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Lodha, IBREL bid below reserve price for Finlay MillsCNBCTV18 learns from sources that National Textile Corporation (NTC) has put the reserve price for Finlay Mills at Rs 700 crore. The Finlay Mills compound is a 10.3 acre property. IBREL as well as the Lodha Group put in a bid for Finlay Mills, however, both companies bid below Rs 700 crore.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 16 Jul 2009 | 3:32 pm Drought aggravated demandsupply mismatch: McLeod RusselKamal Baheti, CFO at McLeod Russel said that the company had sold 20 million kgs of tea out of 25 million kgs produced. The drought, he said, has aggravated the demand supply mismatch. He added that he expected the operating margin would improve to 30% versus 25%.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 16 Jul 2009 | 3:14 pm Govt to disinvest 510 PSUs in FY10: SourcesThere is no proposal to disband National Investment Fund (NIF) as of now, reported CNBCTV18 quoting sources. Government has the option of using part of NIF corpus to fund social schemes. However, the government may route NIF corpus through Mutual Funds reported sources.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 16 Jul 2009 | 2:10 pm Will deploy cash from ADS for power plants: Anil AgarwalSterlite Industries has offered a follow on American Depository Share issue worth USD 1.5 billion. Commenting on the news flow, Anil Agarwal, Chairman of Sterlite Industries said that the company planned to deploy the money in its power plants. He added that the promoter stake would reduce from 61% to 57%.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 16 Jul 2009 | 12:44 pm Royalty on iron ore should be increased: Steel SecySteel Secretary PK Rastogi said the royalty for iron ore was very low and hence favoured a substantial rise. He prefers an ad valorem duty on iron ore mining. Commenting on the mining policy, Rastogi said there was no bar on mining for outsiders currently, but the Ministry of Mines would decide on a mining policy soon.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 16 Jul 2009 | 11:27 am L&T unit to sell $205 mln of bonds in July - sources - Reuters India
Source: Business - Google News | 16 Jul 2009 | 10:29 am POLL - Gold to shine this year and next as dollar ailsLONDON (Reuters) - Gold prices are set for solid gains this year and next, with the $1,000 mark in sight, as potential inflationary concerns and a softer dollar outlook prompt analysts to ramp up forecasts, a Reuters survey showed.Source: Reuters: Money News | 16 Jul 2009 | 10:27 am Sensex ends volatile session flat - Economic Times
Source: Business - Google News | 16 Jul 2009 | 10:25 am India think tank cuts FY10 growth forecast to 5.8 pctMUMBAI (Reuters) - India's economic growth is expected to be slower than earlier estimated due to lower agricultural output resulting from a delayed monsoon, according to a review by a think tank.Source: Reuters: Money News | 16 Jul 2009 | 10:23 am Mahindra Holidays ends with a modest premium - Moneycontrol.com
Source: Business - Google News | 16 Jul 2009 | 10:19 am BSE Sensex provisionally ends little changedMUMBAI (Reuters) – The BSE Sensex pared early gains of as much as 1.7 percent and provisionally closed flat on Thursday, as a weak start for European markets sparked profit-booking after a 6.4 percent jump over the previous two sessions.Source: Reuters: Money News | 16 Jul 2009 | 10:12 am L&T Q1 orders fall 22 pct, sees pick up in H2MUMBAI (Reuters) - Larsen & Toubro said on Thursday new orders in the three months to June fell more than a fifth and demand was likely to remain slow for at least another quarter, even as quarterly profit tripled on a one-off gain.Source: Reuters: Money News | 16 Jul 2009 | 10:01 am NHPC to hit primary market in AugustState-owned power utility NHPC Ltd, formerly National Hydroelectric Power Corp, plans to hit the primary market Aug 7 to raise around Rs.1,670 crore, company chairman S.K. Garg said here Thursday.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 16 Jul 2009 | 10:00 am Kerala wants defence, railways to use new coir productArmed with a host of new applications with coir such as geotextiles, the Kerala government is making a strong pitch for the country's defence and railways establishments to bail out the ailing industry, even offering to sell the products at cost to begin with.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 16 Jul 2009 | 10:00 am L&T Q1 orders fall 22%, sees pick up in H2Mumbai: India’s Larsen & Toubro said on Thursday new orders in the three months to June fell more than a fifth and demand was likely to remain slow for at least another quarter, even as quarterly profit tripled on a one-off gain. Shares in the country’s largest engineering and construction company, which the market values at $16.5 billion, fell as much as 4.2% in a choppy Mumbai market after the result. L&T rode a construction boom in the past few years as India revamps its airports, roads and adds industrial capacity. It is betting the government’s focus on infrastructure investment will boost order flow in the second half of the financial year. “We don’t see any concerns in demand, but the key is the timing,” executive vice president R Shankar Raman told reporters. “We are waiting for project momentum to pick up, and expect this to be stepped up in the third and fourth quarters.” The conglomerate said it had an order backlog of Rs71,650 crore ($14.7 billion) at the end of June, which should help the company meet targeted revenue growth of 15-20% for the full year ending in March. While the global financial crisis slowed the economy and pressured firms to scale back expansion plans, the government’s recent focus on boosting rural infrastructure and speeding up road construction has raised revival prospects for the sector. “This year, we expect the government to take the lead. Private sector investments will take a little while because they are still worrying about capacity utilization,” Shankar Raman said. L&T said net profit rose to Rs1,598 crore ($328 million) in the fiscal first quarter ended June from 502 crore a year ago. Net sales rose to Rs7,360 crore from 6,900 crore. The profit included a gain of Rs1,020 crore from sale of its stake in UltraTech Cement. A Reuters poll of 11 brokerages had forecast net profit of Rs548 crore, excluding one-off gains, on net sales of 8,110 crore. Shankar Raman said the proceeds from the UltraTech sale would be used to partly fund L&T’s capital expenditure of Rs1,500 crore in this year. Margins in its engineering and construction division, which contributes 80% of revenues, rose to 11.9% from 10.5% a year ago, helped by faster execution of projects. The company expects order flow to pick up after the June-September monsoon from the infrastructure, power and hydrocarbon segments and sees its strong balance sheet helping to grab contracts. L&T, whose diverse activities include shipbuilding and software, currently holds cash reserves of $1 billion on its books, Shankar Raman said. India aims to invest $20 billion a year to build roads, Union transport minister Kamal Nath said last week. L&T shares, which had more than doubled in the June quarter beating the benchmark BSE stock index that rose 49%, were trading down 3.2% at Rs1,384 by 0950 GMT. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 16 Jul 2009 | 10:00 am Trai wants telcos to bear number portability costNew Delhi: Telecom regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, or Trai, wants service providers to bear the cost of supporting mobile number portability (MNP), a move which operators say is heavily loaded against them and will benefit MNP operators only. The regulator has sought stakeholders’ opinion through a consultation paper by 17 July on MNP charges, which will decide what the customer has to pay. “It therefore follows that the recipient operator shall not charge any additional fee for porting-in the mobile number of the subscriber other than the ‘porting charge’,” according to the consultation paper. This porting charge shall not be more than the “per port (of) transaction charge” to be paid by the operator to the MNP service provider, which will be determined by the telecom regulator after the consultation process, the paper says. The regulator has said if an operator does not give its response by 17 July, it will be presumed that it (the operator) agrees with the suggestions. Some GSM operators have said this will benefit MNP operators. Syniverse and Telcordia-backed MNP Interconnect are the two managers of mobile number portability in the country. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 16 Jul 2009 | 9:57 am Govt to conduct special audit of top 5 pvt telcosNew Delhi: India has ordered a special audit of the country’s five leading private-sector mobile telecoms firms to check whether there had been any misreporting of revenue, union minister of state for telecom said on Thursday. “Certain phone firms have been charged with misreporting their revenue,” Gurudas Kamat said in a written reply to law makers in the upper house of the Parliament. “Hence, the Department of Telecom has decided to conduct special audit of Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications , Vodafone Essar Ltd, Idea Cellular Ltd and Tata Teleservices Ltd,” he said. Separately, the minister said state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd’s net profit for the year to March 2009 had dipped to Rs1.04 billion ($21 million) as revenue fell and wage costs rose. He did not give the comparable figure for the previous year. Revenue for the year to March was Rs349.37 billion , the minister said, 8 percent lower than Rs380.53 billion in the previous year as reported on BSNL website. The state-owned firm’s board last year approached the government for permission to sell 10% stake in an initial public offer and an official had said they expected to raise about $10 billion from the IPO. The offering ran into opposition from the government’s communist allies and the firm’s employees. BSNL chairman Kuldeep Goyal said last month the government, which no longer relies on the support of the communist parties, was again thinking about the share sale and a decision should come shortly. In a written response to another question, Kamat said new telecom operators Etisalat DB Telecom , Unitech and S-Tel had told the government they were deploying network infrastructure. Norway’s Telenor is taking a majority stake in Unitech telecoms business, while Bahrain Telecommunications Co is taking a 49% stake in S-Tel. Both the firms have said that they would start operations during October and December. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 16 Jul 2009 | 9:55 am China growth surges; Europe, Asia companies' sales upBEIJING/TOKYO (Reuters) - China's economic growth rate shot up in the second quarter fuelled by state spending and bank lending, boosting hopes the biggest emerging economy will lead the way out of the worst global downturn since the 1930s.Source: Reuters: Money News | 16 Jul 2009 | 9:53 am Stock exchanges wait for Sebi’s norm on SMEs listingNew Delhi: After seeking permission from Sebi, country’s leading stock exchanges BSE, NSE and MCX-SX now wait for norms to list small and medium enterprises (SMEs) on their platform, sources said. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has received three applications and is working on the norms for allowing listing of SMEs in stock exchanges, a senior Finance Ministry official today said. When contacted the promoter of MCX-SX, Financial Technologies India Ltd (FTIL) Group CEO and chairman Jignesh Shah said, “We are eagerly waiting for listing norms. We are committed and capable of providing a stock exchange platform for SMEs,” There are about 1% of 14 million small and medium enterprises which qualify for listing and another 10% can be motivated, he said on the sidelines of CII a function here. According to market sources, the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and the National Stock Exchange (NSE) have also sought permission for the same. Currently, companies having issue size of atleast Rs3 crore are allowed to list on the stock exchanges. Amid growing potential in SMEs, Sebi is working on regulatory guidelines with respect to listing and disclosure norms. According to a Finance Ministry source, Sebi is keen on allowing SMEs on competent stock exchanges rather an exclusive bourse for small and medium enterprises. Ministry of Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) Secretary Dinesh Rai said that an exchange designed for the needs of Indian SMEs will pave the path for raising risk capital. “There are many difficulties for SMEs in accessing the capital markets for raising funds. These include high cost of raising capital and high compliance cost. The SMEs, therefore, need to be provided a framework that would enable them to raise capital quickly and at a low cost,” he said, adding a transparent SME exchange could create a huge market for the SMEs. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 16 Jul 2009 | 9:48 am To deliver 10-12% higher bottomline in FY10: Zee Ent - Moneycontrol.com
