1. THE Greek debt crisis roiling markets worldwide may at most “influence” India , but will have limited “adverse impact” on the country, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee says, as he signaled the government’s determination to walk the path of fiscal prudence it was forced to abandon during the 2008 global financial meltdown.
2. WHEN Scott Price, president and CEO of Wal-Mart Asia, visited India last month, he talked about helping the country become food basket of the world and sourcing $1-billion worth of goods from here. Perhaps he drew inspiration from the growing presence of Indian specialty food brands in the shelves of global retailers such as Wal-Mart, Tesco, Ralphs and Safeway.
3. VIDEOCON has formed a separate business unit to market and sell Electrolux and Philips brands in India under a new team that includes two senior managers roped in from Samsung as chief operating officers.
4. GRASIM Industries, the Aditya Birla Group flagship, has recorded a 15% rise in consolidated net profit for the quarter ended March 31, 2010, at Rs 654 crore on improvement in cement and viscose stable fibre (VSF) businesses.
AGROUP of ministers (GoM) next week will decide on the possible out-of-court settlement of the five-year old dispute between state-owned utility NTPC and Reliance Industries (RIL) over gas supply and price.
5. The need for a settlement arises after the government on Wednesday doubled the administered natural gas price from all explorers to $4.2-million metric British thermal unit (mmBtu), said a person familiar with the matter.
DESPITE reporting a higher loss of Rs 467.6 crore in the past fiscal on the back of a major drop in revenues, Jet Airways on Thursday sounded bullish on the coming quarters as the market is looking healthy on rising traffic. The country’s largest airline by market share, posted a net loss of Rs 467.6 crore for the fiscal ending March 2010 against Rs 402.3 crore in the previous fiscal, while income too dropped to Rs 10,622.9 crore from Rs 11,786.8 crore.
6. Reliance Media Works said it, along with two other group firms, has acquired an additional 1.89 lakh shares of Fame India , taking the group’s total stake in the multiplex chain to 14.34%. Three entities of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group — Reliance Media Works, Reliance Capital and Reliance Capital Partners —have acquired 1.89 lakh equity shares, or 0.54% stake, of Fame at an average price of Rs 78.33.
National Aviation Company of India (Nacil), the owner of state-carrier Air India , is seeking to raise as much as $1.15 billion to refinance loans that funded the purchase of 21 Airbus SAS planes.
7. Tata Capital said it has appointed Mukund Govind Rajan as a managing partner of the Tata Capital Private Equity team. Mr Rajan is currently the managing director of Tata Teleservices ( Maharashtra ), a telecom unit of the group.
8. Wockhardt has clocked a net loss of Rs 565.2 crore during Q4 FY10 compared to a net loss of Rs 10.2 crore during the corresponding period of the last fiscal. For the 15-month period starting from January 2009 to March 2010, the company has recorded a net loss of Rs 1,000.8 crore compared to Rs 138.9 crore net loss it had clocked in the 12-month period from January 2008 to December 2009, according to the company.
9. Industrial and automotive battery major Amara Raja Batteries has announced a top line growth of 12% for FY10 at Rs 1,465 crore (excluding other income), compared with Rs 1,313 crore in FY09.
10. INDIAN biotech companies are increasingly looking to make major investments in Malaysia , lured by the south-east Asian country’s tax sops, easy market access and better infrastructure.
11. INDAL Steel and Power will acquire Oman steel maker Shadeed Iron and Steel for $464 million as a reviving local economy and strong growth prospects give a confidence boost to India Inc in the global M&A arena.
12. The acquisition, which was announced by Jindal on Thursday, will give the Indian major access to a plant under construction to meet rising demand in the Gulf and other nearby West Asian economies.
13. FORMER Raymond chief operating officer Deepak Khetrapal is set to join UAE based retailer of consumer electronics and technology products Jumbo Electronics as its chief executive. He will replace Peter McElwaine, who has moved on after a two-year stint with the company. Dubai-headquartered Jumbo Group is promoted by Chhabria family.
14. UK oil explorer Cairn Energy said it planned to ramp up production at its oil fields in India after laying a pipeline which will enable it to sell more oil to refiners. The company said ahead of its annual general meeting on Thursday its Indian unit Cairn India had increased oil production from its Mangala field in Rajasthan state to 60,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd) from an average 17,532 in the first quarter.
