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Troubled insurance giant American International Group is in advance stages to list its Asian life insurance unit on the Hong Kong stock exchange next year, in a move to raise up to $20 billion, says a media report.
The stock finally ended at Rs 225, down 6% from its previous close. The counter clocked volumes of 520,102 shares as compared to the two-week daily average traded volumes of 76,351 shares on the BSE.
The Sensex is trading at 17,398 - up 38 points.
The Indian car accessory market is estimated at Rs 1,200 crore.
With the demand for credit expected to shoot up, private banks are bolstering core capital. Seven of them are in the process of raising a cumulative Rs 10,500 crore in equity to fund expansion, which, in some cases like Axis Bank’s, includes entry into mutual fund, private equity and wealth management businesses.
Factory productions expanded at a greater pace for the second month in a row growing by 6.8 per cent in July against 6.4 per cent a year ago, signalling an industrial recovery.
Axis Private Equity (PE), a fund sponsored by the third largest private sector lender Axis Bank, plans to invest Rs 200 crore in two more companies, while it lines up its second fund. The second fund will hit the market later this year.
Greenpeace, the ecology campaigners, have okayed Pepsico, ITC, MTR, Dabur and Haldiram. But given a thumbs-down to Britannia, Cadbury, Hindustan Unilever, Nestle, Kellogg and Safal.
FMCG major Dabur India Ltd is treading the rural path for growth in the hair oil segment.
State-run Coal India is eyeing strategic partnership with mining behemoths like BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto to mine coal abroad and has floated an Expression of Interest (EoI) for the same.
While SAIL is operating at full steam, the capacity utilisation among other global biggies is just 50-60 per cent.
Bennett Coleman and Company Ltd (BCCL) may be the most profitable media company in India but the company’s balance sheet reveals a lot more than the P&L.
Retailers may be getting into 2010 with higher monthly sales, but they are not going to ease the cost-cutting measures implemented during the downturn anytime soon.
Trades between FIIs generated a volume of Rs 65 crore on the BSE Thursday-an increase of 82.87% from Rs 35 crore clocked on Wednesday. As many as five stocks witnessed trades of 13 lakh shares on Thursday.
The Nifty bounced back sharply after finding support around 4,600 levels and closed at 4,770 on short-covering. The Nifty November futures settled at 4,770 compared with the average trading price of 4,680 as almost 66 per cent volume changed hands at an average of 4,650. In the last two trading sessions, we have observed that the Nifty has filled the gap between the closing value and the average value on the following day and moved up. So, if this pattern continues, we may see the index moving down below 4,700 levels tomorrow.
State-run Hindustan Copper today reported a 95.58 per cent decline in its net profit at Rs 3.77 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2009.
Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee is not the only minister in the UPA cabinet who prefers a four-bedroom flat to a bungalow in Lutyens’ Delhi. Bijoy Krishna Handique, minister of mines, hasn’t shifted to a bungalow either and is quite happy to stay at his existing flat.
A K Bhattacharya / New Delhi January 5, 2010, 0:48 IST
Private equity firm TPG India Investments" open offer for a 20 per cent stake in Shriram City Union Finance would begin on August 27.
The Sensex has mangaed to erase all of its losses and has rebounded into the positive zone. The index is now at 15,646, up 17 points.
T N Ninan / New Delhi October 24, 2009, 0:20 IST
Canon, the Japanese imaging and printing firm, has grown its revenue from the government vertical by 25 per cent and will end end this calender year with a revenue of Rs 850 crore. The sector was just 15 per cent of its business in 2008. “Although our growth was down to 18 per cent in the first quarter 2009, we will close the fourth quarter with a growth rate nearing 30 per cent. This growth has come from timely remodeling of our India strategy,” said Alok Bharadwaj, senior vice-president, Canon India.
Jamshedpur had the highest per capita carbon emission, while Thiruvananthapuram and Asansol had the lowest in 2007-08, according to an energy status report of 40 Indian cities.
