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Potential blowing in the windPotential blowing in the windSource: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 10 Oct 2009 | 9:32 am Govt seeks to clear apprehensions over D6 gas outputNW18: Govt seeks to clear apprehensions over D6 block gas outputSource: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 10 Oct 2009 | 9:08 am Should bankers\' salaries be capped? An exCiti exec answersIn the US, there was a demand for a cap on financial sector salaries especially after the government came and bailed out banks. Commenting on that, Victor said, the salaries in the banking industry were always under discussion.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 10 Oct 2009 | 8:53 am NW18: BSE Notice: Neyveli Lignite Strike withdrawnNW18: BSE Notice: Neyveli Lignite Strike withdrawnSource: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 10 Oct 2009 | 8:24 am IRDA implements tougher disclosure norms for insurersInsurance regulator IRDA has put in place the muchawaited disclosure norms for insurance companies. These guidelines will be effective from November 1, 2009. Insurers will be required to make data for the last fourfive years available and will have to provide disclosures on a quarterly basis.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 10 Oct 2009 | 8:13 am MindTree sets up mobile ventureMindTree has entered the mobile products business by kickstarting a new vertical Nimo Next in Mobility to deliver readytobrand mobile sets. This is expected to bring in revenues to the tune of USD 9 million this fiscal.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 10 Oct 2009 | 8:07 am NW18:Reliance Infra relents, agrees to pay mktg margin to RIL for D6 gasNW18:Reliance Infra relents, agrees to pay mktg margin to RIL for D6 gasSource: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 10 Oct 2009 | 7:46 am NW18: Neyveli Lignite: Nonexecutive staff withdraw strikeNW18: Neyveli Lignite: Nonexecutive staff withdraw strikeSource: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 10 Oct 2009 | 7:43 am Reliance Infra agrees to pay marketing margins to RILRound one of the marketing margin tussle goes to Mukesh Ambani\'s Reliance Industries (RIL). CNBCTV18 learns that Anil Ambani\'s Reliance Infra has agreed to pay the marketing margin but under protest.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 10 Oct 2009 | 7:28 am A New Retail MakeoverA New Retail MakeoverSource: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 10 Oct 2009 | 7:16 am Job competition in US toughest since recession began!The number of job seekers competing for each opening has reached the highest point since the recession began, according to government data released on Friday.Source: Zee News : Business | 10 Oct 2009 | 6:15 am Dow hits 2009 closing high on earnings optimism!US stocks climbed on Friday, with the Dow hitting a closing high for 2009, as investors anticipated positive news from next week`s key earnings reports and bullish broker comments boosted tech shares.Source: Zee News : Business | 10 Oct 2009 | 6:15 am Iconic Hummer brand sold to Chinese manufacturer!Hummer, the off-road vehicle that once epitomized America`s love for hulking trucks, is now in the hands of a Chinese heavy equipment maker.Source: Zee News : Business | 10 Oct 2009 | 6:15 am Lehman`s Barclays probe should be unsealed: Trustee!The US Trustee, which oversees bankruptcy cases in New York, said on Friday it believes documents related to Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc`s probe of its asset sale to a Barclays Plc unit should be made public.Source: Zee News : Business | 10 Oct 2009 | 6:15 am Citi to sell oil trading unit to Occidental Petroleum!US banking giant Citigroup has agreed to sell its oil trading unit Phibro LLC to Occidental Petroleum for some 250 million dollars, the companies said Friday.Source: Zee News : Business | 10 Oct 2009 | 6:15 am Air India announces daily flight from Washington!Expanding its operations in the US, Air India has announced the launch of its daily flight from Washington to Kolkata.Source: Zee News : Business | 10 Oct 2009 | 6:15 am Japan suspends US plant’s beef amid mad cow fearsTokyo: Japan has suspended beef shipments from an American meatpacking plant after finding cattle parts banned under an agreement to prevent the spread of mad cow disease, the agriculture ministry said on Saturday. Japanese quarantine inspectors found bovine spinal columns in one of 732 boxes sent by Tyson Fresh Meats, Inc., which arrived in Japan last month, the ministry of agriculture, forestry and fisheries said in a statement. The box contained 35 pounds (16 kg) of chilled short loin with spinal bones, which were not released commercially, said ministry official Goshi Nakata. The suspension only affects Tyson’s factory in Lexington, Nebraska, one of 46 meatpacking plants approved to export beef to Japan. It was the second suspension for the Lexington factory, Nakata said. Japan slapped a four-month ban on beef shipments from the same plant in February 2007 after finding two boxes of beef lacking verifications to show they came from cattle that met Japan’s safety standards. The Japanese ministry also asked the US department of agriculture to investigate how the box containing the banned parts ended up in Japan. Japan will await results of a US investigation to determine the penalty for the Tyson factory, the ministry said. Japan banned all US beef imports in 2003 after the first case of mad cow disease was discovered in the US. Japan resumed buying American beef in 2006 after a bilateral trade agreement setting new safety standards. Mad cow disease, formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is a degenerative nerve disease in cattle. In humans, eating meat products contaminated with the illness is linked to variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a rare and fatal malady. Under the bilateral trade agreement, US exporters must remove spinal columns, brain tissue and other parts considered linked to mad cow disease. US beef shipments to Japan must also come only from cattle age 20 months or younger, which are believed to pose less of a risk. Washington has repeatedly criticized Japan for its tough import restrictions, which authorities say have no scientific basis. US officials have urged Japan to allow imports of beef from cattle aged up to 30 months, a widely used safety standard elsewhere. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 10 Oct 2009 | 4:03 am China Baosteel cuts Nov steel prices by 9-13 pct - UmetalSHANGHAI (Reuters) - China's Baoshan Iron and Steel Co Ltd (Baosteel) has cut prices for its major steel products by 9-13 percent for November sales versus the October tag, industry consultancy Umetal said on Saturday.Source: Reuters: Money News | 10 Oct 2009 | 3:35 am Gunmen attack Pakistani army HQ, 8 deadRawalpindi: Four suspected militants dressed in army uniforms attacked Pakistan’s army headquarters on Saturday, killing four guards and triggering a gun battle in which the gunmen died, military officials said. The brazen attack on the tightly guarded headquarters in the city of Rawalpindi came as the army prepares a major offensive against Pakistani Taliban militants in their northwestern stronghold on the Afghan border. The gunmen drove in a white van to a main gate at the sprawling complex, and opened fire and threw at least one grenade when challenged, security officials said. The gunmen then exchanged fire with soldiers for about 40 minutes. “The situation is under control ... all the gunmen have been killed”, army spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas later told Geo Television. Four guards at the gate’s checkpost were killed, he said. Television pictures showed the white van, its doors open, where the gunmen abandoned it by concrete barriers outside the gate. Abbas and other military officials said all four gunmen had been killed but a security official said two had been captured. Al Qaeda-linked Islamist militants have launched numerous attacks in Pakistan over the past couple of years, most aimed at the security forces and government and foreign targets. The militants have attacked military targets in Rawalpindi before. Offensive looms The attack came a day after a suspected suicide car-bomber killed 49 people in the city of Peshawar in an attack the government said underscored the need for the all-out offensive. Early this year, the militants pushed to within 100 km (60 miles) of Islamabad, raising fears for nuclear-armed Pakistan’s stability. An exasperated US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the government appeared to be “abdicating” to the militants. The United States needs Pakistani help against militants crossing into Afghanistan to battle US-led forces there. But in late April the security forces launched a sustained offensive in the Swat valley, 120 km northwest of Islamabad, largely clearing Taliban from the region. The militants suffered another big blow on 5 August, when their overall leader, Baitullah Mehsud, was killed in an attack by a missile-firing US drone aircraft in South Waziristan. Mehsud’s death and reports of infighting about who would take over as leader raised hopes that the militants were in disarray. But in recent weeks violence has been picking up after a relative lull following Mehsud’s killing. The government ordered the army to go on the offensive in South Waziristan in June and security forces have been launching air and artillery strikes, while moving in troops, blockading the region and trying to split off factions. The army has declined to say when it would send in ground troops. