Shares in L&T Finance Holdings fell as much as 5.2 percent on their trading debut on Friday, casting a shadow over the prospects of new share sales in a sluggish stock market.

The firm, a unit of Indian engineering conglomerate Larsen & Toubro, had priced its IPO at 52 rupees a share, near the lower end of the price band, raising $252 million in a market that has seen few new issues so far this year.

The L&T Finance stock was trading at 50.40 rupees at 9.16 a.m. (0346 GMT) in the Mumbai market that was up 0.4 percent.

L&T Finance had offered 214.51 million shares in the initial public offering last month to raise funds for strengthening its capital base for lending and for repayment of debt.

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