BENGALURU, May 14 (Reuters) -

Indian shares opened higher on Tuesday, helped by gains in Shriram Finance after it announced plans to sell its housing finance unit.

The blue-chip NSE Nifty 50 was up 0.18% at 22,141.5 points, while the S&P BSE Sensex rose 0.05% to 72806.61, as of 9:28 a.m. IST.

Shriram Finance jumped 4% in early trade after it said it would sell its housing finance business to U.S. private equity firm Warburg Pincus in a $554.6 million deal.

The non-banking financial company, the top gainer on the Nifty, lifted heavyweight financial stocks 0.11%.

Meanwhile, aluminium producer Hindalco added nearly 2% after its unit Novelis made public its filing for an initial public offering in the United States.

Metal stocks advanced 0.8% in early trade. ($1 = 83.4990 Indian rupees) (Reporting by Hritam Mukherjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Janane Venkatraman and Sonia Cheema )