One of the shareholders of Bank of America (BofA) has opposed the firm"s idea to zero in on an insider to replace its outgoing CEO Kenneth D Lewis and has described the current management team as "tainted and not credible".
A former Silicon Valley serial entrepreneur sets up India’s first commercial solar power plant
Facebook: Stock markets have wobbled of late, but has Facebook’s value really plunged by 35 per cent in just two months? For those unacquainted with Silicon Valley’s quirky financing that would be one conclusion to draw from the social networking website’s latest stock sale.
Yahoo! said it will close its GeoCities service that provides people a free online locale for home pages.
Infrastructure player C&C Constructions today said it has cleared the technical qualification round for building several highway projects worth around Rs 20,000 crore in the country.
The stock rose 5.5 per cent to close at an all-time high of Rs 827.60, on reports that the company might launch its qualified institutional placement (QIP) book this week.
Opto Circuits today said its wholly owned subsidiary, Criticare Systems Inc (CSI), has entered into a long term agreement with a European firm for supplying patient monitoring systems and anesthetic gas delivery products.
Housing Development Finance Corporation Ltd (HDFC), the multi-faceted finance company, has decided to dilute a maximum 3.5 per cent equity to Qualified Institutional Buyers (QIBs) to raise over Rs 4000 crore.
Dr Reddy"s Labs long-standing patent dispute with Europe"s AstraZeneca over a drug to treat heartburn may be resolved out of court following a similar settlement between the European drug maker and Israel"s Teva, feel market watchers.
Government may not get the targeted Rs 25,000 crore from the sale of radio waves needed for the third-generation telecom services
Sixty seven per cent of domestic companies have chosen non-government organisations (NGOs) as partners to undertake their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) projects, while 58 per cent prefer government departments for the spread of CSR obligations, Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) says. The chamber, in its assessment, ‘CSR: Quantitative Analysis’, said 21 domestic companies were working with multilateral or bilateral organisations for CSR activities. The study added 37 per cent of the firms had a well-structured foundation for implementing their CSR, while 58 per cent domestic companies had formed a separate department to implement CSR.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will embark on a seven-nation African Safari next week as part of Obama Administration"s commitment to make Africa a priority in the US foreign policy.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday said the government would pass the Right to Food Act to promote inclusive growth, a concept that has been pursued by the Congress since Independence. “We are going to pass the Right to Food Act,” Mukherjee said while speaking at the Economic Times Award-2009 function in the national capital.
The Asian markets have ended in the green today.
The Indian bourses opened on a negative note tracking weak global cues at 16,855.91.The Sensex however has tried to recover and is now at 16,868, down 20 points.
Markets have started to recover.
Mahindra Satyam, the rebranded Satyam Computer Services, is set to position itself as an information and communication technologies (ICT) company.
The Obama Administration has asserted that no condition has been imposed on Pakistan for the $2.3 billion Defence Authorisation Bill and charged an attempt is on to “willfully distort” the facts.
The Nifty moved in a narrow range of 5,040-5,090 on Thursday and closed in a Doji pattern, which points to a lack of direction for the market. Domestic markets were closed on Friday on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti. In the backdrop of the US and European stocks witnessing an over two per cent correction in the last two days, the Nifty is likely to open gap down on Monday.
The September segment is offering fairly attractive spreads for option traders.
Trades between FIIs generated a volume of Rs 30 crore on the BSE Friday-an decrease of 33.27% from Rs 44 crore clocked on Thursday. As many as seven stocks witnessed trades of 3.15 lakh shares on Friday.
The Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) were net sellers of Rs 297.99 crore in futures and options segments on Friday.
Considering the weak US and Asian cues, our markets have opened on a quiter note. The Sensex is quoting at 16,714, down 71 points, and the Nifty is at 4962, down 26 points.
