IIP Data came on Friday, June 11, 2010 at 11:30 a.m.
April Month IIP 176.6% V/S 13.5% (MoM)
April Manufacturing sector Growth 19.4% V/S 0.4% (YoY)
April Consumer Durable Growth 37% V/S 17.6% (YoY)
April Mining sector Growth 11.4% V/S 3.4% (YoY)
Thursday, June 10, 2010
NEWS on 10.06.2010
Today news 10-06-2010
1. THE board of Reliance Industries (RIL) is believed to have approved plans to enter the Indian telecommunications sector when the opportunity arises, two persons familiar with the development told ET.
India ’s largest private sector company is expected to go for only the lucrative corporate bandwidth market, or the business of selling telecom and internet services to companies rather than individuals.
2. India’s largest natural healthcare company and maker of Vatika and ‘Real’ juice brand Dabur India (DIL) on Wednesday said in a release that the Bombay High Court has approved the merger of Fem Care Pharma with the company.
3. Canon India , the imaging products company, has completed a trial, using a systems integrator, for the central government’s ambitious Unique ID (UID) project, Aadhaar, in the data base collection part of the project.
4. Formica, the global laminate brand, is back in India . The laminate maker exited the country a year ago following the expiry of its decades old brand licence agreement with the Nusli Wadia group’s diversified conglomerate, the Bombay Burmah Trading Company Ltd (BBTCL).
5. BHARTI Airtel has signed a multi-million dollar deal with Brand Union, a consultancy owned by communications giant WPP, as it prepares for a image makeover in keeping with its newly-acquired status of a global company after the acquisition of Zain Telecom's African operations.
6. THE Indian tax authorities had advised British telecom major Vodafone to pay tax on its $11-billion acquisition of Hutchison Essar before it sealed the transaction, according to a recent income tax order. In a letter on March 23, 2007, the Income Tax (I-T) department had asked Vodafone to pay withholding tax, nearly one-and-a-half month before the telco made the payment to Hong Kong-based Hutchison International for buying two-third stake in Hutchison Essar.
7. ANDREW YULE & Co is making a foray into the designer speciality tea segment to spruce up its margins in the current fiscal. These teas, which can fetch Rs 7,000 - Rs 15,000 per kg in the international market will be sold at high-street departmental stores like Harrods.
8. THE Fortis Healthcare board on Wednesday gave the company the go-ahead to raise Rs 2,750 crore through fresh issue of securities, including shares, and also increased the company’s borrowing limit to Rs 6,000 crore.
9. ELECTRICITY Transmission Company Power-Grid Corporation may sell 20% to public that could raise Rs 8,000 crore, which may be equally split between the government and the company, said two people familiar with the plans.
10. STATE-OWNED lender State Bank of India (SBI) is planning to raise Rs 20,000 crore through a rights issue by the end of the fiscal year.
“It is still at the conversation stage (with the government)... If at all it comes up, may be it would be coming up towards the end of this fiscal year,” SBI chairman OP Bhatt said on the sidelines of an industry event.
11. The Maharashtra Airport Development Company (MADC) will lease 50 acres in the SEZ near Nagpur airport to Air India (AI) to establish an aircraft maintenance base that will be set up by Boeing Company with an investment of around $100 million, an official said.
12. ISHTITMAR Capital World, the investment arm of Dubai World, has decided to convert bonds of no-frills carrier Spice Jet into equity shares to sell them in the open market, said a person close to the matter.
13. EYEING business from domestic and international shipping lines that ply through the busy sea route between Dubai and Colombo , Pipavav Shipyard (PSL) is all set to construct a new dry dock in Gujarat , which is expected to be the world’s biggest dock to undertake repair and maintenance of vessels operating in the region.
14. BHARTI Airtel will form separate tower companies in each of the African nations where it is present, marking the commencement of efforts to collaborate with other mobile phone firms to share costs and save money.
The 15 independent entities will be replicas of the Indus Towers arm owned by Bharti, along with Vodafone Essar and Idea Cellular in India , and African mobile companies will be invited to be part of the planned new ventures, Manoj Kohli, chief executive officer of Bharti’s international unit told ET.