15. THE extended Munjal family is consolidating its shareholding in the world’s biggest two wheeler maker, Hero Honda, by reducing the number of holding entities and transferring their ownership under a single umbrella.
16. The move could set the stage for a more comprehensive family settlement for shares worth over $ 2 billion.
17. NMDC, Asia’s third-largest iron ore miner, plans to seek price increases of “at least” 90% and quarterly contracts from steelmakers in Japan and South Korea , following biggest global exporter Vale. NMDC, which exported about 15% of output last year, expects to sell iron ore fines overseas at $116 a metric ton this quarter, finance director Swaminathan Thiagarajan said on Thursday, raising his March 30 forecast of $100.
18. Petrol dealers in Delhi on Thursday decided to close down pumps every Monday from May 24 to protest hike in VAT on diesel even as chief minister Sheila Dikshit promised to look into their demand for parity with neighboring states like Haryana.
Gold prices dropped on Tuesday due to profit booking by stockiest and traders at higher levels, triggered by a sharp slide in global markets. Silver too plunged on heavy stockiest selling coupled with reduced demand from industrial users.
FOOD inflation went up by a notch to 16.49% for the week ended May 8 and analysts expect prices to remain stuck around this level until the advent of a normal monsoon. Annual food inflation in the previous reporting week was 16.44%. Analysts said food inflation would come down drastically only in the later half of the fiscal when the impact of a normal monsoon becomes visible on crops.
STATE-OWNED blue chip companies Oil & Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), SAIL, NTPC and Indian Oil Corp (IOC) have been declared ‘maharatnas’, a status that gives them enormous financial powers and greater operational autonomy.
19. THE Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) will examine books of banks and financial institutions involved in the UPA government’s mega loan waiver scheme announced two years ago. The move aims to evaluate the effectiveness of the scheme that provided relief to nearly four crore farmers of the country.
Shares of ICICI Bank on Thursday plunged 1.17% on concerns of an overvalued takeover of Bank of Rajasthan, whose shares soared to a year high. Shares of ICICI Bank fell to Rs 815, down 1.17%, on the Bombay Stock Exchange. Shares of Bank of Rajasthan (BoR), which has been on a rise since the last five trading sessions, today surged by another 10% to Rs 131.30.
20. Battery-operated electric vehicles manufacturer Kabirdass Motor has got approval from market regulator Sebi to raise Rs 67 crore through a public issue for its expansion plans.
21. TUMBLING commodity prices due to sovereign credit crisis is a manna for policymakers, but rising investor risk-aversion can shatter dreams of high economic growth and lower deficits.
22. DOLLAR carry-trades could decline further as analysts see the greenback strengthening on heavy demand from nervous investors seeking the safety of US Treasury.
23. Indian shares, like their counterparts in many other emerging markets, owe their spectacular rise over the last one year, partly to dollar carry-trades. In a carry-trade, an investor borrows money in the currency with low interest rates (dollar in this case) and deploys it in assets (usually emerging market equities) offering better returns.
24. Stock Holding Corporation of India has reported a 41% rise in its operating income to Rs 220 crore for FY10. The corresponding figure for FY09 was Rs 156 crore.
DESPITE a 21% year-on-year rise in per gram gold prices on Akshay Tritiya, the quantity of gold sold this year is expected to be higher than that of last year’s, indicative sources from industry body World Gold Council (WGC) told ET. Across the country, 45 tonne gold were sold last year on the festive occasion.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Friday, May 21, 2010
Five ways CFOs can make cost cuts stick
Successes in cost cutting erode with time. Here’s how to make them last.
Optimism is on the rise that a solid economic recovery is taking hold around the world, but the cost cutting so prevalent during the recent recession looks to remain a strategic priority for some time. Indeed, the number of executives reporting steps to reduce operating costs in the next 12 months increased significantly between February and April, even as confidence in the economy grew. Yet any successes companies have at cutting costs during the downturn will erode with time. Many executives expect some proportion of the costs cut during the recent recession to return within 12 to 18 months —and prior research found that only 10 percent of cost reduction programs show sustained results three years later.
On either schedule, any programs initiated in the early months of the downturn are already beginning to fail—just as savings would be most useful to finance growth. Sales, general, and administrative (SG&A) costs prove to be particularly intransigent. While manufacturing efficiencies have enabled an average S&P 500 company to reduce the cost of goods sold (COGS) by about 250 basis points over the past decade, SG&A costs have remained at about the same level
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