Source: Business - Google News | 16 Jul 2009 | 9:47 am China and Australia trade warnings on Rio case - Reuters
Source: Business - Google News | 16 Jul 2009 | 9:45 am Lufthansa to launch big cost cuts: companyFrankfurt: Lufthansa, the leading German airline, is to make big extra cost cuts to save one billion euros ($1.4 billion) per year from 2011, a spokeswoman said on Thursday. Spokeswoman Claudia Lange gave substance to a report earlier in the day by the business daily Handelsblatt which said that the plan, dubbed “Climb 2011,” would focus on passenger transport activities, which have slumped amid the global economic downturn. “Our passenger costs must fall,” she told AFP, adding that details would be released in the coming weeks. A letter sent by Lufthansa’s new chief executive Christoph Franz to staff warned that higher fuel costs and falling passenger numbers posed a serious threat and said: “This situation is forcing us to act.” “Air traffic is mired in the worst crisis in its history,” and the German carrier expected it to last longer than previously anticipated. After posting a first-quarter loss, Lufthansa’s first-half results “will show that this negative trend is continuing,” Franz said. “Unless market conditions change, our losses will increase significantly in the coming year owing especially to the rise in fuel prices,” he added. “We must now make ever more determined efforts to counteract the trend,” he stressed, adding: “We have no other alternative but to resort to painful measures.” An airline analyst quoted by Dow Jones Newswires expressed doubt however that Lufthansa would reach its cost-cutting target owing to likely strong resistance from trade unions. The analyst noted that the Cockpit union which represents pilots had already objected to the airline’s cost-savings plans. In mid June, the carrier said slumping passenger and freight traffic would force it to take additional measures to avoid posting a full year loss. Lange told AFP that the roughly 2,000 administrative posts in the airline’s passenger division would be cut by 20% in the medium term. “Our suppliers - within and outside the Group - must do their share,” Franz also said without elaborating. The airline would reappraise all its operations, including “structures, projects and processes,” the new chief executive vowed. Lufthansa is trying to take over two European carriers at the moment, Austrian Airlines and the Britain’s BMI. The bid for Austrian Airlines has become less certain however, because Lufthansa has failed to address competition concerns expressed by the European Commission, which must approve the deal. Lufthansa shares gained 0.88% to 9.17 euros in morning trading on the Frankfurt stock exchange, while the DAX index of leading stocks was slightly higher overall. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 16 Jul 2009 | 9:42 am Lufthansa to launch big cost cuts: companyFrankfurt: Lufthansa, the leading German airline, is to make big extra cost cuts to save one billion euros ($1.4 billion) per year from 2011, a spokeswoman said on Thursday. Spokeswoman Claudia Lange gave substance to a report earlier in the day by the business daily Handelsblatt which said that the plan, dubbed “Climb 2011,” would focus on passenger transport activities, which have slumped amid the global economic downturn. “Our passenger costs must fall,” she told AFP, adding that details would be released in the coming weeks. A letter sent by Lufthansa’s new chief executive Christoph Franz to staff warned that higher fuel costs and falling passenger numbers posed a serious threat and said: “This situation is forcing us to act.” “Air traffic is mired in the worst crisis in its history,” and the German carrier expected it to last longer than previously anticipated. After posting a first-quarter loss, Lufthansa’s first-half results “will show that this negative trend is continuing,” Franz said. “Unless market conditions change, our losses will increase significantly in the coming year owing especially to the rise in fuel prices,” he added. “We must now make ever more determined efforts to counteract the trend,” he stressed, adding: “We have no other alternative but to resort to painful measures.” An airline analyst quoted by Dow Jones Newswires expressed doubt however that Lufthansa would reach its cost-cutting target owing to likely strong resistance from trade unions. The analyst noted that the Cockpit union which represents pilots had already objected to the airline’s cost-savings plans. In mid June, the carrier said slumping passenger and freight traffic would force it to take additional measures to avoid posting a full year loss. Lange told AFP that the roughly 2,000 administrative posts in the airline’s passenger division would be cut by 20% in the medium term. “Our suppliers - within and outside the Group - must do their share,” Franz also said without elaborating. The airline would reappraise all its operations, including “structures, projects and processes,” the new chief executive vowed. Lufthansa is trying to take over two European carriers at the moment, Austrian Airlines and the Britain’s BMI. The bid for Austrian Airlines has become less certain however, because Lufthansa has failed to address competition concerns expressed by the European Commission, which must approve the deal. Lufthansa shares gained 0.88% to 9.17 euros in morning trading on the Frankfurt stock exchange, while the DAX index of leading stocks was slightly higher overall. Source: World Business - Livemint.com | 16 Jul 2009 | 9:42 am Lanco\'s bid for Dhopave project cancelled: Maha GencoMaha Genco said Lanco\'s bid for 1600 MW Dhopave Power Project has been cancelled due to unviable tariff, reports CNBCTV18. The project might go for a rebid soon. Earlier, Lanco was declared the lowest bidder for this project. it had quoted a bid at Rs 3.60 per unit tariff.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 16 Jul 2009 | 9:38 am Oil dips below $61, Chinese GDP growth supportsLONDON (Reuters) - Oil slipped below $61 a barrel on Thursday after gaining more than 3 percent in the previous session, as investors remained cautious about the pace of economic recovery despite strong growth numbers from China.Source: Reuters: Money News | 16 Jul 2009 | 9:36 am Govt to conduct special audit of top 5 pvt telcosNEW DELHI (Reuters) – The government has ordered a special audit of the country's five leading private-sector mobile telecoms firms to check whether there had been any misreporting of revenue, the junior telecoms minister said on Thursday.Source: Reuters: Money News | 16 Jul 2009 | 9:27 am Govt ups first-half borrowing goal to bridge deficitNEW DELHI (Reuters) - India ramped up its borrowing plan by nearly a quarter for the fiscal first half to September to bridge its growing budget deficit, but bond yields eased as the additional borrowing was below expectations.Source: Reuters: Money News | 16 Jul 2009 | 9:12 am ICICI gets AAA rating, to stay strong in marketNew Delhi: The ICICI Bank’s market position would remain strong despite moderating advances growth, credit rating agency Crisil said on Thursday, according the highest degree of rating on the bank’s long-term debt instruments. Crisil reaffirmed its ‘AAA’ rating, which reflects the highest degree of safety with regard to timely payment of financial obligations, on the bank’s Upper Tier II bonds, Tier I Perpetual bonds and bonds/debentures. “The reaffirmation factors in ICICI Bank’s healthy capitalisation and strong market position, and demonstrated capabilities of the bank’s management,” a Crisil release said. However, it said, the outlook on the ICICI Bank’s Upper Tier II and Tier I Perpetual bonds had been revised to ‘negative´ from ‘stable´, reflecting expectation of continued pressure on the bank’s core earnings and asset quality over the near term. ICICI Bank executive director and CFO N S Kannan said the pressure on asset quality had aroused mainly from retail unsecured portfolio, including credit cards and personal loans. “We have incrementally stopped lending for personal and two-wheeler loans and, wherever we are doing it, it is through our branches to our own customers and not via third party agents,” Kannan said. Crisil expects the bank’s market position to remain strong despite moderating advances growth, because of the 580 new branches it is likely to add in 2009-10, and its wide presence across segments. “Crisil has reaffirmed its AAA rating on our debt instruments and have highlighted our strong capitalisation, franchise and management capabilities. They have endorsed our strategy of CASA growth, cost reduction, credit control and capital conservation,“ Kannan said. Crisil expects ICICI Bank’s core profitability to remain constrained over the near term because of tightening fee income and higher levels of provisioning. The bank saw its fee-based income fall during the March quarter to Rs1,343 crore, from Rs1,928 crore in same quarter in FY’08. “Aggregate fee income in 2008-09 did not grow over the previous year’s level, with a decline in the second half of the year reflecting the unfavourable economic environment affecting key areas such as corporate and investment banking, retail loans, and distribution,” the Crisil release said. In the March quarter, the country’s largest private sector lender reported a 35.30 per cent decline in net profit at Rs744 crore. Total income also slipped 11.43% to Rs9,203 crore in the fourth quarter of FY’09. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 16 Jul 2009 | 9:10 am More rain forecast in India, crop sowing up - govt - Reuters India
Source: Business - Google News | 16 Jul 2009 | 9:09 am Sterlite to sell shares in US, raise $1.5 bn - Sify
Source: Business - Google News | 16 Jul 2009 | 9:05 am Bajaj Auto Fin turns negative - Business Standard