15. Reliance Power’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Reliance Coal Resources, will make an upfront payment of Rs 500 crore ($106 million) for acquiring the mines. The balance payment will be paid in a staggered fashion depending on the mines meeting certain production targets. If all production linked targets are met, the total value of the deal will be $1.6 billion.
16. Back-office service provider Hinduja Global Solutions is looking to acquire companies in the US , UK and Latin America in the customer relationship management (CRM) space, a top official said. The firm, which has about $100 million in cash, is eyeing targets with an annual revenue of $25-$100 million, Partha Sarkar, CEO,Hinduja Global said on Wednesday.
17. Dr Reddy’s Laboratories has got tentative approval from US regulators to launch the generic version of AstraZeneca’s Accolate, used to treat asthma, a company spokesman said. The company is currently working on manufacturing plants for zafirlukast, the generic name of Accolate, and will decided the time of its launch after getting the final approval from the US Food & Drug Administration, the spokesman said.
18. THE cost of pan-India broadband airwaves, which crossed Rs 12,000 crore after 14 days of bidding, has baffled analysts and stunned telecom companies participating in the auctions, many of whom concede that the price has become ‘highly irrational.’
19. FINANCE minister Pranab Mukherjee asked income-tax officials to look beyond the Rs 4,30,000-crore tax collection target for the current financial year, with the economy expected to expand 8.5% during the period.
20. The Cabinet on Thursday is likely to discuss the Planning Commission's mid-term appraisal of the 11th Five-Year Plan (2007-12), in which it scaled down the growth projection for the period from 9% to 8.1%. Sources said that if the mid-term appraisal gets the Cabinet nod, the same would be placed before the National Development Council.
21. Road, transport and highway minister Kamal Nath on Wednesday said he is in talks with Singapore ’s investment firm Temasek Holdings for setting up a fund, which could have a corpus of $2 billion, for building roads and ports in India .
22. The government on Wednesday said that it would list 35 public sector companies on stock markets over the next five years. The move would generate about Rs 1.5 lakh crore in revenues for the Centre, minister of state for heavy industry and public sector enterprises Arun Yadav said.
23. THE government wills kick-start the bidding process for the 4,000 mw Orissa power projects this week, undeterred by the setback suffered by the Chhattisgarh ultra mega power project that faces uncertainty over allocation of captive coal blocks.
24. SBI on Wednesday hinted that base rate that will replace existing prime lending rate (PLR) will be between 7.5% and 8.5%.
25. BANKS continued to be net borrowers on Wednesday, raising Rs 66,170 crore from RBI at 5.25%. This is the third consecutive day when banks have borrowed over Rs 60,000 crore from the central bank by pledging government securities.
26. Pharma Company Parabolic Drugs (PDL) said on Wednesday it plans to raise up to Rs 200 crore through an Initial Public Offering (IPO) that opens for subscription on June 14. The Chandigarh-based contract manufacturer of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and API intermediates will use the proceeds for setting up new facilities, besides capacity expansion of existing ones and repayment of debt, a top company official said.
1. THE board of Reliance Industries (RIL) is believed to have approved plans to enter the Indian telecommunications sector when the opportunity arises, two persons familiar with the development told ET.
India ’s largest private sector company is expected to go for only the lucrative corporate bandwidth market, or the business of selling telecom and internet services to companies rather than individuals.
2. India’s largest natural healthcare company and maker of Vatika and ‘Real’ juice brand Dabur India (DIL) on Wednesday said in a release that the Bombay High Court has approved the merger of Fem Care Pharma with the company.
3. Canon India , the imaging products company, has completed a trial, using a systems integrator, for the central government’s ambitious Unique ID (UID) project, Aadhaar, in the data base collection part of the project.
4. Formica, the global laminate brand, is back in India . The laminate maker exited the country a year ago following the expiry of its decades old brand licence agreement with the Nusli Wadia group’s diversified conglomerate, the Bombay Burmah Trading Company Ltd (BBTCL).