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 10 Oct 2009 | 3:31 am CBS and Cablevision reach new TV dealNEW YORK (Reuters) - Cablevision Systems Corp reached a new deal with CBS Corp to carry its broadcast network as well as cable channels Showtime, the Smithsonian Channel, and CBS College Sports Network, the companies said on Friday.Source: Reuters: Money News | 10 Oct 2009 | 3:16 am National Semi's CEO retires, COO takes helmSAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - National Semiconductor Corp Chief Executive Brian Halla plans to retire at the end of November, and Chief Operating Officer and company veteran Donald Macleod will take up his post.Source: Reuters: Money News | 10 Oct 2009 | 3:11 am Investments in US venture capital funds plungeSAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Disappointed investors who threatened to abandon venture capital have carried through, sending the number of new funds tumbling and signaling a smaller industry with fewer venture capitalists.Source: Reuters: Money News | 10 Oct 2009 | 3:10 am CEO of Brazil airline TAM unexepectedly resignsSAO PAULO (Reuters) - The chief executive of Brazil's TAM Linhas Aereas resigned unexpectedly on Friday after less than two years on the job, prompting the airline to promote its chief financial officer on an interim basis.Source: Reuters: Money News | 10 Oct 2009 | 3:08 am Chhattisgarh to pump in Rs.19.64 bn to boost irrigationThe Chhattisgarh government will construct 27 irrigation projects at the cost of Rs.19.64 billion to boost agriculture production in the state.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 10 Oct 2009 | 3:00 am National Spot Exchange wants to sign MoU with Bihar govt for expansionThe National Spot Exchange (NSE) has proposed to sign an agreement with Bihar government seeking to expand its area of operation in the fields of agriculture and food processing.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 10 Oct 2009 | 2:47 am Sensex falls 2.87 percent this weekA benchmark index of the Indian equities markets slipped 2.87 percent from its last weekly close as traders remained uncertain about the sustainability of a rally that has seen some scrip prices appreciate over 100 percent.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 10 Oct 2009 | 2:02 am Dow hits 2009 closing high on earnings optimismUS stocks climbed on Friday, with the Dow hitting a closing high for 2009, as investors anticipated positive news from next week's key earnings reports.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 10 Oct 2009 | 1:47 am Gas row: Reliance Infra agrees to pay mktg margin to RIL - Moneycontrol.com
Source: Business - Google News | 10 Oct 2009 | 1:01 am China’s style and yuan’s ambitionThe G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh last month and the recent Fund-Bank meeting in Istanbul have led to a flurry of media speculation about the future of the dollar. This is not surprising because the dollar does look a bit tottery these days. But shakySource: Business Line - Home Page | 10 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am ‘We might have a longer period of slower growth’Though the recovery might be protracted, the Infosys CEO and Managing Director, Mr S. Gopalakrishnan, is confident that the company’s robust model would see them through the tough time. In an interview to Business Line,Source: Business Line - Home Page | 10 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am Will the Code take the joy out of receiving?The Direct Taxes Code, 2009 makes sweeping changes at the conceptual level, while professing to be simple and reader-friendly. Taxation of charitable institutions/public trusts has its share of such paradigm shift which in fact lands up such trustsSource: Business Line - Home Page | 10 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am Neighbourhood shops may reach outMumbai, Oct. 9 Neighbourhood kirana (grocery) stores, restaurants, jewellery shops, et al, may soon lobby with banks for setting up Point-of-Sale terminals on their premises.Source: Business Line - Home Page | 10 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am Monsoon helps tea output recover in AugustKochi, Oct. 9 Tea production during April-August slipped 0.7 per cent to 595 million kg against 599 million kg last year.Source: Business Line - Home Page | 10 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am GDP will grow 6.3-6.5%: PMHyderabad, Oct. 9 The Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, today reiterated that the gross domestic product (GDP) is poised to grow by 6.3 to 6.5 per cent during the year in spite of the current global economicSource: Business Line - Home Page | 10 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am India Inc opposes asset-based MATThe Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, has asked India Inc to suggest another provision to the Minimum Alternative Tax on grossSource: Business Line - Home Page | 10 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am Fund houses launching more fixed maturity plansFixed maturity plans (FMPs) are being seen as an attractive investment option owing to the decline in the returns offered by liquid and liquid plus schemes in the past few months.Source: Business Line - Home Page | 10 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am Infosys beats estimates, returns to sequential growth in Q2Bangalore Oct. 9 Buoyed by an improving business climate and favourable cross currency movement, Infosys Technologies Ltd returned to a sequential growth in the September quarter.Source: Business Line - Home Page | 10 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am Tata Motors raises $750 m to clear Jaguar bridge loanMumbai, Oct. 9 Tata Motors on Friday raised $750 million (around Rs 3,500 crore) through the issue of Global Depository Shares and Foreign Currency Convertible Notes to repay the balance of the bridge loan it had raised for acquiring Jaguar andSource: Business Line - Home Page | 10 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am Weekly review: Sensex ignores +ves, ends down 3% - Business Standard
Source: Business - Google News | 9 Oct 2009 | 11:48 pm Infy bucks recession, logs profitsIt major Posts 3.1% year-on-year increase in revenues, 7.5% rise in profits; Across the board hikes of 2% to 8%.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 9 Oct 2009 | 10:27 pm BHEL to revamp offshore oil rigs biz - Sify
Source: Business - Google News | 9 Oct 2009 | 10:04 pm ANALYSIS - The dollar's slump is good news for corporate earningsNEW YORK (Reuters) - Next week investors could get the clearest indication yet of whether revenues are growing again for U.S. companies as a number of bellwethers are likely to see a benefit from the dollar's weakness.Source: Reuters: Money News | 9 Oct 2009 | 9:35 pm Bollywood glamour will add to India Couture WeekIt will be a six-day star-studded extravaganza. The second edition of the HDIL India Couture Week will see top notch Bollywood stars like Amitabh Bachchan, Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Akshay Kumar, Sanjay Dutt and Saif Ali Khan walk the ramp for the fashion pageant that kicks off here Sunday.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 9 Oct 2009 | 9:00 pm WSJ says it taking No.1 spot on USA Today lossesNEW YORK (Reuters) - Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal said on Friday it was now the largest U.S. newspaper by weekday circulation after USA Today, long No. 1, said in a memo its circulation had declined and likely knocked it down to No. 2.Source: Reuters: Money News | 9 Oct 2009 | 8:26 pm 50000 airline employees plan all-India trade union - Economic Times