Source: Business - Google News | 16 Jul 2009 | 9:03 am Larsen and Toubro net profit triples on Ultra Tech Cement saleIndia's largest engineering and construction major Larsen and Toubro Thursday reported a 218-percent increase in net profits for the quarter ended June 30, thanks mainly to the sale of its long term investment in Ultra Tech Cement.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 16 Jul 2009 | 9:02 am BSNL defers new tender for WiMax servicesBharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd has once again deferred its plans to rope in private players to roll out WiMax services on a franchisee basis. The PSU had earlier said that it would start issuing new tender documents from June 24 but has now deferred it indefinitely.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 16 Jul 2009 | 9:01 am Govt ups first-half borrowing goal to bridge deficitNew Delhi: The government ramped up its borrowing plan by nearly a quarter for the fiscal first half to September to bridge its growing budget deficit, but bond yields eased as the additional borrowing was below expectations. After a meeting with finance ministry officials, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) deputy governor Shyamala Gopinath said on Thursday that the government would borrow an additional Rs1.1 trillion ($22.6 billion) from next week up to 30 September. That would take total April-September borrowing to Rs2.99 trillion, Rs58,000 crore more than the amount indicated in the tentative calendar in March. The new figure means the government would have completed about 66% of its full-year record borrowing target of a record Rs4.51 trillion in the first half. “If the government can raise additional revenue through disinvestment, second half borrowing may be lesser,” said Sonal Varma an economist at Nomura. “Overall, the government and the RBI are trying to front-load the borrowing programme to avoid crowding out of private investments,” she said. In its first budget last week after being re-elected with a stronger mandate, the Congress-party led government boosted spending on rural and infrastructure programmes, and projected the fiscal deficit to widen to 6.8% of gross domestic product, its highest in 16 years. Asia’s third-largest economy is expected to post its weakest performance in seven years in 2009-10, which could hurt tax revenues. Analysts in a Reuters poll this week projected growth at 6.3%, below last fiscal year’s 6.7%. Bond Buyback to Continue Gopinath said the borrowing would be done in 10 tranches and a calendar would be published later on Thursday. In its 6 July budget, the government raised its borrowing target by a quarter from an interim plan of Rs3.62 rupees, spurring market worry that private sector borrowers would be crowded out of the market and funding would become more expensive. The yield on the most traded 6.90% bond maturing in 2019 eased five basis points to 6.79% from before hand and eased further to 6.78% in afternoon trade. It had ended at 6.85% on Wednesday. “The market was expecting Rs15,000 crore of supply every week and now we have only around Rs11,000 crore of supply per week, so it is positive in the short term,” said Bekxy Kuriakose, head of fixed income at DBS Cholamandalam Asset Management. Gopinath said the central bank would continue to buy back government bonds from the market, depending on liquidity conditions. Cash conditions have been ample since April due to slower credit growth, efforts by banks to boost their deposits by offering higher return rates and higher spending by the government. The central bank has bought back Rs29,850 crore via its open market operations so far in the fiscal year out of the first half target was Rs80,000 crore. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 16 Jul 2009 | 8:56 am Bajaj Auto Q1 net profit up 67.4%, beats forecastNew Delhi: The country’s second largest two-wheeler maker Bajaj Auto on Thursday reported a jump of 67.4% in its unaudited standalone net profit for the quarter ended June 30 at Rs293.49 crore as against Rs175.11 crore in the year-ago period. The unaudited standalone total income in the first quarter of this fiscal increased by 1.47% to Rs2,338.47 crore from Rs2,304.67 crore in the same period last fiscal, the company said in a statement. The total sales of the company in Q1, however, fell by 11.68% at 5,47,662 units as against 6,20,095 units in the first quarter of the previous fiscal, it added. Motorcycle sales decreased by 13.58% to 4,82,749 units in Q1 of FY10 from 5,58,633 units in the Q1 of FY09. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 16 Jul 2009 | 8:52 am GSPL plans Rs 4,500cr investmentGujarat State Petronet Ltd (GSPL), a subsidiary of stateowned Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation Ltd (GSPC), plans to invest around Rs 4,500 crore in the next couple of years to transport highpressured natural gas from this coastal State to Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir, official sources said today.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 16 Jul 2009 | 8:50 am Sterlite raising $1.5 bn in ADS offeringMumbai:Metals producer Sterlite Industries raised about $1.5 billion through the sale of American Depositary Shares (ADS), the largest US share sale from India in two years, to develop its power generation business and fund acquisitions. The US offering was priced at $12.15 each, Sterlite said on Thursday, a discount of 6% to Wednesday’s closing price for Sterlite in the United States and one cent higher than the minimum price of $12.14 set by Sterlite. London-listed parent Vedanta bought $500 million of the issue, lifting its stake in Sterlite to 57.5%. Sterlite, which is India’s largest non-ferrous metals and mining company, will use the proceeds to develop its power generation business in India, as well as for capital expenditure and for planned acquisitions, the company said. The deal comes amid a flurry of planned capital-raising by Indian power companies looking to fund expansion to meet an acute electricity shortage in Asia’s third-largest economy. Adani Power plans to raise as much as $600 million in an IPO set to launch later this month, sources said, while Indiabulls Power Ltd, a unit of Indiabulls Real Estate, said it had filed a draft prospectus for a listing that media reports have said could raise about $310 million. State-run power firm NHPC Ltd said on Thursday it plans to launch an IPO on 7 August. The company scrapped plans last year to raise about $700 million, banking sources have said. India has seen a wave of capital-raisings by companies taking advantage of a 77% surge in the benchmark stock index since early March. Funds for Capex , M&A Pawan Burde, senior research analyst with Angel Broking, said Sterlite had very ambitious expansion plans and needed a lot of money. “They are going in for quality expansion. Raising funds should not be a problem for them as they have one of the lowest production costs, and they were able to maintain margins even when aluminium prices were low,” he said. Its unit Sterlite Energy is investing Rs82 billion ($1.7 billion) to build a 2,400 megawatt thermal coal-based power facility in the eastern state of Orissa. The project is expected to be commissioned in the third quarter of fiscal year 2010, which will end in March, the company said in its filing. Sterlite’s Indian shares were trading down 8.3% at Rs576.50 by 0811 GMT in a subdued Mumbai market that was down 0.3%. Each ADS represents one equity share. The ADS sale is the biggest from India since ICICI Bank raised $2.46 billion in June 2007, according to Reuters data. Earlier the same month, Sterlite raised about $2 billion in an ADS offering. At the end of March, Sterlite had cash and short-term investment reserves of $3.96 billion. Sterlite is a majority owner of former state-run Hindustan Zinc, which has a 79% market share of the Indian zinc market. Sterlite plans to buy the remaining government stake. Sterlite has also agreed to pay $1.87 billion for US copper miner Asarco, which has estimated reserves of 5.2 million tonnes. The company is also expanding its aluminium business through Vedanta Aluminium, a unit of Vedanta Resources, it said. It currently has a capacity of 1 million tonnes per annum, expandable to 1.4 million tonnes. That will be further expanded to 5 million tonnes by mid-2011, it said. Sterlite’s ADS sale was handled by JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley, who have an overallotment option equivalent to 15% of the offering size. Last month, Sterlite obtained shareholder approval to raise funds through issue of securities. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 16 Jul 2009 | 8:48 am MTNL seeks pvt players to run its 3G servicesHaving managed to sell only about 1,000 third generation mobile connections in five months, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd has now invited private players to roll out its services in Delhi and Mumbai on a revenuesharing basis.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 16 Jul 2009 | 8:44 am First head rolls: DMRC project director returns to Railways - Economic Times
Source: Business - Google News | 16 Jul 2009 | 8:36 am Mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson posts Q2 lossStockholm:Handset maker Sony Ericsson said Thursday it booked another loss in the second quarter as the global economic crisis continued to weigh on mobile phone sales. The LM Ericsson and Sony Corp. joint venture said the loss of €213 million ($299 million) compared with a profit of €6 million a year ago. The result was the fourth consecutive quarterly loss for Sony Ericsson. The company shipped 13.8 million units in the quarter, down 43% year-on-year. Sales for the period fell by 39% to €1.7 billion from €2.8 billion in the second quarter of 2008. EQ Bank analyst Jari Honko said the report was largely in line with his expectations and underlines that Sony Ericsson is in “deep trouble.” “My future outlook for the company is pretty dark,” he said. “I haven’t seen any magical trick that could improve Sony Ericsson’s position.” He said that although the weak handset market was causing difficulties for Sony Ericsson, it also had some “major company-specific issues” regarding its product strategy. “One should not draw any hasty conclusions for other companies, such as Nokia from this report,” he said. Shares in Ericsson fell 0.3% to 75.5 kronor ($9.7) in Stockholm. Sony Ericsson estimates its market share was over 5% in the second quarter compared with about 6% in the first quarter. It also reiterated its outlook for the global handset market to fall at a rate of around 10% in 2009. “As expected, the second quarter was challenging and we still believe the remainder of the year will be difficult for Sony Ericsson,” president Dick Komiyama said in a statement. “Our focus remains on bringing the company back to profitability and growth as quickly as possible, and our performance is starting to improve due to our cost reduction activities.” The company’s weak position has triggered speculation in the media that the company may need a cash injection, possibly altering the ownership structure. Honko said such views were warranted. “We’ll definitely see Sony and Ericsson discussing potential ownership changes or new investments in Sony Ericsson,” he said. In April Sony Ericsson said it would slash 2,000 jobs, on top of 2,000 jobs cut last year, to lower costs. On Thursday it said programs launched in 2008 to cut costs by some €880 million are on track, with the full benefit expected during the second half of 2010. Since the beginning of the cost-cutting programs, Sony Ericsson has shed around 2,350 jobs, it said. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 16 Jul 2009 | 8:35 am Gold reverses losses; buyers stay awayMumbai: India gold prices reversed early losses on Thursday supported by a weak rupee locally, with buyers reluctant to enter into fresh deals in the middle of a seasonally slack period, dealers said. The most-active August contract was 0.09% higher at Rs14,783 per 10 grams at 2:03pm, after hitting a low of Rs14,720 earlier. The contract had gained 0.8% in the previous session. “We haven’t seen sales since morning as prices have moved up,” said a dealer with a private bank in Mumbai. “Demand has slowed as we are in a slack period.” Fewer weddings take place during monsoons, making it a lean season for the Indian gold market. But a series of festivals and auspicious days weddings is expected to boost gold sales from August-end. Dealers said a price decline could re-kindle buying interest. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 16 Jul 2009 | 8:31 am Inflation down 1.21%Mumbai: India’s wholesale price index fell 1.21% in the 12 months to 4 July, compared with the previous week’s annual decline of -1.55%, government data showed on Thursday. The fall was smaller than a median forecast of 1.38% fall in a Reuters poll. The annual inflation rate was 12.19% during the corresponding week of 2008. The wholesale price index is more closely watched than the consumer price index, which is published monthly, because it covers a higher number of products and is released weekly. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 16 Jul 2009 | 8:30 am Poor monsoon stalks India despite economic stridesMumbai: India is fretting once again over a poor monsoon just as other signs point to a rebounding economy, exposing its nagging reliance on unpredictable seasonal rains despite its rapid growth and modernization in recent years. Unless India makes sweeping reforms to upgrade its fragmented and inefficient farm sector, the yearly monsoon will remain a key economic event, but with declining significance for investors. “There’s the direct impact of a bad monsoon through agricultural production, and that’s been diminishing because the share of agriculture has gone down by almost 10 percentage points in the last decade,” said Suman Bery, director-general of the National Council of Applied Economic Research, a think tank. “But on the demand side, it’s still pretty important.” Agriculture’s share of the economy has slowly shrank to 17.5% last year from nearly 30% in the early 1990s, according to Morgan Stanley. But two-thirds of its 1.1 billion population live outside of cities and overall rural demand accounts for more than half of domestic consumption.  A farmer and his bullocks cross a highway against the backdrop of monsoon clouds in Singur, West Bengal, on 15 July 2009. Parth Sanyal / Reuters Photo A failed monsoon hurts not just farm output but also demand for everything from fuel and motorbikes to shampoo and gold, adding pressure on a government struggling with a fiscal deficit that may balloon to 6.8% of GDP this year. Just 42.4% of sown agricultural land is irrigated, according to Morgan Stanley, with the rest reliant on rainfall. “This entire system is a feast or a famine system, there is nothing in between. The amount of irrigation waters is still dependent on the annual monsoons. The way of the crop cycle is still dependent on the monsoon,” said Jahangir Aziz, chief economist at JPMorgan in Mumbai. “This is going to remain a problem for India as long as agriculture remains a 15% contribution to GDP and 60% contribution to employment,” Aziz said. India is among the world’s biggest agricultural producers but labour-intensive, subsistence-level farming remains prevalent. Yields lag Chinese and world averages for key crops such as wheat and rice, according to figures cited by Credit Suisse. Poor rains, which drive up food prices and curb electricity output, hit parts of India every few years and are politically sensitive in a country with a strong psychological connection to the land and huge rural voting base. However, while the government has long supported the rural sector through price supports and subsidies, reforms that would boost efficiency at the expense of jobs are unpopular. “Agriculture generally is in need of investment, so the rate of return has to increase,” said Mark Konyn, who oversees about $11 billion as Asia-Pacific chief executive of RCM, a unit of Allianz Global Investors. “Subsidies work to a point, but at the end of the day it’s got to be market-driven, it’s got to attract capital.” Rural Power Rural consumption in India, thanks in part to good monsoons and bumper agricultural output in recent years, has been a bulwark against the global economic downturn.  A farmer works in her paddy field after heavy rainfall in Gopalsarai village at Allahabad. Jitendra Prakash / Reuters photo India’s rural economy has also been bolstered by non-monsoon sources such as remittances from migrant workers and farm-friendly policies, including a job guarantee scheme for landless labourers and subsidised fertilizer. India’s economic growth slowed to 6.7% last year after three straight years of expansion of at least 9%, but is on track to grow 7% this fiscal year. Car sales, manufacturing and cement production have seen recent improvement. By contrast, growth in rural incomes rose about 12% a year in the past three years, according to Credit Suisse. But a bad monsoon would crimp rural incomes and slash demand, forcing the government to offer more support for farmers which could see it go deeper in debt. The worst recent monsoon was in 2002, when GDP growth fell to 4% for the fiscal year ended in March 2003, from 6% a year earlier. “In years of poor monsoons, either tax payers and consumers or farmers -- or all three -- are hurt,” Credit Suisse wrote. Precautionary Steps Last month was India’s driest June in 83 years but rains have improved in July, with some parts of the country seeing flooding. This week, New Delhi resumed a ban on wheat exports as a precaution against a poor harvest. While India’s monsoon-watch has long been an annual financial and political event – more so when rains are late or weak -- Morgan Stanley economist Chetan Ahya said the monsoon’s importance to investors will slowly decline as agriculture’s share of the economy falls. “From a client’s perspective, a commercial investor’s perspective, this could be gone in say, maybe, three, four years. But from a human impact perspective, it will remain an issue.” Source: Home - Livemint.com | 16 Jul 2009 | 8:28 am Rupee drops as stocks reverse early gainsMumbai: The Indian rupee wiped off early gains by mid-session on Thursday in tandem with the stock market which erased a rise of 1.7%, while demand for the US unit from importers also weighed on the local unit. At 12:45pm, the partially convertible rupee was at Rs48.80/81 per dollar, weaker than its previous close of Rs48.64/65. In early trade, the unit firmed to as much as Rs48.47, its strongest since 7 July. Indian shares, were trading down 0.3% as investors took profits on a 6.4% rise over the previous two sessions. Dealers said there was some dollar demand from state-run banks likely towards some defence-related payment, while oil companies were also buying the US unit. One-month offshore non-deliverable forward rupee contracts traded in Singapore were quoted at Rs48.90/49.00. In the currency futures market, the most traded near-month contract on the National Stock Exchange and MCX-SX was quoting at Rs48.8475 and Rs48.85 respectively, with the total traded volume on the two exchanges at about $680 million. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 16 Jul 2009 | 8:25 am Asian markets jump to one-month high on strong earningsTokyo: Asian shares jumped on Thursday, buoyed by strong US earnings and global recovery hopes after China’s economy grew faster than forecast in the second quarter. Tokyo shares hit a one-week high and shares elsewhere in Asia -Pacific powered to their highest in a month. The dollar and euro held broadly steady against the yen, base metals prices rose and crude oil futures edged higher. But markets were keeping a wary eye on the fate of CIT Group Inc a US lender to thousands of small and mid-sized businesses, after bailout talks with the government ended, a move that could ultimately drive it to bankruptcy. US stocks surged 3% or more on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 racking up its three best days since March, after results from bellwether Intel Corp beat expectations to lift hopes for a rebound in technology spending and improved corporate profitability. “Added to hopes for a recovery in US corporate earnings, investors are generally welcoming growing signs of a recovery in US economic data,” said Hiroaki Kuramochi, chief equity marketing officer at Tokai Tokyo Securities in Tokyo. China said its second quarter gross domestic product rose 7.9% against the previous year, beating expectations for a 7.5% rise, while its first half GDP rose 7.1% against a year earlier. Optimism was reinforced in the United States by manufacturing data that suggested the recession is abating, as well as minutes from the Federal Reserve’s most recent policy-setting meeting that showed officials judged that the US economy’s contraction was slowing. Asian shares across the region rose 1.8% to their highest since mid-June. Japan’s benchmark Nikkei outperformed with gains of 2.2% to 9,475.04, its highest in a week, as high-tech exporters climbed with the additional boost of the weaker yen. Australian shares rose nearly 2%, close to a one-month high, as miners rose on firmer base metals prices, with the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index rising as far as 4,010.3 in early trade. Mazda Motor Corp surged 8.9% after the Nikkei business daily said Toyota Motor Corp planned to supply core components for hybrid vehicles to smaller rival Mazda. Toyota climbed 2.9%. DOLLAR, EURO DRIFT VS YEN Japanese manufacturer confidence improved for four months in a row as exports and industrial output picked up, a Reuters poll showed, but the mood among service sector firms sagged as domestic demand remained limp. The dollar edged down 0.1% to ¥94.07, but remained broadly supported by the rise in US equities and growing confidence in the US economy. The US currency has rebounded against the yen after hitting a five-month low of ¥91.73 on trading platform EBS earlier this week. Some traders said the news about CIT gave investors an excuse to take some profits on yen crosses. The Australian dollar slipped 0.7% to ¥75.19 and the New Zealand dollar dipped 0.6 percent to ¥60.77. “If share prices were to fall because of (CIT), we could see moves that are opposite from what occurred yesterday and see some buying back of the yen,” said Tohru Sasaki, chief foreign exchange strategist at JPMorgan Chase Bank in Tokyo. “It is possible that financial markets could move a bit towards avoiding risk-taking,” he added. Yields on US 10-year Treasury notes stood at 3.569%, down nearly four basis points from US trade but up from a two-month low of 3.26% hit on Monday. September JGB futures fell 0.29 point to 138.35, sliding from a 3-1/2-mth peak of 138.97 hit last week. Spot gold edged down slightly to 936.20 compared to New York’s notional close of $938.45. It jumped to a two-week high the previous day when US consumer prices data stoked fears of rising inflation. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 16 Jul 2009 | 8:09 am BGR Energy seeks tie-up with Japanese turbine firmIn order to become a full-fledged power plant equipment manufacturer, engineering and infrastructure firm BGR Energy Systems has approached a Japanese steam turbine manufacturer for a tie-up.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 16 Jul 2009 | 8:02 am Sterlite to sell shares in US, raise $1.5 bnSterlite Industries, a leading copper producer, Thursday said it plans to raise $1.5 billion by selling shares in the US for further development of its power generation business in India and to make acquisitions.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 16 Jul 2009 | 8:01 am Novartis sees faster drugs sales growthZurich: Swiss drugmaker Novartis AG raised its full-year forecast for drug sales on Thursday, betting on income from cancer and heart medicines after second-quarter net profit met expectations. Novartis, which faces loss of exclusivity on its top-selling blood pressure drug Diovan in 2012, now sees sales at its drugs unit growing at a high single-digit rate or better. It had previously forecast growth at a mid-to-high single digit rate. Novartis confirmed previous group guidance. “A pleasant surprise in pharmaceuticals, where growth and profitability has been better than expected,” said Helvea analyst Karl-Heinz Koch. “I think the share price will react positively to this announcement.” The pharmaceuticals sector initially coped better than many others with recession but has recently begun to underperform, hit by prospects of more competition, problems getting new drugs to market and cheaper medicines from generics manufacturers. Novartis shares have slipped nearly 20% so far this year, underperforming both the DJ Stoxx European pharma index and the Swiss blue chip index. They were indicated to open 0.8% higher, according to pre-market data from bank Clariden Leu. The Basel-based group now trades at about 9 times forecast 2010 earnings, a premium to some of Europe’s other big drugmakers like AstraZeneca Plc and Sanofi-Aventis SA but a discount to local rival Roche Holding AG, which has less exposure to generic competition. URRENCY LOSSES Novartis’ second-quarter net profit fell 10% to $2.0 billion due to the stronger dollar and higher financing costs and the group repeated an earlier warning that currency-related losses could hit full year profit. Because Novartis reports in dollars it has suffered from the weakness of the Swiss franc against the greenback compared with the same period last year. Profit was also hit by higher financing costs after the group issued a €1.5 billion ($2.1 billion) bond in the second quarter. Group sales fell 2% -- but rose 8% in local currencies -- to $10.5 billion, helped by new products like cancer medicine Afinitor and blood pressure drugs Exforge and Tekturna. Drug sales rose 3% but the recession hit performance at its consumer health unit, and the Sandoz generics business was hurt by lower US prices and lost sales from a plant which US regulators will inspect in the third quarter. Novartis had been expected to post a net profit of $2.0 billion and sales of $10.3 billion, according to a Reuters poll. It is also aiming to produce and commercialise a vaccine against the H1N1 flu virus and expects clinical trials to begin in July. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 16 Jul 2009 | 7:46 am UPCC chief’s arrest triggers uproar in ParliamentNew Delhi: The issue of arrest of Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi over her alleged anti-Mayawati remarks on Thursday created uproar in Parliament leading to adjournment of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha for an hour. While the Lok Sabha saw Congress members clashing with those of the BSP on the issue, in the Rajya Sabha SP and BSP members attacked Joshi over what they described as her “anti-women” remarks. It was trouble from the word go in the Lok Sabha with Congress member Jagdambika Pal and some of his party colleagues seeking to raise the matter. BSP members too were seen making attempts to defend the UP government move to arrest the Congress leader for her alleged inflammatory remarks at a rally in Moradabad. SP and BJP members to joined, leading to turmoil in the House. Speaker Meira Kumar’s repeated appeals to raise the matter during Zero Hour went in vain following which she adjourned the proceedings for 15 minutes. As the House reassembled, similar scenes were witnessed leading to adjournment of the House till 12:00 noon. In the Rajya Sabha, BSP and SP members were up on their feet seeking suspension of the Question Hour ignoring Chairman Hamid Ansari repeated calls to allow the proceedings to continue after he disallowed their request. Members should be allowed to raise the issue after suspending the Question Hour, he demanded. Ansari said the issue was “serious enough” to be discussed but the Question Hour could not be suspended and the members were free to raise it during Zero Hour. However, unrelenting BSP and SP members continued to raise the issue and the Left parties too supported them As the din continued, Ansari adjourned the house till 1200 hours.</p><p>This is the first time during the current session of Parliament that the House has been adjourned during Question Hour. Congress Accuses Mayawati Government Congress accused the Mayawati government in Uttar Pradesh of “sponsoring” the attack on its state president Rita Bahuguna Joshi’s house in Lucknow out of personal vendetta. “All this has happened at the behest of UP chief minister....under the sponsorship of the state government. The FIR has the name of culprit Babloo Tiwari, a BSP MLA, who was spearheading the attack,” Congress leader Digvijay Singh told reporters in Delhi. “The police was told what is going to happen. When the incident took place, all senior officials were at CM’s residence... Congress will fight the way in which Mayawati government is using law to suppress its political opponents,” Singh said adding the party will fight it “at whatever level we are made to”. Party spokesperson Manish Tewari told the agency, “there is complete jungleraj in UP. The chief minister is taking her frustration out against the legal proceedings against her which are coming to a culmination now.” Joshi was arrested on Wednesday in Ghaziabad district for allegedly making derogatory remarks against Chief Minister Mayawati. Alleged BSP supporters had set a portion of Joshi’s house on fire besides damaging vehicles parked in the premises. Tewari said, “ransacking the house of UPCC president is going to be the last nail in the coffin of the Mayawati government and it has stirred a hornet’s nest.” Earlier there was a “brutal lathicharge in Amethi, where people were almost beaten to death for demanding something like electricity. And then this attack on Joshi’s house and her arrest. It’s an act of complete desperation,” he said. Commenting on the case registered against Joshi, Tewari said, “the kind of lawlessness that persists in Uttar Pradesh, you can make out a case against anybody for anything. It just needs nothing at all.” Singh, the AICC in-charge for UP, however said, “the comments of Rita Bahuguna Joshi were un-called for but the context should be considered in which they have been said. She herself has apologized” and wondered “which law permits Joshi’s house to be set ablaze.” “We will fight the battle legally as far the case registered against her is concerned,” Singh said adding that the SC/ST Act has been unnecessarily been invoked. Another party spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi, said, “this is at best an individual case. It cannot be said it is something to inflame communal passion or outraging the modesty of women. It is completely wrong on the state government’s behalf especially after Joshi stated that she regrets and apologized for her remarks”. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 16 Jul 2009 | 7:41 am Clinton aims to deepen ties, dispel doubts in IndiaWashington: US secretary of state Hillary Clinton leaves for India on Thursday on a high-profile mission to deepen ties and dispel any doubts about the US commitment to New Delhi under US President Barack Obama. Despite Obama’s early focus on fighting the Taliban insurgencies in Afghanistan and Pakistan, aides say they fully understand India’s importance as a rising major power and they want to strengthen all aspects of the relationship. “Everything is on the table,” Clinton said on Wednesday. “We’re going to do everything we can to broaden and deepen our engagement.” US officials hope they will come away from the trip, which includes two nights each in Mumbai and New Delhi and a visit to Thailand for a regional conference, with tangible accomplishments in at least three areas: • Signing an agreement to ensure that US arms technology sold to India does not leak to third countries, a step required by US law for arms sales by US corporations; • India’s announcement that it has reserved two sites for US companies to build nuclear power plants, which could be worth as much as $10 billion in business for American firms; • Establishing a “strategic dialogue” between the two countries to be led by Clinton and Union external affairs minister SM Krishna. All three, likely to be unveiled when Clinton visits New Delhi on Monday, could demonstrate that Obama’s commitment to the relationship equals that of his predecessor, George W Bush. ‘India’s Rise On The World Stage´ Bush’s signal achievement with India was to secure an agreement that ended a three-decade ban on nuclear commerce with New Delhi, helping India to meet its vast energy needs while opening a market worth billions to foreign companies. “With the Bush administration, the policy was clearly that we supported India’s rise on the world stage,” said South Asia analyst Lisa Curtis of the Heritage Foundation think tank. “Coming out of the Obama administration, there has been more focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan and that worries some Indians that the policy toward the whole region will be driven by US goals in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” she added. US officials played down Clinton’s decision to skip India on her foreign first trip as secretary of state in February, when she visited China, and said they were constrained in approaching India ahead of its May parliamentary elections. They also said they want to further cooperation in areas such as agriculture, education, counter-terrorism and defence. Normalizing Indo-Pak Ties Relations between India and Pakistan, which have fought two of their three wars since Independence from Britain in 1947 over the Kashmir issue, is one of the most nettlesome issues Clinton will discuss. Indian officials are angry at what they see as Pakistan’s failure to act against the founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the terrorist group India blames for last year’s attacks on Mumbai, which killed at least 166 people. Despite this dispute, which threatens to delay any formal resumption of a peace dialogue between the two countries, the Indian and Pakistani prime ministers are due to meet in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt on Thursday. The United States is keenly interested in resumption of talks between the two countries to ease tensions on Pakistan’s eastern border with India so it can focus on fighting Taliban terrorists on its western border with Afghanistan. US analysts expected little to emerge on Pakistan during Clinton’s trip, saying the issue is too charged in India to air much in public and that in any case Clinton will want to stress US-Indian ties. Stephen Cohen, a South Asia specialist at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, said that US and Indian officials should be speaking privately “about what kind of Pakistan we want to see emerge out of the crisis there.” In addition to fighting the Taliban, Pakistan is grappling with major economic problems and with returning to civilian rule after years under former President Gen. Pervez Musharraf. “Normalizing the India-Pakistan relationship should be at the top of the agenda,” Cohen said. “Especially now because you have got governments in both countries who would like to do this.” Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 16 Jul 2009 | 7:38 am Mahindra Holidays lists at 7% premium to issue priceMumbai: Mahindra Holidays & Resorts India Ltd on Thursday listed 7% above its issue price of Rs300, as investors cheered the end of a 15-month drought in initial public offers (IPOs). Shares of Mahindra Holidays & Resorts India Ltd listed at Rs321 on the BSE, while on the National Stock Exchange, it listed at Rs324.90. “If it had traded down, which we were comfortable it would not, then it sets us back...It’s the first credible name coming out, it’s got to succeed,” said Tarun Kataria, managing director of global banks and markets at HSBC, one of the book-running lead managers to the issue. The IPO, which closed on 26 June, was subscribed nearly ten times. The firm raised about Rs275 crore through a 9.27- million-share issue, of which Mahindra Holidays’ share is around Rs175 crore and the rest going to parent Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd, managing director Ramesh Ramanathan told reporters. Auto major Mahindra & Mahindra, which owns 83% of the vacation home operator, had offered 3.36 million shares. Mahindra Holidays will use the proceeds to expand existing projects and set up new ones, he said. The firm, which has 27 resorts across India and Thailand, also plans to expand overseas when the market picks up. “We had looked at South Africa, Middle East and China, we are still hopeful of those three destinations,” Ramanathan said. “We still hold those plans, and when the market is right we will go ahead with them”. The company did not give a guidance for FY10 but said it sees “strong growth” and hopes to maintain high occupancy levels. “Over the last two quarters we have turned around, we have been growing very strong and we will continue to do that as ours is a value for money offering,” Ramanathan said. The firm had an occupancy level of 75% last year, Ramanthan said, adding he expects to sutain the level in FY10 as well. Its net profit for the year ended March 2009 was Rs79. 8 crore on total income of Rs442 crore. At 1:10 p.m., Mahindra Holidays’ shares were trading at Rs323.60 on the BSE. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 16 Jul 2009 | 7:38 am Inflation rises to minus 1.21 per centInflation rose marginally to (-)1.21 per cent for the week ended July 4 against (-)1.55 per cent in the previous week.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 16 Jul 2009 | 7:23 am Inflation rate rises marginally, still in negative zone - Economic Times
Source: Business - Google News | 16 Jul 2009 | 7:18 am Noon: Markets turn negative after rising 1.7%Mumbai: Indian shares erased gains of as much as 1.7% and turned briefly negative by late morning on Thursday as investors took profits on a 6.4% rise over the previous two sessions. At 11:42am, the 30-share BSE index .BSESN was up 0.1% at 14,269.63 points, with 16 stocks gaining, after falling to as much as 14,248.01. The 50-share NSE index .NSEI was flat at 4,233.50. Markets were trading up 0.3% on Thursday as China’s economy grew faster than expected and fuelled risk-appetite across Asia, following a Wall Street rally overnight on strong US corporate earnings. Leading engineering and construction firm Larsen & Toubro rose more than 1% after its quarterly profit tripled thanks to one-off exceptional gain. Private-sector lender ICICI Bank and energy giant Reliance Industries were among the other major gainers. “There is a lot of short-covering taking place, with the momentum overseas taking the market forward,” T.S. Harihar, senior vice president at ICICI Securities, said. Sterlite Industries bucked the trend and fell 6% to Rs591 after the metals producer said it was raising about $1.5 billion in American Depositary Shares, with parent Vedanta to buy $500 million of the issue. The offering was priced at $12.15 each, a source said. But analysts have warned any weakness in overseas markets could prompt profit-taking, with concerns about the domestic economy and rich valuations still not off the radar. “It’s very difficult to sustain as we have not seen any major money coming into the cash market,” Harihar said. “I don’t see any justification for valuations to get higher than what they are now.” The benchmark index trades at 16.3 times one-year future earnings, higher than several other major emerging market indexes. The market dropped 9.4% last week, its biggest fall in eight months, after the government’s budget offered little in terms of bold economic and financial reforms, but set a huge deficit of 6.8% of GDP, the highest in 16 years. India’s wholesale price index (WPI) is forecast to have dropped 1.38% in the 12 months to 4 July, a smaller fall than the previous week after a fuel price rise, a Reuters poll of 11 analysts showed on Wednesday. The data is expected around midday. Analysts and policy makers attribute the fall mainly to a statistical base effect because of a sharp acceleration in prices in 2008 and not to a sharp contraction in demand. Larsen was up 1.1% at Rs1,446, while ICICI Bank rose 1.5% to Rs706.65. Reliance, India’s largest-listed firm with the most weight in the main index, climbed 1.9% to Rs1,911. In the broader market, gainers led losers 2 to 1 on relatively moderate volume of 144.4 million shares. The 50-share NSE index was up 0.4% at 4,249.15. Asian shares were higher, with Japan’s Nikkei up 0.6%, while MSCI’s measure of other Asian markets rose 1.3%. China’s growth rate shot up 7.9% in the second quarter on the back of a surge in state spending and bank lending, and in Japan, a Reuters poll showed manufacturers’ confidence has improved for four months in a row as exports and industrial output picked up. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 16 Jul 2009 | 7:12 am WPI down 1.21 pct yr/yr on July 4 - govtMUMBAI (Reuters) - India's wholesale price index fell 1.21 percent in the 12 months to July 4, compared with the previous week's annual decline of 1.55 percent, government data showed on Thursday.Source: Reuters: Money News | 16 Jul 2009 | 6:32 am Nippon Steel to double stake in Nisshin: mediaTokyo: Nippon Steel Corp plans to roughly double its stake in Nisshin Steel Co to up to 20% to strengthen the group’s stainless steel business, the Asahi newspaper reported on Thursday. Shares of Nisshin, which expects a second straight year of losses due to weak demand and falls in nickel and chrome prices, jumped as much as 10% following the report, while Nippon Steel shares rose nearly 5%. Nippon Steel, the world’s No.2 steelmaker, and Nisshin, Japan’s fifth biggest and owned 9% by Nippon, both said nothing had been decided on strengthening their capital ties. A Nisshin source, who was not authorised to speak publicly on the matter, said various talks were underway with Nippon Steel on ways to strengthen their alliance, including capital ties, but no decisions have been made. Stainless steel makers have been suffering from tough market conditions because of volatile prices of nickel and chrome, the raw materials for stainless steel, and rising competition. A collapse in demand amid the recession for car parts and household items like kitchen sinks and roofs forced many global players to suffer losses last year, though a recent recovery in demand and nickel prices have prompted South Korea’s Posco, one of the region’s biggest players along with China’s Baosteel, to raise output and prices. The Asahi reported on Thursday that Nippon Steel would restructure and consolidate the group’s stainless production facilities after raising its stake in Nisshin. Nisshin will also take a stake in Japan’s top stainless steel producer Nippon Steel & Sumikin Stainless Steel Corp (NSSC), a joint venture between Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal Industries Ltd, the Asahi said. Market watchers have been speculating for years that Nippon Steel will likely raise its stake in Nisshin, a relatively small player in the global stainless steel market. Hit by a plunge in demand and steep falls in nickel and chrome prices, Nisshin expects to post a second consecutive year of pretax losses this financial year. Its stock is trading at a price-to-book ratio of 0.67, considerably lower than its peers due to earnings concerns. Source: World Business - Livemint.com | 16 Jul 2009 | 6:14 am Mahindra Holidays gets listed on boursesMahindra Holidays & Resorts listed at a premium of five per cent over its issue price of Rs 300 on the Bombay Stock Exchange.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 16 Jul 2009 | 5:50 am Sensex reverses gear, falls 84 pointsThe Sensex fell by 83.66 points at midsession today as investors indulged in booking profits at higher levels.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 16 Jul 2009 | 5:05 am Toyota to supply hybrid parts to Mazda: NikkeiTokyo: Toyota Motor Corp plans to supply core components for hybrid vehicles to smaller rival Mazda Motor Corp, the Nikkei business daily reported, as the popularity of gasoline-electric cars surges in Japan thanks to tax incentives. The report sent Mazda’s shares soaring 8.9%, with such a move marking a shift in strategy for the Hiroshima-based automaker, which repeated on Thursday it still aimed to raise fuel economy with improvements to internal combustion engines until 2015. The Nikkei said the components will be used in a hybrid vehicle Mazda is planning to launch as early as 2013, with a sales target of some 100,000 units a year. Mazda approached Toyota with the request, and an announcement on the alliance is expected soon, it added. Toyota and Mazda declined to comment on whether they were holding such talks, denying a decision had been made. Toyota’s shares rose 2.9%, mirroring a rise in other auto stocks and the broader Tokyo market. Toyota, a pioneer in hybrid technology with at least a 10-year lead on most rivals, currently supplies its hybrid system to Nissan Motor Co, which uses it in its Altima hybrid sedan for the US market, although those sales are negligible. With the launch of two relatively low-cost hybrid cars this year — Toyota’s third-generation Prius and Honda Motor Co’s Insight — analysts have said the bar for developing competitive gasoline-electric cars has risen. That has raised the possibility that rivals would seek supply deals from the front-runners or through other forms of collaboration, analysts say. “Technology that meets environmental regulations comes in a variety of flavours, and we suspect that very few automakers have the wherewithal to develop all of them,” JPMorgan analyst Kohei Takahashi