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Bombay shares

close mostly higher

BOMBAY: Shares ended mostly higher on Friday at the National Stock Exchange after late profit-taking spoiled a mid-session rally, brokers said.

"Speculative buying took the market up but higher levels attracted profit-selling and disinvestment by corporate investors," Rasesh Maniar of brokers Mukesh Babu said.

He said activity was chiefly speculative bidding as the Bombay bourse, banks, most institutions and government offices were closed for local holiday.

Traders said foreign funds bought some shares in off-market deals from big domestic institutions.

A single transaction for 500,000 shares of IDBI at 126 rupees was one such deal, a trader said. IDBI closed 0.20 rupees down at 128.05.

Hind Lever and Brooke Bond, both belonging to the Anglo-Dutch Unilever group, said their board will discuss a merger proposal on April 22.

"The two boards will formulate the scheme of amalgamation and decide on the share exchange ratio" Hind Lever said in a statement. "The proposal to merge the two companies is purely an internal restructing within the (Unilever) group."

Hind Lever ended 15 rupees down at 780 and Brooke Bond firmed 6.90 rupees to 405.95, prompting traders to believe the exchange ratio could favour Brooke Bond shareholders.

Bank share SBI rose 9.45 rupees to 310.45 with over 12.2 million shares traded and Oriental Bank firmed eight to 94.75 in trading volume of 2.3 million shares.

Reliance added 2.45 at 246.80 with over 12.4 million shares traded and IPCL was up 5.95 rupees at 183.95 with 1.1 million shares transacted.-Reuter