Majority of Asian stock indices are lower today as Chinese and Hong Kong shares fall. The Shanghai Composite is off 0.43% while the Hang Seng is down 0.56%. The Nikkei 225 is trading higher by 0.7%. US stocks rose on Wednesday after stronger-than-expected US economic growth outweighed concerns about escalating tensions between the United States and North Korea.
Back home, share markets in India have opened the day on a flattish note. The BSE Sensex is trading lower by 11 points while the NSE Nifty is trading lower by 10 points. The BSE Mid Cap and BSE Small Cap index opened the day up by 0.1% & 0.2% respectively.
Barring bank stocks and FMCG stocks, all sectoral indices have opened the day in green with stocks from energy sector and capital goods sector leading the gains. The rupee is trading at 63.94 to the US$.
Pharma stocks opened the day on a mixed note with Orchid Pharma and Biocon Ltd witnessing maximum selling pressure. As per an article in a leading financial daily, Aurobindo Pharma Ltd is in talks with Shreya Life Sciences for a deal to buy the latter’s Russian business. The potential deal is valued between US$80 million to US$100 million.
Shreya Life Sciences Pvt Ltd was established in 2001 and deals with a wide variety of pharmaceutical products. The company runs operations all over the world and had started its Russian operations just a year after its birth.
Apart from Russia, the company also has operations in Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Belarus and Kazakhstan in the region and globally in Africa, South America and South-east Asia.
Notably, Aurobindo Pharma has been on an acquisition drive for some time. The pharma company had recently acquired four biosimilar products from Swiss firm TL Biopharmaceutical AG.
It is also in the race to acquire a part of the European assets of Israeli generic drugmaker Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd in what could be one of the biggest acquisition by an Indian pharmaceutical company.
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