Mumbai, Feb. 21: Reliance Capital Ventures Ltd (RCVL), the demerged undertaking of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) which is now a part of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, today made its debut on the stock exchanges. The scrip opened at Rs 24.80 on the BSE and at Rs 24.50 on the National Stock Exchange (NSE).

RCVL is the first of the four holding companies, spun off from Reliance Industries in January, to list on the bourses.

The stock’s opening quotes were in line with market expectations. Close to 22.6 lakh shares of the company changed hands on the BSE in four block deals within minutes of its listing.

Market watchers attributed the enthusiasm about the stock partly to arbitrage opportunities vis-?-vis Reliance Capital Ltd. It may be recalled, RCVL is due to be merged with Reliance Capital following which, shareholders of Reliance Capital Ventures will get five shares of Reliance Capital for every 100 held.

Under the settlement of the Reliance empire between the warring Ambani brothers, shareholders of RIL will receive shares of the four demerged companies.

On the BSE, RCVL share price surged to an intra-day high of Rs 24.85, but later declined to close at Rs 22.35. The counter saw 1.88 crore shares being transacted, resulting in a turnover of Rs 42.55 crore.

The Reliance Capital counter, on the other hand, opened at Rs 455.90 and closed higher at Rs 458.

Based on the proposed swap ratio for the merger of Reliance Capital Ventures with Reliance Capital, the former today finished at a discount of 2.4 per cent to the closing price of Reliance Capital.

After getting control of these companies, Anil had announced that his group would list Reliance Energy Ventures Ltd (REVL) during the week starting February 20, Relianc e Natural Resources Ltd (RNRL) in the subsequent week and Reliance Communications Ventures Ltd (RcoVL) in the week beginning March 6. ADAG officials said REVL has obtained an in-principle approval from the stock exchanges for its listing.