Pipavav Defence falls, Reliance Infra gains on acquisition
* Shares in India’s Pipavav Defence and Offshore Engineering slump 10 percent
* Reliance Infrastructure has agreed to buy the company at 63 rupees a share, a 17.6 pct discount to its close on Wednesday
* Pipavav shares surged 90.1 pct so far this year till Wednesday
* However, shares in Reliance Infrastructure gain 2.5 pct
* This acquisition certainly gives Reliance a leg-up in the naval business given significant ordering expected for submarines and warships – Edelweiss Securities
India insurance firms gain; Lok Sabha passes insurance bill
* Shares in Indian insurance firms such as Max India Ltd gain 0.9 percent and Reliance Capital Ltd adds 0.8 percent
* Indian parliament’s lower house passed insurance bill that seeks to increase the foreign investment limit in local insurers to 49 percent from 26 percent
* Opposition Congress party voted along with the ruling party, which will enable smooth passage of the bill in the upper house as well, traders say
India road construction firms gain; govt clears proposals worth $2 bln
* Shares in India’s road construction companies surge
* GMR Infrastructure gains 1.5 pct, Ashoka Buildcon adds 2.4 percent, KNR Constructions is up 1.7 percent and J Kumar Infraprojects gains 0.6 pct
* India’s Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs cleared six projects worth 126.7 billion rupees ($2.04 billion) (http://bit.ly/1m5FOds)
* The announcement is a huge positive to construction firms as it revives sentiment-traders
* Further, the government has announced its intention to give more thrust to infrastructure in the federal budget- traders