5. BHARTI Airtel has signed a multi-million dollar deal with Brand Union, a consultancy owned by communications giant WPP, as it prepares for a image makeover in keeping with its newly-acquired status of a global company after the acquisition of Zain Telecom's African operations.
6. THE Indian tax authorities had advised British telecom major Vodafone to pay tax on its $11-billion acquisition of Hutchison Essar before it sealed the transaction, according to a recent income tax order. In a letter on March 23, 2007, the Income Tax (I-T) department had asked Vodafone to pay withholding tax, nearly one-and-a-half month before the telco made the payment to Hong Kong-based Hutchison International for buying two-third stake in Hutchison Essar.
7. ANDREW YULE & Co is making a foray into the designer speciality tea segment to spruce up its margins in the current fiscal. These teas, which can fetch Rs 7,000 - Rs 15,000 per kg in the international market will be sold at high-street departmental stores like Harrods.
8. THE Fortis Healthcare board on Wednesday gave the company the go-ahead to raise Rs 2,750 crore through fresh issue of securities, including shares, and also increased the company’s borrowing limit to Rs 6,000 crore.
9. ELECTRICITY Transmission Company Power-Grid Corporation may sell 20% to public that could raise Rs 8,000 crore, which may be equally split between the government and the company, said two people familiar with the plans.
10. STATE-OWNED lender State Bank of India (SBI) is planning to raise Rs 20,000 crore through a rights issue by the end of the fiscal year.
“It is still at the conversation stage (with the government)... If at all it comes up, may be it would be coming up towards the end of this fiscal year,” SBI chairman OP Bhatt said on the sidelines of an industry event.
11. The Maharashtra Airport Development Company (MADC) will lease 50 acres in the SEZ near Nagpur airport to Air India (AI) to establish an aircraft maintenance base that will be set up by Boeing Company with an investment of around $100 million, an official said.
12. ISHTITMAR Capital World, the investment arm of Dubai World, has decided to convert bonds of no-frills carrier Spice Jet into equity shares to sell them in the open market, said a person close to the matter.
13. EYEING business from domestic and international shipping lines that ply through the busy sea route between Dubai and Colombo , Pipavav Shipyard (PSL) is all set to construct a new dry dock in Gujarat , which is expected to be the world’s biggest dock to undertake repair and maintenance of vessels operating in the region.
14. BHARTI Airtel will form separate tower companies in each of the African nations where it is present, marking the commencement of efforts to collaborate with other mobile phone firms to share costs and save money.
The 15 independent entities will be replicas of the Indus Towers arm owned by Bharti, along with Vodafone Essar and Idea Cellular in India , and African mobile companies will be invited to be part of the planned new ventures, Manoj Kohli, chief executive officer of Bharti’s international unit told ET.
15. Reliance Power’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Reliance Coal Resources, will make an upfront payment of Rs 500 crore ($106 million) for acquiring the mines. The balance payment will be paid in a staggered fashion depending on the mines meeting certain production targets. If all production linked targets are met, the total value of the deal will be $1.6 billion.
16. Back-office service provider Hinduja Global Solutions is looking to acquire companies in the US , UK and Latin America in the customer relationship management (CRM) space, a top official said. The firm, which has about $100 million in cash, is eyeing targets with an annual revenue of $25-$100 million, Partha Sarkar, CEO,Hinduja Global said on Wednesday.
17. Dr Reddy’s Laboratories has got tentative approval from US regulators to launch the generic version of AstraZeneca’s Accolate, used to treat asthma, a company spokesman said. The company is currently working on manufacturing plants for zafirlukast, the generic name of Accolate, and will decided the time of its launch after getting the final approval from the US Food & Drug Administration, the spokesman said.
18. THE cost of pan-India broadband airwaves, which crossed Rs 12,000 crore after 14 days of bidding, has baffled analysts and stunned telecom companies participating in the auctions, many of whom concede that the price has become ‘highly irrational.’