Indian bourses underwent a a downward correction after the key indices Sensex and Nifty hit fresh 16-month highs amid hints of caution about stretched valuations and fears of liquidity shortage.
The Indian markets opened weak, on the back of negative US and Asian cues. There were feeble attempts at a comeback, with the markets crossing over into the green in the first hour of trade and again around noon, only to retrace immediately thereafter. The afternoon session was volatile, albeit in the red, as the indices unsuccessfully attempted to claw back above the dotted line.
The Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) were net sellers of Rs 184.85 crore in futures and options segments on Tuesday.
The Orissa government today said it was not prepared to implement Goods and Services Tax (GST) from April 1 this year and has sought permission from the Centre to re-introduce Purchase Tax on foodgrain.
IRB Infrastructure Developers is all set to raise further funds to the tune of Rs 1,200 crore through various instruments.
Tatas-owned European steel major Corus has appointed Karl-Ulrich Kohler as the new Chief Operating Officer with effect from February 1, 2010.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee today said neither the government nor the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has given any directive to state-owned banks for merger or consolidation.
Over this last decade, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has “blacklisted” so many foreign arms corporations that the military’s modernisation plan has virtually stalled. The MoD “blacklist” is not a formal document; an arms vendor is mostly embargoed unofficially, when senior bureaucrats agree that it is playing dirty.
Whitehall officials examining the feasibility of such a sale.
Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), the Bangalore-based firm which operates under the Ministry of Defence, has signed an agreement with Boeing to work together with the US plane maker for the production of flaperons for the Boeing’s 777 series commercial jetliner.
Leading home loans lender HDFC expects its credit growth to exceed 20 per cent in the current fiscal, a top company official said.
Shobhana Subramanian / Mumbai November 6, 2009, 0:43 IST
The Nifty ignored all bullish indicators and closed below 5,000 on profit-booking and weak global cues. The close of 4,953 is marginally above the 61.8 per cent retracement level of 4,940. Hence, if it falls below this, it can retreat to 4,860. Also, the Nifty has gained over 10 per cent since the last week’s low of 4,538 and so more correction is possible in the coming days.
The Nifty convincingly closed above the 61.8 per cent retracement levels of 4,940 on short-covering. The V-shape recovery is expected to continue with the Nifty likely to complete 100 per cent retracement this week of its recent fall from 5,181 to 4,538. Options data suggest the index has strong support at 4,900 and is building fresh support at 5,000.
Business Standard / New Delhi November 16, 2009, 0:03 IST
The West Bengal government today said it was in touch with the Tatas for return of the lease land at its abandoned Nano project site in Singur.
Aiming to maintain a growth rate of around 18-22 per cent, FMCG firm GlaxoSmithKline will this year introduce around 10-12 products, including some from the international portfolio of its parent company.
B-Trac 2010 Bangalore, a project to address issues of traffic congestion and safety by using latest traffic management technology, will become operational by March 2010, a top police official said.
Bayer Schering Pharma — a group company of German multinational Bayer — has joined the list of multinational drug majors attempting to tap India’s capabilities in drug research.
Government’s security concerns about Chinese equipment makers not a deterrent.
Commercial vehicle makers including Tata Motors, Volvo and Ashok Leyland have hiked or are considering raising prices of trucks by up to four per cent this month to offset rising input costs, even as the segment saw return of demand.
For the second time in last one year, the government is likely to inspect financial books of Uttam Galva Steels for alleged manipulation of share prices, funds diversions and some other related matters.
The seizure of Caraco’s drugs by the FDA could have an adverse impact on Sun Pharmaceutical in the near term.
India’s second-largest information technology services provider, Infosys Technologies, has applied for a mere 405 visas till date for financial year 2009-10 — its lowest application count in recent years.
Says Caraco Pharma has not complied with manufacturing standards after warnings.
In a major setback to Sun Pharmaceutical Industries - the largest Indian drug maker in terms of market capitalisation, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has seized all medicines produced by Sun’s US arm Caraco Pharmaceutical Laboratories, for repeated violations of manufacturing standards.