Source: Business - Google News | 9 Oct 2009 | 6:56 pm Pipavav lists at a premium, but closes lower - Economic Times
Source: Business - Google News | 9 Oct 2009 | 6:40 pm Infosys revises FY10 revenue estimates, Q2 net up 7.5% - Economic Times
Source: Business - Google News | 9 Oct 2009 | 5:52 pm Tata Motors raises $750 million - Economic Times
Source: Business - Google News | 9 Oct 2009 | 5:12 pm Tata Coffee sees instant coffee exports revivingTata Coffee is seeing a revival on the horizon after a lacklustre show last fiscal.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 9 Oct 2009 | 4:59 pm Financial firms may sell India back office opsGlobal financial firms, emerging from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, are looking to shed India back office operations.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 9 Oct 2009 | 4:55 pm 'If normalcy returns, industry can grow at 10-20%'Despite a tough environment, Infosys Technologies was able to grow volumes by 2.3% and revenues in dollar terms by 2.8%.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 9 Oct 2009 | 4:50 pm Banning sub-PLR loans won't end banks' rate abuseA business paper last month broke a story about how the Reserve Bank of India is planning to ban all sub-PLR loans for tenures beyond a year.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 9 Oct 2009 | 4:48 pm Will the number of TV channels be curbed?The spectrum war is not limited to the telecom space alone; it has spilled over to the broadcasting sector as well.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 9 Oct 2009 | 4:39 pm SKS Microfinance lining up for IPOIn a first in India, SKS Microfinance, the largest microfinance company, is seeking a listing on Indian stock exchanges.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 9 Oct 2009 | 4:37 pm When investing in precious metals, be patientIt's not surprising that investors interested in precious metals are looking for commentators who will provide them with short-term "calls" on the prices for precious metals.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 9 Oct 2009 | 3:45 pm Investment banks in hiring modeDemand zooms for expertise in equity, infrastructure & telecom.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 9 Oct 2009 | 1:26 pm Swine flu toll climbs to 4.525: WHOGeneva: At least 4,525 people have died from swine flu infections since the A(H1N1) virus was uncovered in April, the World Health Organisation said on Friday. This is an increase of 417 fatal cases from a week ago when 4,108 deaths were recorded, the UN health agency said in its weekly update of the pandemic. Most deaths occurred in the American region, where 3,292 fatalities have been reported. Some 890 people have died from the infection in the Asia-Pacific region, while at least 193 fatal cases have been recorded in Europe. Eighty deaths have been reported in the West Asia while in Africa, 70 people have succumbed to the disease. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 9 Oct 2009 | 1:26 pm ICAI seeks info on audit with foreign tie-upsInstitute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) has sought broad-ranging information about the association of its member institutions with foreign auditing firms.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 9 Oct 2009 | 1:25 pm Casino project to get Rs35 cr PE fundingIn a first in India, a casino being built by Daman Hospitality Pvt. Ltd (DHPL) is raising Rs35 crore from Madison India Real Estate Fund Ltd, a $150 million (Rs698 crore) fund managed by Paracor Capital Advisors Pvt. Ltd, a person familiar with the matter said on condition of anonymity. DHPL is building the casino at a resort in the Union territory of Daman near the west coast in Maharashtra. The resort is being developed and managed by the $172 million, New York-listed gaming, entertainment and hospitality chain Thunderbird Resorts. Srinidhi Rao, country head of Thunderbird, confirmed the development. Anil Pathak, CEO and managing director of Paracor Capital Advisors, had earlier this week declined to comment on the transaction. Paracor’s previous investments in realty have been in hotel chain Sabari Inn and a residential development near Chennai. In India, casinos are legal only in Daman and Diu, Goa and Sikkim. The private equity (PE) investment in an Indian casino comes at a time when the global industry is facing depressed consumer spending and huge debts. Station Casinos Inc., one of the largest in Las Vegas, US, which became the biggest PE-controlled firm to file for bankruptcy earlier this year, is a case in point. The deal is interesting in the Indian context, too. PE deal flow in leisure and hospitality businesses, largely driven by consumer sentiment and discretionary spending, has suffered a steep fall in the first nine months of calendar 2009. Even though PE firms invested $127 million across 11 deals in January to September last year, they pumped in only $40 million over nine deals so far in 2009, according to VCCEdge, the financial research platform of VCCircle. DHPL’s casino, which aims to start operations by the end of this year, will be branded as Fiesta and have a gaming licence under the Gambling Act of Goa, Daman and Diu, 1976. The project, spread across 40,000 sq. ft, is expected to cost around Rs375 crore, including a 200-room resort. The casino is expected to have 500 electronic slot machines and will host games such as poker, blackjack and roulette. DHPL is promoted by Ketan Patel, son of former Daman and Diu Congress MP Dahya Patel. feedback@livemint.com Content from VCCircle Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 9 Oct 2009 | 1:22 pm Sebi mulls stricter warrant normsPromoters to face heat on Preferential issues.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 9 Oct 2009 | 1:20 pm Traffic turn-ons and an old bubble  Illustration: Jayachandran / Mint So what does relieve it? The researchers say it’s the price of travelling. Impose congestion charges, raise the price of fuel or increase parking charges and road congestion will improve. But perhaps increasing the number of highways serves a different purpose. If the researchers are right, that should lead to a rise in the vehicles using those roads. In other words, build the roads and growth will follow. New Evidence on the First Financial Bubble—by Rik GP Frehen, William N Goetzmann and K Geert Rouwenhorst Studying bubbles is in vogue these days and what could be a more worthy subject than the South Sea Bubble of 1720, one of the earliest examples of irrational speculative mania? Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about it: “The South Sea Company was a British joint stock company that traded in South America during the 18th century. Founded in 1711, the company was granted a monopoly to trade in Spain’s South American colonies as part of a treaty during the War of Spanish Succession. In return, the company assumed the national debt England had incurred during the war. Speculation in the company’s stock led to a great economic bubble known as the South Sea Bubble in 1720, which caused financial ruin for many.”  Illustration: Jayachandran / Mint That is why, apart from the South Sea Company, the shares of other companies involved in the Atlantic trade and in insurance also rose at the time. Their conclusion: you need a plausible story to justify investor enthusiasm. That’s rather obvious—what else do all those grand investment themes by analysts do but sell stories. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 9 Oct 2009 | 1:17 pm Naxal attack seen as ploy to disrupt polls in MaharashtraGadchiroli, Maharashtra: The Naxalite attack at Bhamragad in Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli district, in which 17 policemen were killed, could have been an attempt by the Maoists to seek attention during election time, top state officials said on Friday.  