India's Sensex rises 200 points; Bharti Airtel climbs 7% on Tata deal

Indian shares extended gains on Friday, led by telecom major Bharti Airtel after it acquired Tata's mobile business for free.

india trader
Reuters

Indian shares extended gains on Friday, led by telecom major Bharti Airtel after it acquired Tata's mobile business for free.

At 0610 GMT, the S&P BSE Sensex gained 0.75 percent at 32,427 while the broader NSE Nifty rose 0.66 percent to 10,163.

Among the top Sensex gainers: Bharti Airtel climbed 7 percent, ICICI Bank added 2 percent, Tata Steel gained 1.9 percent while HDFC Bank advanced 1.8 percent.

Bharti Airtel, India's biggest telecom operator, said it would buy the consumer mobile business of Tata Teleservices and Tata Teleservices Maharashtra, free of cost.

The deal would boost the subscriber base of billionaire Sunil Mittal-owned Bharti Airtel and provide relief to Tatas from their money-losing mobile unit.

Shares in Tata Teleservices Maharashtra hit 10 percent upper circuit for the second session while Tata Communications rose 2 percent.

Multi Commodity Exchange of India gained 2 percent ahead of its September quarter earnings.

Shares of Tata Consultancy Services rose as much as 2.4 percent to their highest since June 7 after its quarterly revenue rose 1.7 percent in constant currency terms in the second quarter.

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

Stocks in Asia traded near decade high ahead of U.S. economic data and next week's Chinese Communist Party Congress.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.15 percent, having gained 3.6 percent so far this month. Japan's Nikkei edged up 0.2 percent to another 21-year high.

Investors are focusing on U.S. consumer inflation figures due later in the day. Another key trigger would be China's 19th Communist Party Congress that begins on October 18, where President Xi Jinping is expected to lay out new policy initiatives and consolidate his power for a second five-year term.

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