19. FINANCE minister Pranab Mukherjee asked income-tax officials to look beyond the Rs 4,30,000-crore tax collection target for the current financial year, with the economy expected to expand 8.5% during the period.
20. The Cabinet on Thursday is likely to discuss the Planning Commission's mid-term appraisal of the 11th Five-Year Plan (2007-12), in which it scaled down the growth projection for the period from 9% to 8.1%. Sources said that if the mid-term appraisal gets the Cabinet nod, the same would be placed before the National Development Council.
21. Road, transport and highway minister Kamal Nath on Wednesday said he is in talks with Singapore ’s investment firm Temasek Holdings for setting up a fund, which could have a corpus of $2 billion, for building roads and ports in India .
22. The government on Wednesday said that it would list 35 public sector companies on stock markets over the next five years. The move would generate about Rs 1.5 lakh crore in revenues for the Centre, minister of state for heavy industry and public sector enterprises Arun Yadav said.
23. THE government wills kick-start the bidding process for the 4,000 mw Orissa power projects this week, undeterred by the setback suffered by the Chhattisgarh ultra mega power project that faces uncertainty over allocation of captive coal blocks.
24. SBI on Wednesday hinted that base rate that will replace existing prime lending rate (PLR) will be between 7.5% and 8.5%.
25. BANKS continued to be net borrowers on Wednesday, raising Rs 66,170 crore from RBI at 5.25%. This is the third consecutive day when banks have borrowed over Rs 60,000 crore from the central bank by pledging government securities.
26. Pharma Company Parabolic Drugs (PDL) said on Wednesday it plans to raise up to Rs 200 crore through an Initial Public Offering (IPO) that opens for subscription on June 14. The Chandigarh-based contract manufacturer of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and API intermediates will use the proceeds for setting up new facilities, besides capacity expansion of existing ones and repayment of debt, a top company official said.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
NEWZ on 09.06.2010
Today news 09-06-2010
1. BHARTI Airtel said it will move swiftly and aggressively to expand its newly-acquired overseas domain on a day it announced the closure of its $9-billion purchase of the African operations of Kuwait ’s Zain Telecom.
India ’s largest cellphone company is aiming for a more than two-fold increase within three years in the number of users in Africa while it pursues the low-cost outsourced business model of operations that has served it so well at home.
2. Reliance Brands has launched its third label in the country — Italian luxury sportswear brand Paul & Shark, reports Amit Sharma. The company is in a 50:50 JV with its Italian partner and will be spending nearly $30 million over five years. “This is a long-term association.
3. HINDUSTAN Unilever has intensified its long-running battle with Eureka Forbes for domination in the fast-growing water purifier market by pitting a new product against its rival’s in the premium category.
4. REAL estate firm Lodha Developers will invest Rs 2,000 crore to develop the world’s tallest residential tower in Mumbai to cash in on the continued surge in home prices in India ’s commercial capital. “We will fund the project through internal accruals and pre-launch sales,” MD Abhishek Lodha told a press conference. “We are also looking at some private equity investments for the project.”
5. The income-tax department told the Bombay High Court on Tuesday that it will not seek recovery of around $2 billion in tax, which it claims is payable by Vodafone, the UK-based telecom company, till the case is again heard in July. The court admitted Vodafone’s appeal that challenged an order of the I-T department, levying tax on the telecom company’s $11-billion acquisition of Hutchison Essar three years ago.
6. ANIL Ambani withdrew a Rs 10,000-crore defamation suit filed in the Bombay High Court against elder brother Mukesh Ambani and
The New York Times
(NYT) as the once-estranged brothers seek to return to a more harmonious relationship.
7. HINDALCO Industries plans to borrow about Rs 14,000 crore in the next couple of years to build two new plants that will treble its aluminium making capacity as increased production of cars and aircraft, fuel demand for the white metal.
8. THE country’s largest iron ore mining company National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) is forming a 51:49 joint venture with Monnet Ispat & Energy to acquire and develop coal blocks in India . NMDC will have a majority stake in the JV Company, which will bid for coal mines with reserves of 200 to 300 million tonne.