Hard-hit: A commando stands guard at the spot in Gadchiroli where the attack by Naxalites killed 17 policemen. Satish Bate / Hindustan Times Friday’s attack, which came a day after the cabinet committee on security gave the go-ahead for a massive strike involving nearly 75,000 paramilitary forces against the Naxalites, could also be a reaction to the Union government move, said Surinder Kumar, inspector general, Nagpur. Listen to Liz Matthew reporting live from Gadchiroli on the Maoist killings “It could have been an attempt to create panic just ahead of the elections,” said Maharashtra home minister Jayant Patil, who was in Gadchiroli when the bodies of the security personnel were brought to the district police headquarters, where hundreds of villagers and top police officials paid tribute to them. The district is situated in the southeastern corner of Maharashtra, and borders Chhattisgarh in the east and Andhra Pradesh in the south and south-west, both states that have Naxalite strongholds. Patil admitted that the joint combing operations by the states have been stopped for a while in Maharashtra, in view of the state elections. According to police officials, on Thursday morning a team of 20 police personnel left Lahiri sub-post after receiving a tip that some Maoists were hiding in the forest 5km away. “They had informed the Bhamragad police centre and reached the spot to clear the area. While they were returning, the Naxals, more than 200 of them, attacked the last group of policemen. It was a well-planned attack from all sides,” an official in the anti-Naxalite operation force said. The official, who requested anonymity, said the incident could have been avoided if police headquarters could have sent more forces in helicopters in time to the spot. The Naxals killed the policemen after a 5-hour gun battle. Although the police said there were casualties among the Maoists too, they could not give details. “Usually, the Naxals do not leave their companions’ dead bodies at the battle spot. We are sending special teams to make the assessment,” Maharashtra director general of police S.S. Virk said. This is the fourth such incident this year in Maharashtra. liz.m@livemint.com Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 9 Oct 2009 | 1:13 pm How to buy an IPL cricketerNew Delhi: All the clichés are true: Twenty20 cricket is a young man’s game, skewed towards the batsman, and with a voracious hunger for quick runs. And if, after two seasons of the Indian Premier League (IPL), we didn’t know that already, we now have empirical confirmation from the academic world. In a paper to be soon published in the Journal of Sports Economics, Ajit Karnik, a professor of economics at the Middlesex University campus in Dubai, placed the IPL player auction of 2008 under the scrutiny of an econometric instrument known as hedonic regression. The result was an equation to help determine a cricketer’s value; the more remarkable by-product, however, was its accurate picks of IPL 2008’s four semi-finalists and its eventual winner. Hedonic regression is not, as its name implies, a slide into the quest of unalloyed pleasure. “Say you’re buying a car. There are various characteristics of the car, such as engine power, mileage, looks and so on,” Karnik says. “But when you pay a lump sum, you don’t say: ‘I’m paying so much for the engine, so much for the looks.’ So in hedonics, you try to infer the value of the various characteristics for this kind of product.” The “product”, in this case, is the sportsman, and hedonic regression has, in fact, been long used in the study of American sports. In 1974, for instance, the influential sports economist Gerald Scully wrote a paper titled Pay and Performance in Major League Baseball to measure the economic value of a baseball player. When he updated that paper in 1989, Scully was able to state: “Four factors are crucial to the determination of player salaries: the overall quality of player performance; the weight or fraction of the player’s contribution to team performance; the experience of the player; and, the popularity or recognizability of the player to the fans.” But the opportunity to deploy hedonics in cricket came only with IPL, Karnik points out, because that was the first instance where players operated in a free market, to be bought or sold like free agents in baseball or like footballers in the English Premier League. “I was looking at the auction in February 2008, and people were quoting astronomical figures for players,” he says. “So I figured there must be a reason they’re doing this, and I wanted to try to get the players’ characteristics.” Here’s where it helped to be a cricket nut as well as an economist. The basic price equation would have to include runs and wickets, and Karnik knew enough about the non-stop nature of Twenty20 to fold age into that mix as well. For data, he used the players’ previous one-day international records, since many of the cricketers in the auction hadn’t played even a single Twenty20 game. Then Karnik stress-tested a number of other additional variables against each other, to figure out which would prove significant and which wouldn’t. That told him to include strike rate, and it also introduced a premium if the player was Indian or Australian—“Indian because the IPL was being held in India,” he says, “and Australian just because of their sheer performance over the last decade”. After what he calls “this very painful process”, involving long hours on ESPNcricinfo, Karnik had his equation. Speaking strictly from the econometric point of view, the IPL franchises value every run at $34 (Rs1,581) and every wicket (“like gold dust in cricket”, Karnik remarks) at $679. Every year a player ages shaves $20,027 off his market value, and every one-unit increase in strike rate is worth $1,226. Plugging into the equation the cricketers’ eventual performance in IPL 2008, and comparing that with the prices paid for him at the auction, Karnik was able to work out the rates of return for each of the franchises. The four franchises with the highest rates of return turned out to be the four semi-finalists, and the franchise with the very highest rate—getting a 58.5% return on its investment—was the Rajasthan Royals. “I was quite pleased to see that, although I don’t think the hedonics model usually picks the winner,” Karnik observes. That first orgy of player-buying now in the past, he thinks that the bidding will become less idiosyncratic and more shrewd. “The best part of the study, of course, is that after having been an armchair cricketer for years, I could finally work with the game I love.” samanth.s@livemint.com Source: Home - Livemint.com | 9 Oct 2009 | 1:13 pm Quick Edit | A Nobel for hopeful speechesNobel Prizes celebrate human achievements of a high order. The peace prize is usually awarded for solutions to complex political problems faced by the world. In that light, the award of the 2009 prize to US President Barack Obama is rather surprising. The prize committee said the award went to Obama for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples”. It attached special importance to his vision and work for a world without nuclear weapons. It’s another matter that that vision is yet to be realized and lives in the realm of speeches at the United Nations. In a sense, the award is a European reaction to the George Bush Jr era. The committee gave the game away when it said that “thanks to Obama’s initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role...” But then, this is a season of life and hope in Scandinavia. This year, the prizes in medicine and chemistry celebrate the big questions of life. Hardly surprising that the peace prize went for tilting at the windmills. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 9 Oct 2009 | 1:13 pm Infosys | Cautious but ‘optimistic’ on growthBangalore: While Infosys Technologies Ltd chief executive officer S. Gopalakrishnan is optimistic, he says in an interview that a full-fledged recovery is still some time ahead. Edited excerpts: Is this the beginning of the growth period for Indian IT (information technology) services firms?  