New Delhi: India's benchmark stock index fell for the third day. Reliance Industries, operator of the nation's largest refinery, led the drop after selling shares.
Reliance Industries, which has the most weight on the index, declined 2 per cent after selling stock for the second time this month to fund its bid for LyondellBasell Industries AF, its biggest acquisition attempt. NTPC, the nation's biggest power producer, gained after an official said it may sell shares in the first week of February.
"It is possible that Reliance is building a corpus to either buy a stake in a state-run company" or pursue overseas acquisitions, said Kishor Ostwal, managing director of CNI Research (India) Limited, a publicly traded equities research provider in Mumbai.
The Bombay Stock Exchange's Sensitive Index, or Sensex, lost 13.58, or 0.1 per cent, to 17,526.71. The S&P CNX Nifty Index on the National Stock Exchange gained 0.1 per cent to 5,249.40. The BSE 200 Index advanced 0.3 per cent to 2,220.52.
Reliance, controlled by billionaire Mukesh Ambani, declined 2 per cent to Rs1,081.5 (Dh87.56). India's most valuable company raised Rs34.7 billion selling shares yesterday to raise funds for Netherlands-based LyondellBasell, according to a company official. Reliance accounts for 13 per cent of the Sensex.
The stock sale brings Ambani's fund raising to $2 billion since September as India's richest man tries to buy chemical plants and two oil refineries in the US, Europe and Asia.