9. THE government’s ambitious UID project will get a big boost, with country’s largest insurer Life Insurance Corporation of India agreeing to share its database of more than 20 crore policyholders with the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).
10. THE government’s revenue from sale of 3G and broadband wireless airwaves (BWA) crossed Rs 1 lakh crore on Monday. The 13th day of the broadband spectrum auction also witnessed the bids for Tamil Nadu and Punjab circles exceeding the final 3G bid price. The government had estimated to garner Rs 35,000 crore from both 3G and BWA auctions combined.
11. THE Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has decided to initiate spectrum audit to make sure that telcos are using it in the most economic manner possible, because it is a scarce resource. The audit will be undertaken after about three-four months, said Trai chairman JS Sarma.
12. GLENMARK Pharmaceutical has scored in its patent tussle with Sanofi Aventis and Abbott after the New Jersey district court upheld the challenge by the Indian company for a hyper-tension drug.
13. Tejas Networks, a leader in next-generation optical networking products, on Tuesday announced that it has acquired Ethos Networks, a technology company from Israel specializing in carrier Ethernet and network management products. This deal is the first acquisition of an Israeli hi-tech company by an Indian company, Tejas said.
14. US-based Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) and Infosys Technologies on Tuesday announced to partner on potential research and educational opportunities. Georgia Tech said it was exploring the possibility of establishing a small, high quality post-graduate research institution in Hyderabad .
15. The government has allowed real estate major DLF to revive its plan for a special economic zone (SEZ) in Kolkata. The company had wriggled out of its commitment to set up four SEZs last year due to shrinkage in demand for commercial space because of the global economic downturn.
16. The income tax department will look for ways to meet the direct tax collection target of Rs 4.30 lakh crore at its two-day annual meet beginning on Wednesday. “The collection target becomes stiff in view of the relief and concessions announced in the Budget 2010 involving a direct tax outgo of about Rs 26,000 crore,” an official statement said on Tuesday. The budget estimate 2010-11 has pegged the direct tax haul at Rs 4,30,000 crore, a growth of 16.2% over the budget estimates for 2009-10.
17. The government’s wheat procurement, which is in its last stages, has dropped nearly 7% to 22.46 million tonnes (mt), so far, since it began on April 1, despite record production, as per official data. Wheat procurement stood at 24.08 mt in the corresponding period of the previous year.
18. STATE governments stuck to their demands of higher threshold for central Goods and Services Tax and keeping local body taxes and electricity duty out of it, threatening the total implementation of what is touted as the biggest tax reform since independence.
19. THE government may allow export of 10,000 tonne of sugar to the European Union (EU) as the sugar situation in the country has become comfortable with increased supplies and stable prices, an official said. In February this year, the Centre was forced to revoke its decision to allow export of sugar under the EU’s preferential zero duty quota following protests from the opposition as prices of sugar were still ruling high.
20. THE food ministry is readying a revised proposal on customs duty hike on white sugar imports to put up before the empowered group of ministers (EGoM) on food. This is despite apprehensions that the total stocks of sugar with the Centre at the start of the festival season, beginning September, could be lower than 2 million tonnes. The EGoM meeting is slated for June 10.
21. FINANCE minister Pranab Mukherjee has said unit-linked insurance plans (Ulips) need further reforms on the back of the changes already announced by the insurance regulator. The finance minister also hinted at a resolution to the dispute between Sebi and Irda over Ulip regulation.
22. A GROWING number of companies have been opting for a buyback of shares to support the price in the current phase of market volatility. While the trend is mostly evident among small- and medium-sized companies, the market also expects large-sized companies to join the buyback bandwagon, after FMCG major Hindustan Unilever (HUL) announced a similar move last week
23. AN insurance major is believed to have trimmed exposure to TVS Motor, of late. The buzz is that the sale is part of its usual profit-booking process. The stock, which closed at Rs 104.35, down 0.3% on Thursday, has risen over 70% since the end of February 2010 to date, a period when share value has eroded in most cases.