Flexibility factor: The Infosys CEO says Indian IT has managed the transition to a new environment well and will emerge stronger. Hemant Mishra / Mint (The) second thing is how the recovery happens. Let us say it is flat or recovery sustains again, it is positive for us. We are not completely out of the woods, we are seeing light and we know that we can manage the situation very well. About the future, we are cautious. Optimistic, but still cautious. Is the caution because of the high unemployment situation in the US? Yes, that is in some sense expected. If you look at all analysts’ expectations, the recovery is going to be a jobless recovery. Many of the jobs that were lost may not come back, because these are industries in transition and these were because of higher leverage, asset bubble created in real estate. That is the reason why people believe the recovery is protracted. But tech forecasters such as Forrester say that IT spending will pick up from this quarter? In fact the indications we are getting are that budgets will be flat. We have to wait and see. Hardware firms are getting into services, similar to what Dell did in buying Perot Systems. Would this have an impact on Indian IT companies? I don’t believe so. I strongly believe there is a role for companies like Infosys. Firms that play in the application and services space provide the comfort to clients of not being locked to a technology standard. They want the flexibility, the best option of either the technology or service perspective, and the reality is that you have existing investments. That is the reason why they would like to partner with an independent services company like Infosys. That is why we clearly believe that Indian IT services will not have an impact. Has the US banking and financial services industry moved out of the downturn? Yes, I think so. Because of the money that is put in to improve their health, stabilize them. Financial services has emerged out of this downturn first. And they are starting to invest back, and move back to normalcy. Also, they need to invest in new systems to manage risk (and) regulatory changes. When they will have an impact, clearly all of them require IT services. Is there more confidence now in large Indian IT services firms than in the past? Yes, I think the Indian IT services industry has weathered this better, especially the larger companies. They have been able to manage this transition to a new environment. Some people call this (the) new normal. They will emerge out of this stronger. raghu.k@livemint.com Source: Home - Livemint.com | 9 Oct 2009 | 1:12 pm Payouts shrink to conserve cashMumbai: Investors in large-cap firms who saw their wealth erode by some 37% because of a drop in share prices last fiscal also saw smaller dividend cheques as firms decided to conserve cash during the credit crunch. A Mint study of large-cap firms that constitute the Bombay Stock Exchange’s (BSE) bellwether equity index, the 30-stock Sensex, and the broader 50-stock Nifty showed that the dividend payout ratio, or the proportion of net profit distributed to shareholders, declined to a seven-year low. The analysis covers 29 Sensex stocks and 45 Nifty stocks for which comparable data is available. Barring one, all Sensex firms are part of the Nifty. For the Sensex firms, the dividend payment as a percentage of net profit declined to 25.81% in fiscal 2009, from 26.92% a year ago. The ratio fell to 24.99% for Nifty firms, down from 25.55% in fiscal 2008. These numbers include special or one-time dividends. Also See Guarding The Kitty (Graphics) “Companies wanted to conserve capital,” said Chetan Parikh, who heads wealth management firm Jeetay Investments Pvt. Ltd. The smaller dividend payout may also indicate that “companies themselves were not sure about sustainability of profits”. In the second half of the last fiscal, the global financial system choked with toxic debt and banks across the world refused to lend to each other, let alone companies, making money dearer. The collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. triggered the credit crisis that rocked the global financial system. Also, with the world slipping into a recession, and denting sales and profits, firms generated less cash. For the same set of Sensex firms, profits grew only by 5.37%, the lowest for at least six years, and for Nifty firms, it gained only 1.39%. To be sure, dividend payouts in India in particular and emerging markets in general are typically lower than those in developed economies. “There is so much growth potential here, so dividend payout is lower,” said Satish Ramanathan, who manages Rs13,300 crore at SundaramBNP Paribas Asset Management Co. Ltd. He said this ratio can go up to 60% in developed markets. Firms such as Bharti Airtel Ltd, India’s largest telecom firm by subscribers, paid a dividend for the first time in many years only in 2009, because it was able to reward investors thanks to a share price run-up. Between 2003 and 2008, when India’s stock market was in a firm bull grip, Bharti’s stock rose 29 times while the Sensex rose five times. “It’s a cyclical thing,” said Hitesh Agrawal, head of research at Angel Broking Ltd. Fiscal year 2009 “profits were undoubtedly under pressure. Companies also had a lot of debt and capital expenditure plans”. At the same time, the dividend payout ratio for the broader market, or the BSE-500 index firms that make up 93% of India’s market capitalization, grew to 23.75% against 22.44% a year ago. But as Agrawal explains, “Not all the mid-cap companies had big capital expenditure plans.” Besides, these numbers are not adjusted for special or one-time dividends for firms such as EID Parry Ltd, which distributed 38 times more money in fiscal 2009 compared with a year ago. Typically, larger, mature firms have a higher dividend payout ratio. Among India’s top firms, Hindustan Unilever Ltd, the country’s largest consumer goods company, paid some 65% of its profit (of the last 15 months instead of 12 due to a change in the accounting year) as dividend. Rival ITC Ltd distributed some 42% of its fiscal 2009 profits to shareholders. Consumer goods firms collectively paid at least one-fourth of their profits as dividends. The worst performers were telecom (6%) and realty (10%) firms. Again, state-owned firms paid 25% of their net income as dividends against 20% for privately-owned firms, partly because they didn’t have much say in the matter. While economic growth has slowed since last year, India’s fiscal deficit rose to 6% in fiscal 2009, from 2.7% in 2008, and is estimated to be 6.8% in the current fiscal, leaving the government scrambling to find new ways to mop up money. It is borrowing Rs4.51 trillion in 2010 to bridge the deficit. “For the government, this is the best way to raise resources in a legitimate manner,” said Mohan K.R. Swamy, head of equity research at the Royal Bank of Scotland Plc’s Indian equity division. “Look at oil companies. Their dividends are typically high despite running huge debts.” Indeed, the firm that distributed the largest amount of cash in 2009 was state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp. Ltd, which gave away Rs6,844 crore, or 42% of its net profit. It was followed by NTPC Ltd, a public sector power producer, that distributed Rs2,968 crore, or just above one-third of its profits to shareholders. ravi.k@livemint.com Graphics by Sandeep Bhatnagar / Mint Source: Home - Livemint.com | 9 Oct 2009 | 1:12 pm Infosys exceeds profit expectationsInfosys Technologies Ltd met Street expectations on revenue for the quarter ended September and even exceeded consensus profit estimates thanks to better-than-expected margins. Its net profit of Rs1,540 crore was around 3.4% higher than the consensus estimate of 15 analysts, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Infosys shares fell by 1.4% to Rs2,181 on Friday, more or less in line with the 1.19% fall in the benchmark Sensex, taking the overall correction in the company’s valuation to about 10% compared with its recent high of Rs2,421.  Graphics: Yogesh Kumar / Mint Infosys reported revenue of Rs5,585 crore, almost exactly in line with Street expectations, and 2.1% higher than revenue in the June quarter. Revenue grew 1.2% in constant currency terms, which refers to revenue growth stripped of the impact of currency movements. This comes after three consecutive quarters of a decline in revenue and in that light is nothing to be excited about. Volumes grew by 2.3% sequentially, while average price realization fell by 1.1% in constant currency terms, leading to the unexciting growth in revenue. Chief operating officer S.D. Shibulal pointed out in a conference call with analysts that the drop in pricing is the result of a tailwind effect of pricing renegotiations in the past few quarters. For the year as a whole, pricing is expected to decline between 4.5% and 5% due to these renegotiations. The company has raised its guidance target for the year, but this fell short of Street expectations. In July, the company had said it expects revenue of between Rs21,416 crore and Rs21,747 crore in FY09. It has raised this to between Rs21,961 crore and Rs22,055 crore. This implies that it expects revenue to grow by only about 1% sequentially in the next two quarters. This again runs contrary to the Street’s prognosis that the environment for IT spending has improved considerably. V. Balakrishnan, the company’s chief financial officer, points out that the management is cautious about the short term since clients are still tentative about next year’s technology budgets and the improvement in sentiment has to still conclusively translate into spending on the ground. According to the head of research at a domestic institutional brokerage, the firm is taking the “cautious” stance too far. Another analyst at a foreign brokerage echoes this by saying that Infosys is being extremely conservative this year after missing its guidance in the previous fiscal year. According to him, the guidance for almost flat growth doesn’t fit with Infosys’ decision to increase its gross hiring target from 18,000 earlier to 20,000 employees and to give an aggressive 8% pay increase to its employees. The argument is that these decisions would not have been taken if the growth outlook wasn’t bright.  