After a gloomy period, ITC’s pricing power finally lit up the stock, as the company seems to have decided to raise the buck from customers.

The scrip closed on Thursday at Rs 346.25, up by 2.35 per cent. According to market sources, the company has decided to undertake a price increase of 15 per cent across cigarettes of various lengths.

NTPC, the state-owned thermal power generator, has issued bonus debentures of Rs 10,307 crore, the largest ever by any Indian company.

It is also the first public sector company to adopt this instrument to reward shareholders, said its executives.

MUMBAI: State Bank of India is offering a bonanza to its existing home loan customers. They can take personal, or top-up, loans at the same rate that they are paying on home loans under a limited-period offer from the nation's top lender.

In effect, an existing borrower can take a personal loan at 10.15%, provided he had been paying his home loan EMIs on time. For women, this will be even cheaper at 10.10%. The rates imply a 0.35-0.40 percentage point cut in the top-up loan rates that SBI has been charging. It charges 13.50-18.50% on personal loans to other customers.

The Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) will provide Rs.1.50 lakh crore in the next five years to the Railways for funding projects. The move is in line with Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu’s plan to look for funds outside of budgetary support and tap low-cost long-term funds. The Railways will need Rs.8.50 lakh crore in the next five years for various projects.

Benchmark share indices rebounded after three days of losses to open marginally higher tracking firm gains in their Asian peers with bank shares leading the gains.

At 9:30AM, the 30-share Sensex was up227 points at 28,886 and the 50-share Nifty was up 66 points at 8,766. The Bank Nifty was up nearly 200 points at 19,235.

Wipro, India's third-largest IT services company, plans to incentivise delivery managers to drive growth, managing director and CEO T K Kurien said during a meeting with analysts on Wednesday. When an analyst asked in what way delivery managers, who are responsible for delivery of projects, can drive growth, Kurien said it's easy for a delivery manager to find opportunities around him thanks to his domain knowledge as well as knowledge of many other projects.

India's largest car maker Maruti Suzuki remains the top choice of car buyers and sellers in the used car space, according to a report from online selling platform Quikr.

The report reveals that demand for hatchback cars is the highest on the site. Amongst other findings, the report also states that premium cars such as Aston Martin and Lamborghinis are being bought and sold twice as fast as other economy cars.

Mercedes-Benz plans to sell more compact cars to tap the fastest growing part of India's premium car market, a move analysts say could help the German automaker overtake rival Audi as the country's top luxury car seller.

Mercedes launched on Wednesday a refreshed version of its entry-level, compact car -- the B-Class -- and it plans to increase sales of such models by 50% this year. Compact cars made up a fifth of Mercedes' total sales in 2014.

NTPC has moved higher by 7% to Rs 165 on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) after the company announced that it has fixed March 23, 2015, as the record date for bonus debentures.

In December last year, the board of state-run NTPC had approved a scheme of arrangement for the issuance of secured, non-cumulative, non-convertible, redeemable, taxable fully paid-up bonus debentures of face value of Rs 12.50 each against each equity shares of Rs 10 held by its members by utilising its free reserves.

Shares of Idea Cellular have moved higher by 7% to Rs 175, extending its past two days 10% rally on the National Stock Exchange (NSE), on back of heavy volumes.

The stock is just 2% away from its 52-week high of Rs 178 touched on September last year. It touched a record high of Rs 188 on November 2013.

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