24. MORE and more stock brokers in Mumbai are shifting their back-office operations outside Maharashtra to save on stamp duty that’s imposed by the state — the highest in India — when a client signs up with a broker.
While most large brokers have shifted back offices to states with lower stamp duty like Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi and Union Territory Daman, the smaller ones are now following suit to reduce costs.
25. STATE-OWNED ‘India Post’ has earned just about Rs 2 crore by selling mutual funds last fiscal. The national distributor with some 800 postal outlets selling mutual funds has logged its worst numbers in four years. The department has stopped selling mutual fund schemes of four out of five fund houses with which the department has exclusive distribution tie-ups.
26. Oil prices slid back to near $71 a barrel on Tuesday as European investors looked beyond encouraging comments from US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke and worried about the impact of the debt crisis on demand. Benchmark crude for July delivery was down 45 cents at $70.99 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange late morning European time.
1. BHARTI Airtel said it will move swiftly and aggressively to expand its newly-acquired overseas domain on a day it announced the closure of its $9-billion purchase of the African operations of Kuwait ’s Zain Telecom.
India ’s largest cellphone company is aiming for a more than two-fold increase within three years in the number of users in Africa while it pursues the low-cost outsourced business model of operations that has served it so well at home.
2. Reliance Brands has launched its third label in the country — Italian luxury sportswear brand Paul & Shark, reports Amit Sharma. The company is in a 50:50 JV with its Italian partner and will be spending nearly $30 million over five years. “This is a long-term association.
3. HINDUSTAN Unilever has intensified its long-running battle with Eureka Forbes for domination in the fast-growing water purifier market by pitting a new product against its rival’s in the premium category.
4. REAL estate firm Lodha Developers will invest Rs 2,000 crore to develop the world’s tallest residential tower in Mumbai to cash in on the continued surge in home prices in India ’s commercial capital. “We will fund the project through internal accruals and pre-launch sales,” MD Abhishek Lodha told a press conference. “We are also looking at some private equity investments for the project.”
5. The income-tax department told the Bombay High Court on Tuesday that it will not seek recovery of around $2 billion in tax, which it claims is payable by Vodafone, the UK-based telecom company, till the case is again heard in July. The court admitted Vodafone’s appeal that challenged an order of the I-T department, levying tax on the telecom company’s $11-billion acquisition of Hutchison Essar three years ago.
6. ANIL Ambani withdrew a Rs 10,000-crore defamation suit filed in the Bombay High Court against elder brother Mukesh Ambani and
The New York Times
(NYT) as the once-estranged brothers seek to return to a more harmonious relationship.
7. HINDALCO Industries plans to borrow about Rs 14,000 crore in the next couple of years to build two new plants that will treble its aluminium making capacity as increased production of cars and aircraft, fuel demand for the white metal.
8. THE country’s largest iron ore mining company National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) is forming a 51:49 joint venture with Monnet Ispat & Energy to acquire and develop coal blocks in India . NMDC will have a majority stake in the JV Company, which will bid for coal mines with reserves of 200 to 300 million tonne.
9. THE government’s ambitious UID project will get a big boost, with country’s largest insurer Life Insurance Corporation of India agreeing to share its database of more than 20 crore policyholders with the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).
10. THE government’s revenue from sale of 3G and broadband wireless airwaves (BWA) crossed Rs 1 lakh crore on Monday. The 13th day of the broadband spectrum auction also witnessed the bids for Tamil Nadu and Punjab circles exceeding the final 3G bid price. The government had estimated to garner Rs 35,000 crore from both 3G and BWA auctions combined.
11. THE Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has decided to initiate spectrum audit to make sure that telcos are using it in the most economic manner possible, because it is a scarce resource. The audit will be undertaken after about three-four months, said Trai chairman JS Sarma.
12. GLENMARK Pharmaceutical has scored in its patent tussle with Sanofi Aventis and Abbott after the New Jersey district court upheld the challenge by the Indian company for a hyper-tension drug.
