartphones are estimated to account for just over 5 percent of the mobile handset sales.

Indian carriers have recently started rolling out high-speed third-generation (3G) mobile networks, which is expected to boost sales of smartphones.

Bharti had 159 million mobile subscribers as of end-February, while Aircel had 53.5 million.

(Reporting by Bharghavi Nagaraju and Devidutta Tripathy; Editing by Aradhana Aravindan)