Business Standard Hindi had, some days ago, organised a roundtable in Lucknow. The idea was to bring together bureaucrats, economists and industry for a discussion on industrial development in the state. From the word go, businessmen proved very difficult to get. Normally, they are more than happy to get a platform to interact with top bureaucrats. Here, on one excuse or the other, they all opted out.
The Drug Controller General of India from next month will issue Certificates of Pharmaceutical Products (CoPP) and Certificates of Good Manufacturing Practice for medicinal products required for exports.
Will raise Rs 1,729 crore through sale in Belgian arm to reduce debt burden.
Jindal Drilling & Industries today said it has bagged an order worth Rs 635 crore from Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) for hiring a drilling unit for five years.
The markets staged a spectacular rally on the back of positive overseas cues. The Sensex regained the psychological 17k mark to end at 17,198, stronger by 272 points, and the Nifty closed at 5,122, higher by 89 points. Auto, pharma, metal and high-beta realty stocks were the flavour of the day.
The country’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) importer, Petronet LNG, said On Saturday that its net profit rose by 16.74 per cent to Rs 120.67 crore for the second quarter ended September 30, 2009, over the same period last year. Total income of the company surged over two-fold to Rs 3,425.73 crore in the latest quarter, against Rs 1,672.69 crore in the same period of the corresponding financial year, Petronet LNG said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). Shares of Petronet LNG closed at Rs 72.20 on the BSE yesterday, up 0.21 per cent from its previous day’s close.
The Bombay Stock Exchange"s (BSE) newly launched IPO Index, that tracks the value of companies for the first two years after listing on the bourse, rose by 5 per cent during the first week of its introduction.
The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today said it received 357 complaints against 228 listed companies and resolved 317 complaints against 239 listed companies in July.
The office property market, which was hit hard in the aftermath of the global economic slowdown, will take at least a year to come out of the slump as demand for offices is still subdued, say fund managers, consultants and realty developers.
Latha Jishnu / New Delhi December 24, 2009, 0:55 IST
Promoters of around 200 large- and mid-cap companies have sold parts of their holdings to raise a combined Rs 50,000 crore in the second quarter of this financial year (July-September), according to the shareholding pattern filed by these companies with stock exchanges.
India’s largest BPO Genpact has opened a Remote Operations Center in Hyderabad to provide uninterrupted, secured application and infrastructure monitoring and support services to clients worldwide.
If last year was bad for Aditya Birla Minacs, as it was for most companies hit by the global recession, this one is very different.
Nagarjuna Agrichem Limited (NACL) is setting up a greenfield manufacturing facility with an outlay of about Rs 150 crore in the special economic zone at Achutapuram, about 40 km from Visakhapatnam, within the Petroleum, Chemicals and Petrochemical Investment Region.
Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC) would develop a biotech special economic zone (SEZ) at the Industrial Growth Centre in Hindupar in Anantapur district of the state. The SEZ would come up in 70 acre and would be developed by Benguluru-based Salarpuria.
Drug maker Piramal Healthcare today said its board has approved the raising of funds up to Rs 1,000 crore through the issue of securities.
Steel products maker Adhunik Metaliks today said it will raise over Rs 137.13 crore by issuing around 1.39 crore shares to qualified institutional buyers (QIB).
Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals (MRPL), the refining unit of Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), today said it has reached an understanding on a deal to buy crude oil from Rajasthan fields of Cairn India.
Amid a continuing legal battle between the Ambani brothers over gas supply, the elder of the two, Mukesh Ambani, is believed to have met Law Minister Veerappa Moily.
India"s leading private carrier Jet Airways today entered into a code-sharing pact with Malaysian Airlines (MAS) enabling passengers to book tickets on each others flights between here and different destinations in India from next month.
The centre today faced a tough time in the Supreme Court, which questioned the Telecommunication Ministry"s decision for advancing the cut-off date for allocation of 2G spectrum to new telecom operators.
