NEWS 08.06.2010

1. WITH the accelerating pace of the global economic recovery bringing a renewed surge in demand for air travel, an industry body predicted on Monday that the world’s airlines would report profits of $2.5 billion this year, a dramatic improvement from the steep losses of the past two years.

2. INDIA’S third-biggest software exporter Wipro will wait for more details from Sebi before exercising any options for increasing the public shareholding in the company to 25% as mandated by the regulator, a senior company official told ET.
In a note issued on June 4, India ’s ministry of finance(MoF) mandated that companies listed in India must increase their public shareholding to 25%.

3. Reliance Infrastructure (R-Infra) on Monday informed the Bombay High Court that it could not strike a deal to buy power from Tata Power Company (TPC) April last year as the Tata company pulled out of negotiations.

4. Reliance MediaWorks along with two other ADAG firms — Reliance Capital and Reliance Capital Partners — has acquired a further 0.25% stake in Fame India, hiking their combined holding in the multiplex chain to 15.28%. The three acquired 85,962 shares, or 0.25% stake, through open market transactions on June 4, Fame India said in a filing to BSE on Monday. ADAG firms purchased the shares at an average price of Rs 82.5.

5. Marathon Next Gen Realty has clocked a 251% vault in its net profit to Rs 146.7 crore in FY10 against Rs 41.8 crore in the previous fiscal. Its total income rose to Rs 250 crore in FY10 against Rs 131 crore the previous year.

6. FOUR public sector banks, including Central Bank of India and Indian Bank, may have to sell shares to the public yet again this fiscal year to step up their public holding to 25%. The government has told all listed companies to have a minimum 25% public shareholding. Companies with less than the stipulated holding, will have to step up at least 5% a year.

7. TATA STEEL, India ’s largest producer, is in talks with buyers to replace annual with quarterly price contracts, following similar moves by raw material suppliers. Agreements have yet to be reached as customers will struggle to price their products if steel prices are adjusted every quarter, managing director HM Nerurkar said at the World Economic Forum in Ho Chi Minh city .

8. HYUNDAI’S labour woes at its factories near Chennai worsened on Monday when striking workers threw production out of gear, for the third time in a year, and disrupted the company’s local and overseas marketing plans.
All shifts were cancelled after Hyundai Motor India (HMIL) decided to suspend four of its workers, stalling production completely on Monday. The strike, according to HMIL senior vice-president, finance and corporate affairs, R Sethuraman, has the potential to cause losses of Rs 66 crore a day.

9. PHARMA and engineering sectors will lead the industry in terms of future salary hikes while yesterday’s darling, software, will continue to drag until the US sends a clear message on outsourcing, according to a recent survey.

10. THE row over the failed bid for an IPL franchise by Pune-based City Corporation has attracted the attention of the income-tax department. The tax collectors will issue a notice to the company and its managing director, Anirudh Deshpande, this week, said a senior official, who did not wish to be named.

11. TELECOM major Vodafone has moved the Bombay High Court, challenging the Indian Income-Tax department’s claim that it has jurisdiction to levy tax on Vodafone’s $11-billion acquisition of Indian company Hutchison Essar three years ago.

12. WITH just over a fortnight left for Mahindra Satyam’s audited results to be announced, the company’s top brass is charting investments to build capabilities in competencies and foray in to newer geographies.

13. TECHNOLOGY bellwether Infosys Technologies — which bills 70-80% of its European revenue in local currencies — gave a thought on whether it should move its billings to dollars, but decided against the move for now, the company’s chief operating officer SD Shibulal said.

14. THE government’s revenue from the sale of spectrum for 3G and broadband wireless access (BWA) is set to cross Rs 1 lakh crore with a pan-India bid for BWA touching Rs 10,652 crore on the 12th day of the auction. At this bid amount, the government will earn Rs 31,956 crore from the sale of BWA spectrum alone.

15. THE government will invest $376 million (Rs 1,770 crore) to develop
environment-friendly urban transport in the country. The project will be funded by a $150-million Central and state assistance and grants from multilateral bodies, an official in the ministry of urban development said.

16. The country’s largest power producer, NTPC, will make changes in its bidding process for sourcing equipment that will cut down overall project cycle and prevent delays in completion of projects.

17. INDIA and China have decided to rake up the issue of tough intellectual property regimes being planned by certain countries that go much beyond the global agreement, Trips, at the World Trade Organization (WTO). The move is aimed at scuttling a draconian anti-counterfeiting trade agreement (ACTA) being negotiated by countries such as the US, Japan, the EU, Australia and South Korea which could hamper India’s trade in a number of areas including pharmaceuticals and IT products.

18. THE government on Monday set up a Technical Advisory Group for Unique Projects (TAGUP) for creating an effective tax administration and financial governance system, through reliable secure and efficient IT projects. The move lays the ground for major structural reforms in the taxation structure — goods and services tax and direct taxes code.

19. THE Reserve Bank of India is considering a proposal put forward by profit-oriented microfinance institutions (MFIs) to allow them to be business correspondents of banks for financial inclusion.

20. IDBI Bank on Monday said its deputy MD Bharat Pal Singh, will look after the day-to-day affairs of the bank after its CMD Yogesh Agarwal, demitted office. Singh will coordinate the day-to-day affairs of the bank consequent upon Yogesh Agarwal demitting office as CMD on June 5.

21. THE euro’s 21% tumble from last year’s high has left the currency above the average level since its creation in 1999 and stronger than its predecessor, the deutsche mark.

22. PORTFOLIO management services (PMS) are increasingly turning out to be the carrots that mutual funds are dangling to distributors to push equity schemes to clients. Asset management companies (AMCs) are surreptitiously lowering the minimum requirement to invest in PMS products, which are meant for the more affluent clients, to accommodate more investors and ‘compensate’ distributors for selling equity schemes.

23. Two recently-listed commodity groups look set to be the only additions to Britain ’s FTSE 100 share index when the compiler announces the latest quarterly indexes reshuffle after the market close on Wednesday.

24. Gold prices fell from last Saturday’s all time high at the bullion market here amid bearish global cues. Silver also slipped on heavy offloading by stockists and lower industrial enquiries. Standard gold (99.5 purity) fell by Rs 150 per ten grams to Rs 18,645 from last weekend’s closing of Rs 18,795. Pure gold (99.9 purity) also tanked by Rs 155 per ten grams to Rs 18,730 against previous closing of Rs 18,885.

25. Oil slipped below $71 a barrel on Monday as Wall Street turned negative and a stronger dollar weighed.

26. Copper, nickel and lead slumped on concern that the global economic recovery may be at risk, imperilling metals demand, as Europe battles a sovereign-debt crisis and the US added fewer jobs than expected.