13. Tejas Networks, a leader in next-generation optical networking products, on Tuesday announced that it has acquired Ethos Networks, a technology company from Israel specializing in carrier Ethernet and network management products. This deal is the first acquisition of an Israeli hi-tech company by an Indian company, Tejas said.
14. US-based Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) and Infosys Technologies on Tuesday announced to partner on potential research and educational opportunities. Georgia Tech said it was exploring the possibility of establishing a small, high quality post-graduate research institution in Hyderabad .
15. The government has allowed real estate major DLF to revive its plan for a special economic zone (SEZ) in Kolkata. The company had wriggled out of its commitment to set up four SEZs last year due to shrinkage in demand for commercial space because of the global economic downturn.
16. The income tax department will look for ways to meet the direct tax collection target of Rs 4.30 lakh crore at its two-day annual meet beginning on Wednesday. “The collection target becomes stiff in view of the relief and concessions announced in the Budget 2010 involving a direct tax outgo of about Rs 26,000 crore,” an official statement said on Tuesday. The budget estimate 2010-11 has pegged the direct tax haul at Rs 4,30,000 crore, a growth of 16.2% over the budget estimates for 2009-10.
17. The government’s wheat procurement, which is in its last stages, has dropped nearly 7% to 22.46 million tonnes (mt), so far, since it began on April 1, despite record production, as per official data. Wheat procurement stood at 24.08 mt in the corresponding period of the previous year.
18. STATE governments stuck to their demands of higher threshold for central Goods and Services Tax and keeping local body taxes and electricity duty out of it, threatening the total implementation of what is touted as the biggest tax reform since independence.
19. THE government may allow export of 10,000 tonne of sugar to the European Union (EU) as the sugar situation in the country has become comfortable with increased supplies and stable prices, an official said. In February this year, the Centre was forced to revoke its decision to allow export of sugar under the EU’s preferential zero duty quota following protests from the opposition as prices of sugar were still ruling high.
20. THE food ministry is readying a revised proposal on customs duty hike on white sugar imports to put up before the empowered group of ministers (EGoM) on food. This is despite apprehensions that the total stocks of sugar with the Centre at the start of the festival season, beginning September, could be lower than 2 million tonnes. The EGoM meeting is slated for June 10.
21. FINANCE minister Pranab Mukherjee has said unit-linked insurance plans (Ulips) need further reforms on the back of the changes already announced by the insurance regulator. The finance minister also hinted at a resolution to the dispute between Sebi and Irda over Ulip regulation.
22. A GROWING number of companies have been opting for a buyback of shares to support the price in the current phase of market volatility. While the trend is mostly evident among small- and medium-sized companies, the market also expects large-sized companies to join the buyback bandwagon, after FMCG major Hindustan Unilever (HUL) announced a similar move last week
23. AN insurance major is believed to have trimmed exposure to TVS Motor, of late. The buzz is that the sale is part of its usual profit-booking process. The stock, which closed at Rs 104.35, down 0.3% on Thursday, has risen over 70% since the end of February 2010 to date, a period when share value has eroded in most cases.
24. MORE and more stock brokers in Mumbai are shifting their back-office operations outside Maharashtra to save on stamp duty that’s imposed by the state — the highest in India — when a client signs up with a broker.
While most large brokers have shifted back offices to states with lower stamp duty like Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi and Union Territory Daman, the smaller ones are now following suit to reduce costs.
25. STATE-OWNED ‘India Post’ has earned just about Rs 2 crore by selling mutual funds last fiscal. The national distributor with some 800 postal outlets selling mutual funds has logged its worst numbers in four years. The department has stopped selling mutual fund schemes of four out of five fund houses with which the department has exclusive distribution tie-ups.
26. Oil prices slid back to near $71 a barrel on Tuesday as European investors looked beyond encouraging comments from US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke and worried about the impact of the debt crisis on demand. Benchmark crude for July delivery was down 45 cents at $70.99 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange late morning European time.
Monday, June 7, 2010
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.
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.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
NEWS as on 20-05-2010
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.
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.
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
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