Inflation, a number of large issues and high valuations may weigh on indices; Sensex expected to trade at a historical average P/E of 15 on FY11 earnings.
The prime minister’s assuring words about the robust economic growth and a firm close of European and Asian indices helped consolidate gains in a truncated week on account of Muharram and New Year. The BSE Sensex rose 104 points or 0.6 per cent to 17,465, while the Nifty rose 23 points or 0.4 per cent to 5,201 during the week.
Analjit to guard stake by pumping in money.
Indian Railways could soon have its own dedicated television channel, broadcasting passenger related information and highlighting various other facets of the PSU behemoth, if the suggestion of a railway committee is accepted.
Compiling a bunch of unforgettables from Indian cinema is bound to create room for argument. Suveen Sinha finds plenty to disagree with M K Raghavendra’s 50 Indian Film Classics
The Indian Army is short of over 11,387 officers, Defence Minister A K Antony told the Lok Sabha today.
Trades between FIIs generated a volume of Rs 75 crore on the BSE Friday-an increase of 33.49% from Rs 56 crore clocked on Thursday. As many as eight stocks witnessed trades of 13 lakh shares on Friday.
HINDUSTAN UNILEVER
The Rs 1,12,000 crore domestic gems and jewellery industry has urged the government to modify tax deduction at source (TDS) structure suitably in the proposed Direct Tax Code (DTC).
Government today said the Delhi and Mumbai airports achieved service quality ratings of 4.24 and 4.05 respectively on a scale of five in third quarter of the current fiscal and were aiming at reaching 3.75 at the end of stage II of their development.
Microsoft India, the wholly-owned subsidiary of world"s biggest software firm, is going easy on hiring this year and will instead focus on consolidation, its country head said today.
Software giant Microsoft today announced the commercial availability of its online services in India at prices starting from $2 (Rs 95) per user per month which will allow small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and enterprise customers to access Microsoft’s e-mail, collaboration, conferencing and productivity capabilities online.
Union Minister for Corporate Affairs Salman Khurshid has asked the industry to propose a corporate social responsibility (CSR) system that rewards the industry.
Making it clear that it does not want to play the regulator by intervening in executive remuneration, the government today said the board is the appropriate body for it, but opined it needs to be ensured that such decisions are taken democratically.
Larsen & Toubro (L&T), one of the failed suitors for scam-hit Satyam Computer, today sold 2.32 per cent stake in the IT company (now Mahindra Satyam) for over Rs 306 crore, exactly a month after the lock-in perid on sale of its holding ended.
The stock jumped 4.24 per cent to Rs 103.15 after Mahindra Satyam won an IT outsourcing contract from Swedish defence and aerospace firm, Saab.
Procter & Gamble, the maker of Pampers diapers and Pantene shampoo, is in talks to buy part of Sara Lee Corp’s international household products unit, according to people familiar with the discussions.
Sunil Jain / New Delhi November 16, 2009, 0:07 IST
The Sensex is still in the red and is exhibiting lacklustre movement.The index is now at 17,024, down 26 points.
The government targets additional production of 8.5 million tonnes of foodgrain and 1.5 million tonnes of oilseeds in the rabi season this year to compensate for the loss of farm output in the summer season, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said today.
Business Standard / New Delhi October 25, 2009, 0:31 IST
With the explosive growth in the mobile telephony, the government is understood to have begun the exercise to amend the numbering plan to migrate to 11-digit cellular number from the current 10-digit in order to accommodate more users.
All-cash deal marks biggest purchase since 2000.
Godrej Consumer Products Ltd, India’s second-biggest soap maker, may acquire some of Sara Lee Corp’s international businesses, including the US company’s stake in its Indian joint venture.
I would like to invest in gold via Systematic Invest Plan (SIP ). Please name some schemes.