wrote in a note to clients. “Given this, we expect an increasing number of automakers to employ Toyota’s series/parallel (hybrid) technology for its proven low costs and high reliability, with Toyota suppliers selling them the core components.” The Nikkei said that under the deal, Toyota would supply batteries, motors, control units, and other components made by group parts makers to Mazda, boosting economies of scale and revenue. Denso Corp and Aisin Seiki Co are among Toyota’s key hybrid suppliers. Mazda, affiliated with Ford Motor, has said it is considering various options for hybrid technology, including outsourcing its development instead of developing it on its own or with Ford. Mazda has one hybrid model, the Tribute SUV, which is produced by Ford using technology partially licensed from Toyota. The model is only sold in California. Mazda’s research and development chief Seita Kanai said earlier this year that Mazda expected to start mounting electric devices such as motors for hybrids from 2015 at the earliest. But the pressure to offer hybrid models has grown in Japan as consumers flock to gasoline-electric vehicles, which receive the biggest tax breaks under a government initiative that started in April to spur sales of cleaner cars. Source: World Business - Livemint.com | 16 Jul 2009 | 4:39 am CIT talks fall apart, bankruptcy loomsWASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - CIT Group Inc, a lender to hundreds of thousands of small and mid-sized U.S. businesses, said bailout talks with the government had ended, a development that could ultimately drive the company into bankruptcy.Source: Reuters: Money News | 16 Jul 2009 | 4:09 am Basmati plantings get a boost despite deficient monsoonNew Delhi, July 15 Deficient and delayed monsoon rains have spelt disaster for most farmers this time. But the story is less gloomy with regard to basmati rice, with the country probably even on course for a bumper harvest.Source: Business Line - Home Page | 16 Jul 2009 | 12:00 am MTNL seeks pvt players to run its 3G servicesNew Delhi, July 15 Having managed to sell only about 1,000 third generation mobile connections in five months, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd has now invited private players to roll out its services in Delhi and Mumbai on a revenue-sharing basis.Source: Business Line - Home Page | 16 Jul 2009 | 12:00 am Day Trading GuideNote: In a buy recommendation, the resistances would be the targets and the nearest support would be the stop loss; In a sell recommendation, the supports would be the targets and the nearest resistance would be theSource: Business Line - Home Page | 16 Jul 2009 | 12:00 am ‘Disinvestment roadmap in 3-4 weeks’New Delhi, July 15 A clear roadmap on disinvestment of Government holding in central public sector undertakings will be available in the next three-four weeks, the Finance Secretary, Mr Ashok Chawla, said here on Wednesday.Source: Business Line - Home Page | 16 Jul 2009 | 12:00 am Reliance BIG, DreamWorks plan 5-6 films a yearThe joint venture of the Anil-Ambani promoted Reliance BIG Entertainment and Steven Speilberg’s DreamWorks Studio will start movie production this year.Source: Business Line - Home Page | 16 Jul 2009 | 12:00 am Daiichi open offer for Zenotech faces legal hurdleHyderabad, July 15 The open offer by the Japanese drug maker Daiichi-Sankyo to acquire 20 per cent in Hyderabad-based Zenotech Laboratories Ltd (ZLL), scheduled to open today, has hit a legalSource: Business Line - Home Page | 16 Jul 2009 | 12:00 am Rolta India (Rs 117.65): BuyWe recommend a buy in the stock of Rolta India from a short-term trading horizon. It is evident from the charts of Rolta that it has been trending up, forming higher peaks and higher troughs since early March low of Rs 40. This low is apparentlySource: Business Line - Home Page | 16 Jul 2009 | 12:00 am Monsoon to remain activeThiruvananthapuram, July 15 The monsoon has catapulted itself to a new peak, raining it heavily over east and central India and the west coast during the 24 hours ending Wednesday morning.Source: Business Line - Home Page | 16 Jul 2009 | 12:00 am Another safety net on the cardsIf you frequently use your credit/debit card to make online payments and are worried about the security of the transactions, relax. Another safety net isSource: Business Line - Home Page | 16 Jul 2009 | 12:00 am Rains, disinvestment news push Sensex up 400 pointsMumbai, July 15 Even as dark clouds and heavy showers blotted out the sun over Mumbai for the second day in a row on Wednesday, the Sensex gained almost 400 points, also did an encore ofSource: Business Line - Home Page | 16 Jul 2009 | 12:00 am VoIP-based calls buzz gets louderIt pays to have a landline telephone connection, you may soon realise. And those who have surrendered their landline connections, especially in the recent past.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 15 Jul 2009 | 10:29 pm ONGC starts output at Brazil blockOil and Natural Gas Corp Ltd has started producing crude oil from its BC-10 deepwater block in the Campos Basin off Brazil's south-east coast.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 15 Jul 2009 | 10:27 pm Oil & gas volumes to drop 6%After growing at a breakneck pace, hydrocarbon consumption in India will see its first drop in many years in 2009, London-based market research firm Datamonitor said.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 15 Jul 2009 | 10:21 pm Look East Policy paying, says MaranIndia's 'Look East Policy' has paid good dividends, especially in the textile sector, and this had been vindicated by the large participation of buyers from Japan, Argentina and Uruguay.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 15 Jul 2009 | 10:19 pm Venture capital investments down 250% in first halfVenture capital (VC) investments in the country have plunged 250% in the first half of calendar 2009 in value terms. The number of deals done also dipped 148%.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 15 Jul 2009 | 10:17 pm Steel consumption rises 5.2% in Q1The worst may well be over for the steel sector, with the first quarter of financial year 2009-10 posting an increase in both production and consumption.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 15 Jul 2009 | 10:16 pm Peugeot may firm up India plans by OctoberPSA Peugeot Citroen, Europe's second biggest carmaker, is inching closer to firming up plans for India.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 15 Jul 2009 | 10:14 pm HCL Tech to restore dividend policy in 67 quartersVineet Nayar, CEO, HCL Technologies, said most companies will come back to quarteronquarter growth in two quarters. He stated that HCL is considering restoring dividends in the next 67 quarters.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 15 Jul 2009 | 8:45 pm Anil Ambani group, Spielberg ink $825 mn production dealAnil Ambanis Reliance ADA Group formalised its association with DreamWorks Studios promoted by Hollywood director Steven Spielberg and his partner Stacey Snider.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 15 Jul 2009 | 7:04 pm Indian pharma firms swallow bitter pill in US, EuropeLast week, Lupin, Matrix Laboratories and Unichem Laboratories UK subsidiary Niche Generics figured in the list of companies under investigation by the European Commission for knowingly delaying the generic launch of a cardiovascular drug, Perindopril, by teaming with the innovator of the drug, Laboratories Servier. The European Commission said it would probe anti-trust violations against these manufacturers.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 15 Jul 2009 | 7:02 pm France's Dassault targets Lockheed in combat aircraft dealThe gloves are off in the competition to sell India 126 Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) for an estimated Rs 50,000 crore. Two days after Business Standard reported on the sudden replacement of Lockheed Martin Indias CEO, Lockheeds French rival, Dassault Aviation whose Rafale fighter is pitched against Lockheed Martins F-16 IN in the MMRCA tender is contemplating asking the Indian Ministry of Defence (MoD) to disqualify Lockheed Martin from the tender. The reason: sources in Dassault allege that Lockheed Martin has illegally obtained access to classified documents relating to the competition.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 15 Jul 2009 | 7:00 pm Govt frontloads borrowing planThe Centre has almost doubled its weekly borrowings to Rs 15,000 crore as it tries to frontload the calendar to complete 57 per cent of the annual fund-raising by August.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 15 Jul 2009 | 6:57 pm Fiat gives Detroit a lesson on manufacturing small carsTychy, Poland: For decades, auto makers looking for the secret to small-car success would journey to Toyota City in Japan. These days, they are coming to Tychy. Since Fiat Automobiles SpA effectively took over Chrysler Llc. this year, engineers from Detroit have been making monthly pilgrimages here to see something they can only envy: an auto plant that is hiring workers and earning a profit. The mammoth Fiat plant here, which churned out nearly half a million cars last year, may hold some of the answers for Chrysler (as well as Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp.), as it struggles to regain its footing after its bankruptcy and reduce its dependence on muscle-bound trucks and sport utility vehicles (SUVs).  Efficient assembly: The production line for the Fiat 500 Abarth at the auto maker’s plant in Tychy, Poland. Rafal Klimmikiewicz / NYT But Fiat itself has undergone a revolution under Sergio Marchionne, who became its chief executive in 2004, raising standards for quality and reliability at plants such as Tychy, and mastering the art of building smaller cars with high efficiency. Chrysler hopes he can do the same thing for it now that he has assumed control of the US company. “We are lucky there is a crisis,” said the director of the Tychy plant, Zdzislaw Arlet, unable to resist a gibe at the bigger cars and trucks that have traditionally stolen the industry spotlight. “Everybody wants to build small cars now.” At Tychy (pronounced TICK-ee), one secret is flexibility: The latest robotic technology is balanced by workers who can quickly shift models to match demand. That is one reason Tychy is operating around the clock, six days a week, while most other auto plants in Europe and the US are running at a fraction of capacity, increasing costly nonproductive downtime. Indeed, for visiting Chrysler engineers, going to Tychy is akin to an aging heavyweight boxer stepping into a gym where more agile bantamweight fighters train. Chrysler’s smallest car, the Dodge Caliber compact, is one-third heavier (around 450kg) than the fast-selling Fiat 500, which is made exclusively at Tychy. Fiat executives say their goal is not only to produce subcompact European models at Chrysler’s North American plants—but also for Chrysler managers to learn how to speed the introduction of smaller cars in the US that Americans will want to buy, such as a new version of the Sebring, while increasing efficiency the way Fiat has at Tychy. Chrysler’s offerings, unlike those from Fiat, have long been dominated by jeeps and SUVs and big trucks such as the Dodge Ram, with cars making up just 30% of Chrysler’s worldwide sales last year. As bigger vehicles fell out of favour because of high petrol prices and the recession, Chrysler’s overall sales