Indian shares advance; Infosys gains as new CEO takes charge

Salil Parekh took the helm of Infosys Saturday, beating out a field of internal candidates and former executives who had originally been considered front-runners.

Picture for representation
An employee walks past a signage board in a Infosys campus.

Indian stocks gained on Monday, led by heavyweight Infosys after the software maker appointed Salil Parekh as chief executive officer and managing director.

Parekh, 53-year-old from Capgemini took the helm of Infosys Saturday, beating out a field of internal candidates and former executives who had originally been considered front-runners.

His predecessor, Vishal Sikka, quit after he came under intense fire from the company's founders who objected to his strategy and compensation.

The S&P BSE Sensex rose 0.11 percent at 32,869 while the broader NSE Nifty gained 0.06 percent to 10,127.

Infosys gained about 3 percent and was among the top gainers on the Sensex.

Among the other top gainers, Bharti Airtel advanced 1 percent, Tata Motors gained 1.4 percent, HDFC rose 1.3 percent while Hindustan Unilever added 1.4 percent.

Biocon jumped 16 percent after the U.S. FDA approved Mylan N.V. and Biocon's biosimilar for Roche's drug Herceptin, used in the treatment of breast and metastatic stomach cancer.

Tata Motors gained 1.4 percent after the company said its November sales jumped 58 percent year over year at 52,464 units.

Market breadth was in the favour of gainers, with about 2 stocks advancing to every 1 stock that declined.

Asian shares were less euphoric, with MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan hovering near a one-month trough on fears U.S. policy tightening could suck liquidity from emerging markets and derail global growth.

Investors' attention will turn this week to central bank decisions in Australia and India among others. Also in focus will be Brexit talks as they progress toward a crucial deadline.

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