The Nifty opened gap-down on Friday and broke many crucial supports in the process, indicating that its further decline will be quite intense. Technical analysts are cautious about its upside, as the index is trading around 20 of its daily moving average (DMA). For any upside, benchmark indices need to cross the immediate resistances of 16,720/ 5,000 convincingly, else we could see selling pressure emerge once again, which could take the main indices towards the Friday low of 16,210/ 4,800.
The UGC is mulling a reward scheme for university and college teachers on the lines of the Performance Related Incentive Scheme (PRIS) being worked out for IIT and IIM faculty to encourage better performance.
Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) has sought broad-ranging information about the association of its member institutions with foreign auditing firms.
India has sent a proposal to the World Bank seeking a loan up to one billion dollar to fund its urban development projects here, Lok Sabha was informed today.
The Planning Commission today expressed optimism that economic growth during the current year will exceed 7 per cent, up from 6.7 per cent recorded during 2008-09.
India’s commodity futures turnover from four national exchanges and 18 regional ones during the December 1-15 period stood at Rs 4.44 lakh crore, up 131 per cent from the same period a year ago, said an official with the Forward Markets Commission (FMC).
Shahana Joshi / New Delhi November 11, 2009, 0:34 IST
Investments of Rs 47,000 crore under implementation
The stock soared to a high of Rs 513 and finally ended at Rs 509, up 2% from the previous close. The counter clocked 1.84 million shares as compared to the two-week daily average traded volumes of 2.81 million shares on the BSE.
Tata Steel, the world’s sixth largest steelmaker, said on Friday steel sales at its Indian operations jumped 38 per cent in October to 462,000 tonnes, compared to same period last year. The Indian operations contribute about a quarter of the group’s total annual global capacity of 30 million tonne, which includes Corus, Europe’s second-largest steel maker. Saleable steel production in October rose by 27 per cent from a year earlier to 570,000 tonne and crude steel production gained 22 per cent to 599,000 tonne, the company said.
The tri-nation cricket tournament in Colombo, involving India, Sri Lanka and New Zealand, ended a few days back. But for brand Compaq, it’s the start of a new innings – something it wants to repeat every year.
At least a dozen Britons have offered to sell their kidneys for 25,000 pounds or more each to beat credit crunch and pay off their debts, a media report said today. Their advertisements offering kidney have appeared on the internet and five of them corresponded with undercover journalists, who posed as friends and relatives of sick patients to negotiate sales, The Sunday Times claimed.
The stock slipped to a low of Rs 429 and finally ended down 1.5% at Rs 434. The counter witnessed trades of 272,562 shares on the BSE today.
Public sector banks do far better than private ones.
Public sector lender Bank of India (BoI) today said it has raised Rs 500 crore through the issue of bonds in the market.
JSW Energy, a part of Jindal South West (JSW) group headed by Sajjan Jindal, has received SEBI (Securities & Exchange Board of India) nod for IPO (initial public offering).
Elections to 57 seats in the 60-member Arunachal assembly began early this morning amidst tight security.
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) wants operators to make their network accessible to Lawful Interception and Monitoring (LIM) for the security agencies after they switch to mobile number portability (MNP) mechanism next month-end. DoT is likely to issue directives soon to all the telecom licencees on putting the subscribers under the LIM even before MNP is activated in the system.
The implementation of mobile number portability (MNP) is likely to be delayed by one to three months, with operators still not fully prepared to meet the deadline and with the government imposing new requirements with respect to security.
The Left and the BJP today tried to corner the government on the issue of spiralling prices and lent support to trade unions which have gathered here to protest against economic policies including disinvestment.
A V Rajwade / New Delhi December 07, 2009, 0:32 IST
Soft drinks and snacks major PepsiCo India today said it may use Stevia as an alternative sweetener if the Government permits it do so.
Parliament today passed a bill that introduces new sugarcane price regime, after government allayed concerns of Opposition that the states will not be required to pay the difference between the Central and the State Advised Price to farmers.