dived, falling 44% in the first half of 2009 compared with the period a year earlier. “It’s very difficult to go from big to small, but they are here to compare and learn,” Arlet said as he walked amid the sparks thrown off by robots along his production lines. “This plant was designed to produce small cars.” The ideal combination of automated robots and individual workers has been critical to Tychy’s success, said Ron Harbour, a US industry consultant with Oliver Wyman. Success is not as simple as the more robots, the better. “With people, you can change the mix in one day or one week,” Harbour said, referring to the models a production line churns out. “You can’t do that with robots.” The Tychy plant employs about 5,000 people, including about 1,700 hired last year to make more Fiats, as well as the Ford Ka. Tychy’s huge scale—it covers at least 4.3 million sq. ft—also works to its advantage. Although exact benchmarks are difficult, Harbour mentions Chrysler’s plant in Belvidere, Illinois, as a comparable site, since it produces smaller cars. But its annual production capacity of 265,000 is just over half of the plant at Tychy. Arlet is also constantly on the lookout for time- and money-saving improvements, adding that he himself looks to Toyota’s famous Kaizen system for inspiration: Instead of filling up cars at different production points with brake fluid, gasoline, water and other liquids, one machine on each of Tychy’s three lines fills each vehicle. “A car comes off the assembly line every 55 seconds,” Arlet said. “In 1996, it took twice as long.” Along with the new technology came a new focus on quality. About three years ago, workers were assigned an individual identification number that is stamped on whatever sections of the car they assemble so any problems at the end of the line can be traced to the source. As a result, Arlet said, the number of cars coming off the line with defects has fallen from 20% in 1996 to just 4% now—a figure Harbour said compared favourably with factories in the US or Western Europe. “At the moment, Tychy is the best of Fiat as far as quality is concerned,” said Giuseppe Volpato, a professor of economics at the University of Venice, who has long studied the company. “I think Poland is becoming the reference point for the whole organization, even in Italy.” For Marchionne, turning around Chrysler will probably be harder than getting Fiat back on track. Chrysler not only relies on trucks and SUVs, it derives 75% of its sales from the now-moribund US market. At the same time, Chrysler is facing increased pressure from Ford, as well as GM, which emerged from bankruptcy last week. And of course, the original high-quality, small-car brands, such as Toyota and Honda, remain fierce competitors, even if Toyota is suffering great losses of its own. Back in Tychy, Arlet seemed amazed at the tectonic shift under way in the global auto industry, with Americans coming to Poland in search of the secrets of car making, rather than the other way around. With a confident smile, he declared, “I am looking forward to when the Fiat 500 is made in the USA and also made here, and we can compare.” ©2009/THE NEW YORK TIMES Source: World Business - Livemint.com | 15 Jul 2009 | 5:25 pm FTIL to provide its trading software to NMCENew Delhi:Financial Technologies India (FTIL), the world’s second largest trading technology distribution company after NASDAQ-OMX Group, said on Wednesday the National Multi-Commodity Exchange (NMCE) has signed up for its ODIN trading software. The Open Dealer Integrated Network (ODIN) is a software that offers connectivity to various market segments on a single screen. It is being used by the Bombay Stock Exchange, MCX Stock Exchanges, National Stock Exchange, MCX and NCDEX. “NMCE, the country’s third largest commodity exchange, would be integrated in the FTIL’s flagship product ODIN, which enjoys more than 80% market share in front-end trading solutions used by brokers, banks and institutions,” FTIL said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange today. An agreement on this line was signed between two companies today, FTIL, which is also the promoter of India’s largest commodity exchange MCX, said. In the last 10 years, FTIL has sold over 3.50 lakh licences for over one lakh trading workstations in 1,000 Indian institutions and brokerage clients. At 1500 hours, shares of FTIL were trading at Rs 1239, up by 5.7% from previous close. Source: Tech News - Livemint.com | 15 Jul 2009 | 5:13 pm Media hype of terror threat ruined Goa's tourism party: KamatMore than the terror threat in the aftermath of the Nov 26 attacks, it was the media hype about it that ruined Goa's tourism party in December and January, Chief Minister Digambar Kamat said here Wednesday.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 15 Jul 2009 | 4:31 pm Reliance Infra barred from charging higher ratesThe Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) Wednesday stayed its June order permitting Reliance Infrastructure to hike power tariff charges for various categories of domestic and commercial users.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 15 Jul 2009 | 4:30 pm No plan to regularise whole Sainik Farms area: DDAThe Delhi Development Authority (DDA) Wednesday informed Delhi High Court that it has marked a certain area in Sainik Farms in the zonal plan which would be permitted for residential purposes only and there was no proposal to regularise the entire colony.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 15 Jul 2009 | 3:31 pm Dwarka sub-city to have shuttle serviceCome September, the about one million residents of Dwarka here will have a shuttle service of low-floor air-conditioned buses within the sub-city.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 15 Jul 2009 | 3:31 pm Rain battered Mumbai crawls back to normalcyMumbai limped back to normalcy as heavy rains receded Wednesday afternoon, after having battered India's financial capital for almost three days causing waterlogging in many areas, traffic snarls and affecting rail services.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 15 Jul 2009 | 3:31 pm JLR to cut 300 jobs, slows productionLondon: British luxury carmaker Jaguar Land Rover will cut 300 jobs from its Halewood plant in the north of England and stop production of its X-Type car due to the downturn in the auto industry. “Our industry has been especially badly hit by the recession and the premium sector more than others. Jaguar Land Rover’s retail sales fell by 28% in the past 10 months,” chief executive David Smith said in a statement. The company, owned by Tata Motors, said it would not close the Halewood plant - which employs 2,000 staff and also makes the Land Rover Freelander - but would shut it down temporarily for about three weeks. A spokesman said the group was still in talks with the government over a loan guarantee for a €340 million ($477.6 million) hand-out from the European Investment Bank - approved earlier this year. “We are hopeful for a speedy and successful conclusion,” a spokesman said. Tata Motors said last month that Jaguar Land Rover made an after-tax loss of £306 million ($501.5 million) in the 10 months to end March, when it also warned of further job cuts. However, the company pressed ahead with the launch of the high end Jaguar XJ model last week, hosting a glitzy London party attended by Australian model Elle McPherson and the actor David Hasselhoff. Source: World Business - Livemint.com | 15 Jul 2009 | 2:05 pm Google Q2 results expected to feel recession pinchSan Francisco: Internet search leader Google is scheduled to report its second-quarter results after the stock market closes Thursday. The following is a summary of key developments and analyst opinion related to the period. After Google began the year with its most sluggish quarterly growth yet, Wall Street is fretting over how much of the financial lethargy lingered during the three-month period that ended in June. Google chief executive Eric Schmidt thinks the worst of the US recession is over, but that doesn’t mean he sees blue skies on the horizon. “When you talk to people, no one has any particular insight into what happens next,” Schmidt told a group of reporters during an interview last week at media conference. For now, Google is operating under the assumption that both consumers and businesses will be pinching pennies. The rampant frugality has curtailed spending on ads — the main source of Google’s revenue. Unlike most other ad-dependent businesses, Google is still pulling in slightly more money. Its first-quarter ad revenue rose 5% to $5.3 billion. But that rise marked the first time Google’s year-over-year growth had fallen below 10% since the company went public in August 2004. Google has turned to cost cutting to boost its earnings at a higher rate than its revenue. The company has jettisoned contractors, laid off a few hundred full-time workers, closed little-used Internet services and even taken away some employee perquisites, including free bottled water at its headquarters. The tough times also prompted Google to start selling ads on once commercial-free zones like its news and finance sections and made it easier for companies to use their rivals’ US trademarks in their ads. Google draws its moneymaking prowess from its search engine, which processes nearly two out of every three online queries in the United States. That dominance is attracting more scrutiny from antitrust regulators worried Google may be abusing its market power. The US Justice Department is currently taking a hard look at a proposed settlement of a class-action lawsuit that would grant Google the rights to sell digital copies of millions of out-of-print books. BY THE NUMBERS Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect Google to earn $5.06 per share on revenue of $4.05 billion. The estimates exclude Google’s expenses for employee stock compensation, unusual charges and the revenue that the company pays its advertising partners. ANALYST TAKE Benchmark Co. Clayton Moran believes Google started to have more trouble selling ads in June after getting off to strong start early in the second quarter. He suspects the adverse conditions will remain through the summer. ”No advertising bottom has been reached yet,” Moran wrote in a research note on Monday. ThinkEquity analyst William Morrison echoed many of the sentiments in his own research note. ”The path ahead could be a bumpy one,” he warned. WHAT’S AHEAD Google’s already bitter rivalry with Microsoft Corp. is escalating with both companies trying to steal each other’s thunder. Microsoft recently renamed its search engine Bing as part of an upgrade that is getting positive reviews and is being promoted with a $100 million marketing campaign. Schmidt told reporters last week that Bing hasn’t fazed Google so far. Meanwhile, Google is gearing up its development of a free computer operating system in a challenge to Microsoft’s pervasive Windows franchise. The new operating system, which will be tied to the Chrome Web browser that Google introduced nine months ago, isn’t expected to hit the market until he second half of 2010. STOCK PERFORMANCE Google shares surged 21% in the second quarter, extending a yearlong rally driven by the belief that the company is among the best positioned to weather the ongoing turbulence. Google’s stock closed at $424.30 Monday. Source: Tech News - Livemint.com | 15 Jul 2009 | 10:57 am
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