Key indices on Monday opened flat over escalating global tensions after a fresh nuclear test by North Korea on Sunday.

Asian markets were under pressure as North Korea’s latest nuclear disrupted markets and forced investors to run towards safe haven assets.

Flagging concerns over the proposed hike in GST on luxury cars, German auto-maker Mercedes Benz has said it was eager to increase its output and headcount from the country if the government extended a little bit of support on taxation.

"We do not understand suddenly why the need to actually review the cess all over again. We have so much to contribute. We have high ends jobs that we are able to create, willing to create..." Mercedes Benz India Managing Director and CEO Roland Folger told PTI here.

Infosys promoters, including iconic co-founders N R Narayana Murthy and Nandan Nilekani, have offered to sell as many as 1.77 crore shares -- worth up to Rs 2,038 crore -- in the company's Rs 13,000 crore buyback offer.

The promoters group -- which includes most of the founders and their families -- have expressed their intention to be part of the company's first buyback plan in its over three-decade history and have offered to tender a maximum of 1.77 crore shares.

Mumbai: Axis Bank on Friday said the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has identified an additional list of defaulter companies that lenders must now focus on, potentially sending the firms to bankruptcy court should they fail to resolve the troubled loans by 13 December.

Axis did not disclose which companies were on the list, but said it had loans to 12 of the names provided to banks by the RBI earlier this week.

Share prices of Wipro rose by 2.54% on Thursday after the company said its shareholders have approved its Rs 11,000-crore buyback proposal. The stock hit a 16-month high and was the biggest gainer amongst Sensex stocks. The company has set September 15, 2017, as the record date to decide eligible shareholders. The stock ended 2.54% higher at Rs 299.05 on BSE. During the day, it went up by 2.86 per cent to Rs 300 – its 52-week high. On NSE, shares of the company gained 2.71% to close at Rs 299.10. The stock was the biggest gainer among the bluechips on both the key indices. The company’s market valuation also went up by Rs 3,616.23 crore to Rs 1,45,537.23 crore.

The shares of Ashok Leyland rallied more than 5.5% and closed at Rs 113 on the back of healthy sales numbers posted by the company for the month of August. The shares touched Rs 113.25 in the intraday trade; marginally short of the 52-week high at Rs 114.35 which the company had earlier touched on the 8th of August on NSE.

Yesterday, the company reported a 25 per cent growth in total sales during August at 13,634 units, as against 10,897 units a year ago. The numbers include both medium and heavy commercial vehicles (M&HCVs) and light commercial vehicles (LCVs).

The Advisory Committee on Mutual Funds appointed by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), which is scheduled to meet on Friday, is planning to list a slew of recommendations before the regulator. Senior officials in the mutual fund industry say that the committee might recommend measures such as the merger of schemes, adoption of total return index (TRI) and an increasing amount of investor awareness campaign for Association of Mutual Funds in India (Amfi).

Shares of the two-wheeler maker Bajaj Auto gained over 3% on Friday after the company reported a 3% rise in the sales for the month of August. The automaker posted an increase of 2.98% in the total sales to 3,35,031 units for the month of August 2017 versus 3,25,347 units in the August 2016. The stock of Bajaj Auto rose as much as 3.9% to the day’s high of Rs 2,918.1 on BSE today. Meanwhile, the benchmark Sensex was trading 141 points or 0.45% higher at 31,871.83 points.

While Infosys recovers from the deep wounds inflicted on it in the battle of values between its promoters and its former management and board members, the fight is still far from over; only it seems to be moving away from the company and turning into a personal clash between founder Narayana Murthy and former Chairman R Seshasayee.

Seshasayee, who resigned as the Chairman of the board of India’s second-largest information technology services firm earlier last month upon the return of Nandan Nilekani — one of the original founders — to the company, released a statement today hitting back at Narayana Murthy.

State Bank of India (SBI) has enabled a chatbot to field queries on the bank’s retail products from visitors to its website. Named SBI Intelligent Assistant (SIA), the bot responds to customer inquiries on home loans, education loans, car loans, personal loans, recurring deposits and term deposits. Chatbots are digital robots that can carry on a conversation through audio or text. Mrutyunjay Mahapatra, deputy MD and chief information officer at SBI, told FE that the decision to introduce a chatbot was taken as it was felt that navigating the website could be a bit of a task for a customer.

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