Asian stocks rose at the open on Friday as Wall Street wavered ahead of a key US jobs reading that's likely to guide the Federal Reserve's policy outlook.

Australian and South Korean stocks rose and equities in Japan were steady, while futures in Hong Kong pointed higher.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones rose on Thursday on high hopes of a rate cut after weak labour market data, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq dropped.

Here's a table showing how US stocks performed on Thursday:

Source: Equitymaster

At present, the BSE Sensex is trading 321 points higher and NSE Nifty is trading 100 points higher.

Wipro, Tech Mahindra and Infosys are among the top gainers today.

HUL, ITC and L&T the other hand are among the top losers today.

Broader markets are trading on a positive note. The BSE Midcap index is trading 0.5% higher and the BSE Smallcap index is trading 1.2% higher.

Sectoral indices are trading on a positive note, with stocks in the realty sector and the IT sector witnessing buying.

The rupee is trading at Rs 83.4 against the US dollar.

In commodity markets, gold prices are trading 0.3% higher at Rs 73,349 per 10 grams today.
 

ITC Shareholders Approve Demerger

ITC shareholders approved the Indian consumer goods maker's plan to carve out its hotel business on Thursday, in line with the recommendation of key proxy advisors.

About 99.6% of the tobacco-to-soap firm's minority shareholders voted in favour of the move, exceeding the regulatory requirement of a three-fourth majority.

As per media reports, proxy advisory firms Stakeholders Empowerment Services (SES) and InGovern Research Services last month asked shareholders to support the demerger proposal, while Institutional Investor Advisory Services (IiAS) opposed the move.

ITC must provide greater clarity concerning the size of the synergies it expects to get by maintaining the 40% equity in the hotel business

The company, known for its Goldflake brand of cigarettes, announced the demerger plan in July last year and later said that the new entity would be tentatively listed in 15 months.

ITC Hotels will compete as an independent entity with rivals such as Tata-owned Indian Hotels Company, which operates Taj Hotels, and EIH Associated Hotels, which manages the Oberoi brand of hotels.

The hotel business contributed 4% to ITC's fiscal year 2024 revenue, while its mainstay consumer staples business made up 71% of the top line.

Hindustan Unilever Announces Change in Senior Management

Hindustan Unilever has appointed Arun Neelakantan, presently Chief Digital Officer, as Executive Director, Customer Development with effect from 1 July 2024, in succession to Kedar Lele.

Further, this is to inform you that Kedar Lele has decided to move on from Unilever. The successor for the role of Chief Digital Officer will be announced in due course.

Neelakantan started his career with HUL as a Key Account Manager in Modern Trade in 2006 after completing his Bachelor's Degree from IIT Madras, Master's from Penn State University, followed by an MBA from the Indian School of Business (ISB). He has a proven track record of performance at HUL and has led large teams and change agendas in customer development and marketing, across general trade, modern trade, customer marketing and brand building.

In his role as regional manager, leading the company's largest branch in Chennai, he was able to deliver market-beating growth consistently. Under his leadership, the South region went on to launch several path-breaking initiatives backed by deep consumer insights and execution excellence in the market.

He has played a key role in accelerating HUL's digital transformation programme across consumer, customer and operations ecosystems and has strengthened data and digital capabilities for category and e-commerce teams.
 

Market Regulator Warns ICICI Bank

The market regulator on Thursday issued a warning to ICICI Bank for flouting norms during its outreach programme to the shareholders of broking firm ICICI Securities to vote in favour of the delisting.

The market regulator has termed the outreach programme by ICICI Bank as "inappropriate" and directed the bank to take action against its officials.

Several investors of ICICI Securities complained that employees of ICICI Bank called, influenced or misled shareholders to vote in favour of the delisting proposal under the garb of spreading awareness.

The market regulator confirmed that some of the officials of ICICI Bank went beyond the outreach programme by making repeated calls and asking for screenshots of voting.

The market regulator also directed the bank to take action against the officials who violated guidelines and examine the investor complaints on Sebi's Scores portal.

The market watchdog also pointed out that the claim of providing a 'balanced factual' perspective does not stand as ICICI Bank is a promoter with over 74% shareholding and the interested party in ICICI Securities' delisting.

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