Beating estimates: The Infosys headquarters in Bangalore. The firm reported a revenue of Rs5,585 crore, almost exactly in line with Street expectations, and 2.1% higher than the June quarter revenue. Namas Bhojani / Bloomberg With the company surprising on the margin front, there may be some earnings upgrades. Infosys has been aggressively cutting costs, as is evidenced by a large rate of employee attrition. As many as 4,521 employees left the company in the September quarter, almost the same as the June quarter. On an annualized basis, this works out to an attrition rate of 17%. According to the company management, there was a one-time involuntary attrition in the June quarter based on an annual evaluation process. The fact that attrition continues to be high at over 17% suggests that Infosys is still aggressively letting go of people. It seems unlikely, after all, that voluntary attrition would be very high during a slowdown. With freshers replacing experienced hands at an increasing pace quarter after quarter, the company’s cost base will get leaner. This, of course, will be offset by the 8% wage hike granted by the company effective October. But in the long term, the employee cost structure seems to be slimming down. Still, as pointed out earlier, even if Infosys beats its guidance for the year and the reported profit is close to Street expectations, valuations are stretched at over 21 times earnings. The current share price factors in a sharp recovery in the next fiscal year and is also, to some extent, pricing in growth, in FY12. This may be too premature, and investors would do well to heed some of the caution of the Infosys management. Write to us at marktomarket@livemint.com Source: Home - Livemint.com | 9 Oct 2009 | 1:09 pm On tax code, India Inc bats for masses - Economic Times
Source: Business - Google News | 9 Oct 2009 | 1:00 pm The Mint report for 9 Oct 2009New Delhi: Mumbai’s I-T department says ABG Shipyard has violated tax rules. After two days of searches at the company’s offices, the I-T department says it has found “undisclosed income” of some Rs122 core. But ABG Shipyard is denying the allegations and says it believes it has complied with tax laws. The latest developments come at a time when ABG is in a bidding war with Bharti Shipyard for a controlling stake in Great Offshore, India’s largest offshore services company. Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee says he expects an improvement in annual GDP growth in the October to December quarter but has added that India also needs a balanced approach on interest rates so it can encourage growth and keep inflation in check. Mukherjee’s statement comes soon after the RBI indicated that it was time to reign in its loose monetary policy. Infosys posted better than expected second quarter results. Net profit went up 7.5% to Rs1,540 crore while revenue for the quarter increased 3% to Rs5,148 crore. The company also raised its full year guidance to Rs21,961 crore and Rs22,055 crore, which is an yearly growth of 1.2% to 1.7%. Tata Motors says it has raised $750 million through GDRs and convertible bonds to help pay off the debt it accumulated after it bought Jaguar Land Rover last year. The company had a consolidated debt of about $5.2 billion partly because of the $2.5 billion purchase of the two car companies. Bhel said it is planning overseas acquisitions to enter new markets and will diversify into transmission, transportation and even nuclear power. The company says it will focus on the former Soviet republics and Europe. Parsvnath Developers says it expect revenues of over Rs5,000 crore in the next two and a half years and is looking to raise about Rs5,000 crore in the current fiscal year by selling equity. The company also says it plans to cut down it’s current debt of about Rs1,400 crore rupees by more than Rs500 crores. Bharat Petroleum plans to raise Rs1,000 crore in a bond sale to fund its capital expenditure. The bonds will mature in October of 2012 and will pay an interest of 7.73%. Anil Ambani’s Reliance infrastructure has agreed to pay RIL a marketing margin, but says it’s doing so under protest. Reliance Infrastructure had been paying a marketing margin of $0.135 per million British thermal units for over four months. But in September it stopped the payments, calling them “unauthorized and illegal”. RIL and Anil Ambani’s RNRL are in the midst of a legal dispute over gas supplies. Markets fell on Friday taking losses for the week to almost 3%. The Sensex plummeted 201 points to end trade at 16,643 and the Nifty went down 57 points to close at 4,945. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 9 Oct 2009 | 1:00 pm The week in review for 9 Oct 2009New Delhi: The group of state finance ministers meeting to discuss the proposed goods and services tax, or GST, has decided to produce a draft paper on the tax. The paper is expected to discuss the implications of the different models that states had proposed for GST. But some states still have their misgivings and want the group of finance ministers to proceed cautiously. Air India plans to lease out seven of its aircraft as part of its efforts to use its assets more efficiently. Aviation experts say Air India may be leasing out the aircraft because some of them are difficult to operate profitably. But leasing out planes may not be enough to turn Air India around. A senior government official told Mint that Nacil, the company that runs Air India, has posted losses of Rs2000 crore in the last six months and is estimated to have losses of Rs5,000 crore for the full financial year. Air India already had losses totaling Rs5,000 crore in the fiscal year 2008-09. Meanwhile India’s airline regulator, the DGCA has issued show-cause notices to JetLite, Paramount Airways and MDLR demanding explanations for what it says are inadequate safety provisions. The DGCA says JetLite lacked the necessary air safety infrastructure, while Paramount Airways has fallen behind in 69 areas of aircraft maintenance and doesn’t have a proper investigation board. The DGCCA also says MDLR has inadequately trained staff and lacks emergency procedures. While the show cause notices do not necessarily mean the airlines are unsafe, they indicate some safety procedures are not being followed. Also on Tuesday, telecom stocks plummeted on concerns about tariff wars and a proposal from the telecom regulator to make operators charge calls by the second rather than by the minute. Bharti Airtel shares dropped 10.76%, while Reliance Communications went down 10.61% and Idea Cellular lost 8.02%. Recently Tata Tele Services introduced a billing plan that would charge by the second and Reliance Communication followed with a 50paise tariff plan. Reliance Industries Limited announced a gift for its shareholders on Wednesday, giving them one free share for every share that they hold. The last time the company issued bonus shares was in 1997. On Wednesday RIL’s board also proposed an interim dividend of Rs13 a share for 2008-09, which will cost the company Rs2,219 crore. Analysts say RIL wants to appease investors at a time when it’s engaged in a legal battle over revenues from its profitable KG D6 gas field. The Finance and Investment Committee of the EPFO has deferred to 24 October, a decision on investing the some of fund’s money in stock markets. EPFO currently has a corpus of about Rs257,000 crore. Inflation continues to rise with the wholesale price index going up to 0.7% in the week ending the 26 September from a year earlier. In recent weeks, surging commodity prices have driven up prices in India and other Asian countries. Larsen and Toubro has raised $600 million to fund its expansions plans. It raised $400 million by selling shares and $200 million through foreign currency convertible debentures. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 9 Oct 2009 | 1:00 pm Kashmir’s lost generationAs the evening call for prayers from Srinagar’s Hazratbal mosque resounds over the Dal Lake, Ajaz walks through one of the city’s many graveyards. The young man in worn-out jeans and a body-hugging T-shirt swaggers past unkempt tombstones, counting friends and family that are buried there—all 21 of them. He tells me how he can still see the smiling face of Mushtaq, who was his senior at school, and who would have been 27 this year. He tells me about another friend, Javed, who was his parents’ only son. The day he died, he was wearing Ajaz’s clothes. Also SeeAt8 Ball, a snooker den in central Srinagar frequented by 15- to 20-year-olds who’re innocent but trying hard not to be. The den is a place where they can forget the violence and the bandhs of the old city. Ajaz, 23 (centre), has no interest in studying or any real aspirations, except to have fun. He and his friend Sajid (extreme left) smoke at a fair ground in Srinagar. The conversation meanders, as it always does in Kashmir, into what they call the ‘Kashmir masla (issue)’. ‘Keep us this side or that side, how does it matter? We just want to get on with our lives,’ says Sajid. Kashmir finds itself in the grip of a religious orthodoxy, where it is not socially acceptable for young Kashmiri women to wearWestern clothes. But the young men have almost abandoned their traditional clothes for T-shirts and jeans. Ajaz at a snooker parlour at Dal Boulevard. Even though all such hangouts in Srinagar have been bombed at some point or function as Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) bunkers, fashion stands its ground here.Low-waist jeanshold up a small reminder. Twenty-one-year-oldFarhanais Ajaz’s girlfriend. She sips her beer in a shikara on Dal Lake—one of the few places she can be herself, away from the prying eyes of Srinagar’s moral police. Farhana drinks and smokes discreetly and thinks of the two vices as acts of rebellion and modernity, both at once. Scuffles, usually a result of bets gone wrong, often break out at the snooker parlours. Javed was 23 and had spent the night at his house. Ajaz remembers that 6 hours after his death, when they took his body for burial, blood was still oozing from his bullet wounds. Every epitaph here tells a story—the tragic story of a generation lost. Ajaz lingers for a bit, staring glassy-eyed into the distance, till he eventually snaps out of it. “Enough of this tragedy, let’s go have some fun.” Ajaz is part of Kashmir’s “lost generation”, an entire generation of youth that has grown up in a Kashmir ravaged by 20 years of turmoil. They are an age group with no real ambitions or motivations, just a preoccupation with survival. Ajaz spends his days at 8 Ball, a smoky snooker den at Lal Chowk in the city centre. The parlour is inhabited by 15- to 20-year-olds. And this is their home turf, a place where they escape the tear gas and rubber bullets of the old city—to gamble and smoke all too many cigarettes. Some of the older boys such as Ajaz sometimes walk to the football ground nearby to show off their hairstyles, their sunglasses, their cigarettes, their tattoos and, sometimes, even their girls. At the parlour, Ajaz lights up a little block of hashish and watches it crumble into his palm. Sajid, a boy with hard cheekbones and a black jacket with a woven trim, empties tobacco from a cigarette with his long fingers. He looks slightly mad for some reason. Look at these boys closely and there’s a sense of overgrown teenage urgency and escape, the sense that all these details—the parting of the hair, the length of the fingernails, the jacket trim, the cigarette grip—matter greatly. “Smoking up is haram (sin). But I can’t go through a day without rolling one. It helps us forget,” Ajaz tells me as Sajid grunts in approval. Ajaz’s cellphone rings with a polyphonic rendition of a song from the Hindi movie Ghajini. It’s his girlfriend Farhana. They flirt awkwardly on the phone, the conversation no different than one two lovers would have in a Mumbai college. This is the signal to step out. Ajaz first stops at Broadway Cinema, a bombed out theatre, the upper floors of which have now been converted into a bar. A couple of beer cans are procured and cigarette cartons are refilled. Ajaz then picks up Farhana from a pre-decided spot. Once all of us are in an autorickshaw, Farhana lets Ajaz light her cigarette. She is dressed modestly in a salwar-kameez but she admits to wearing only jeans at home. “I want to go to Mumbai or Delhi, so that I can wear a skirt and be free—just like in the movies,” she tells me as the rickshaw speeds towards their hangout den, Dal Boulevard. Ajaz waits till we’re in a shikara, or houseboat, to surprise Farhana with a can of beer. She pops it open and takes a sip. The boatman frowns but nonetheless, he manoeuvres the boat further away from the orthodoxy of Srinagar. The couple steal a kiss as a dark plume of smoke makes itself visible over the city. In Srinagar, there’s no time for love. Photographs by Akshay Mahajan The writer and photographer of this piece is a 23-year-old photojournalist based in Bangalore and a member of the online photography forum Blindboys.org. Earlier this year, he spent three weeks with the youth featured here. These pictures are part of a larger photographic series documenting youth culture in South Asia. feedback@livemint.com Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 9 Oct 2009 | 1:00 pm PM says South India flood fury will not force changes to stimulus packageHyderabad: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Friday the Indian government does not expect the flood fury in South India to have any inflationary consequences on the stimulus package announced by the government. Responding to reporter’s queries in Hyderabad after an aerial survey in flood affected areas of Andhra Pradesh, Singh said he does not see the need for reassessing the stimulus package announced earlier by the finance ministry and said it will continue. Further, saying that it was too early to assess the impact of floods and drought on the GDP growth, the Prime Minister said the government expects the country to report a GDP growth rate of 6.3% to 6.5% during the current fiscal. The Prime Minister, who has announced to release an assistance of Rs 1,000 crore immediately for the relief works in Andhra Pradesh, rubbished the allegations that the Centre was not releasing adequate funds to the neighboring Karnataka, worst-hit among the two Southern States, forced by political compulsions. He said he would not entertain any politics when it comes to natural calamities as long as he was the Prime Minister. Refusing to comment on whether the flood fury in AP was caused by human errors in release of excess water from the reservoirs, the Prime Minister, however, said such calamities necessitate the need to strengthen the infrastructure or national disaster management system. The Prime Minister said a joint assessment by the Centre and state on the damages in Andhra Pradesh would be made once the state government submitted a detailed memorandum. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 9 Oct 2009 | 12:14 pm Parsvnath in talks with PE firms for Rs500 crNew Delhi: Real estate firm Parsvnath Developers Ltd aims to raise as much as Rs500 crore from private equity firms by 31 March, chairman Pradeep Jain said in New Delhi on Friday. The developer is currently in talks with private equity investors to sell stakes in two projects, he said, declining to give additional details. The New Delhi-based developer also expects to sell 7 million sq. ft of homes for Rs2,000 crore in six-nine months, he said. --Bloomberg Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 9 Oct 2009 | 12:06 pm Lehman's Barclays probe should be unsealed - TrusteeNEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. Trustee, which oversees bankruptcy cases in New York, said on Friday it believes documents related to Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc's probe of its asset sale to a Barclays Plc unit should be made public, according to court documents.Source: Reuters: Money News | 9 Oct 2009 | 11:41 am Bhel to cut delivery lag, increase capacityNew Delhi: Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (Bhel), India’s biggest power-equipment maker, plans to tighten delivery schedules and increase capacity as the government gears up to reduce the nation’s electricity deficiency. “We have to scale up nearly two-and-a-half times,” chairman and managing director B. Prasada Rao said on Friday in New Delhi. “We need to get into an orbit of delivering 15,000MW of capacity each year.”  Increasing ouput: A Bhel factory at Rihand. India’s biggest power equipment maker is spending Rs1,590 crore to expand capacity. Orders worth Rs20,000 crore have been received for the financial year started 1 April, taking total contracts in hand to Rs1.25 trillion, Rao said. Bhel expects to form a venture to make power transmission equipment in the next three months, he said. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has pledged to spend Rs56,960 crore to add power plants and transmission lines in the year to 31 March. The government plans to add 78,700MW of generation capacity in the country in the five years to March 2012 and 100,000MW in the following five years. India, the world’s second fastest growing major economy, faces a peak-hour power shortage of 12.6% this year, according to the Central Electricity Authority. feedback@livemint.com Source: Home - Livemint.com | 9 Oct 2009 | 11:35 am R-Infra to pay gas marketing charges to RILNew Delhi: Reliance Infrastructure Ltd (R-Infra), India’s third largest utility, agreed to pay marketing charges sought by Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), which last month issued a notice to suspend natural gas supplies for defaulting on the payments. R-Infra sought withdrawal of the suspension notice, the company said in a letter to the oil ministry, a copy of which was emailed to Bloomberg. The ministry should advise if RIL is entitled to charge the marketing margin, according to the letter signed by vice-president Kamal Kant. The company was paying the government-approved price of $4.20 per million British thermal units, R-Infra said in a 24 September letter to RIL, a copy of which was emailed to Bloomberg. It didn’t pay the marketing charges, which are illegal and unauthorized, according to the letter. R-Infra responded to the notice of suspension by RIL on 7 October, saying it would pay the full billed amount, including the marketing charges. The two companies signed an agreement for gas supply to a plant in Andhra Pradesh on 28 April. Anil Ambani, chairman of R-Infra, wants RIL to supply gas from the KG D6 field at 44% less than the government-approved price. The Supreme Court is scheduled to start final hearings in the lawsuit from 20 October. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 9 Oct 2009 | 11:23 am Markets | Pipavav falls below its offer price in BSE debutMumbai: The shares of Pipavav Shipyard Ltd fell below its offer price on its trading debut in Mumbai on Friday after an initial share sale. The shares fell 2.07% to Rs56.8 on the Bombay Stock Exchange after rising as much as Rs64.70. The company sold shares at Rs58 apiece. --Bloomberg Investors pick up 18% in Indiabulls Power IPO Mumbai: Indiabulls Power Ltd, which will float its initial public offering (IPO) from 12-15 October, has finalized eight anchor investors for a collective 3.05% stake in the company. The company on Friday said that it would allocate 61.1 million equity shares, or 18% of the issue size, to these investors at Rs45 a share. The IPO price band has been fixed at Rs40-45, and the company will issue at least 339.8 million shares of Rs10 each, with a green shoe option of an additional 50.9 million shares. --Anirudh Laskar Advanta plans to acquire more overseas firms , board approves Rs750 crore fundraising Mumbai: Agriculture seed company Advanta India Ltd is on the lookout for foreign acquisitions and earlier this week got board approval to raise Rs750 crore through a mix of debt and equity. The new acquisition targets include an agriculture research company and at least two marketing firms that have a presence in China, Mexico and Brazil, a merchant banker familiar with the deal told Mint. He declined to be identified because the process is still ongoing. The move comes less than a year after Advanta, promoted by the country’s largest agrochemicals maker United Phosphorus Ltd, acquired two vegetable seeds companies, including Hyderabad-based Unicom Seeds Ltd for an undisclosed amount, and one firm each in the US and Australia. Advanta had revenues of Rs600 crore for fiscal 2009, and has debt of about Rs450 crore. “(A) Portion of the fund raised through a combination of equities and debt instruments will be utilised to repay this debt,” said chief financial officer Manoj Gupta, confirming the acquisition plans. The firm is also planning to increase its borrowing from the existing limit of Rs500 crore to Rs2,000 crore, it said in its communication to stock exchanges. --C.H. Unnikrishnan Source: Home - Livemint.com | 9 Oct 2009 | 11:18 am Tata Motors raises $750 mn to repay debtMumbai: Tata Motors Ltd on Friday raised $750 million (Rs3,487 crore) selling securities to finish repaying debt from the takeover of Jaguar Land Rover. India’s largest auto maker by revenues has $700 million in debt that remains from the $3 billion bridge loan it took to buy the British marquee brands from Ford Motor Co. in 2008. The remaining $50 million would meet working capital needs and other expenses. Tata Motors sold 29.9 million global depository receipts (GDRs) at $12.54 apiece and 4% convertible notes due in 2014, it said. The GDR price is a 1.5% discount to the closing price on Thursday, it added. The GDRs and notes will be listed in Luxembourg. Tata Motors fell 6.6%, the most in more than three months, to Rs548.30 at close of trading in Mumbai. The benchmark Sensex index on the Bombay Stock Exchange declined 1.2%. After Friday’s drop, the conversion price for the bonds works out to be at a 4.3% premium over the current price. Tata Motors has been retiring the debt through stake sale in group companies, bond issues and fixed deposit schemes, among others. Analysts said the development was positive as it reduces the company’s debt and interest burden, but would not significantly impact its consolidated debt of Rs21,900 crore at the end of June. “The announced capital raising is certainly a positive as it will allow the company to reduce leverage, albeit not significantly, and improve its liquidity profile,” Ivan Palacios, lead analyst for Tata Motors with ratings agency Moody’s Corp., said in a statement. Jatin Chawla, analyst at local brokerage India Infoline Ltd, said more such issues and stake sales could follow. Typically, convertible bonds raised by a company are treated as debt. Analysts said that assuming the bonds are not converted into equity, Tata Motors’ debt-equity ratio will be 4.4:1. If they are converted, the ratio will be about 3.4:1. The auto maker’s consolidated debt, excluding its vehicle finance business and cash and bank balance at the end of June, was Rs21,900 crore. Its consolidated net debt-to-equity ratio for the same period was 3.7:1. The introduction of the $2,500 Nano contributed to Tata’s vehicle sales, excluding Jaguar Land Rover, rising in the three months through September, the longest winning streak in at least two years. Commercial vehicle sales also rose 10% in September and 28% in August after banks cut interest rates and India’s economy expanded for the first time since 2007 in the three months ended June. Following the announcement by Tata Motors, Moody’s Investors Service said in a statement that Tata Motors’ equity and convertible bond offering would have no immediate impact on the company’s B3 corporate family rating and stable outlook. Moody judges obligations rated B as a low investment grade rating. Bloomberg contributed to this story. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 9 Oct 2009 | 11:15 am Fed reverse repo tests don't signal tighteningNEW YORK (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve's recent tests of its systems for reverse repurchase agreements are merely mechanical and it is highly unlikely there is any imminent plan to drain reserves, dealers said on Friday.Source: Reuters: Money News | 9 Oct 2009 | 11:14 am Nasa rockets blast moon’s surface in search of waterWashington: The US blasted the surface of the moon on Friday with two rockets on a mission to look for water below the lunar surface that could be used by astronauts on future space missions, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) said. The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) satellite crashed into the Cabeus crater floor near the moon’s south pole at around 9,000km per hour, followed four minutes later by a shepherding spacecraft equipped with cameras to record the impact.  Space exploration: An illustration of Nasa’s LCROSS and its Centaur booster rocket on course to crash into the moon’s surface. Scientists had previously theorized that, except for the possibility of ice at the bottom of craters, the moon was totally dry. Finding water on Earth’s natural satellite would be a major breakthrough in space exploration and pave the way toward future lunar bases for drinking water or fuel, or even man living on another planet. Grainy thermal images carried on the US space agency’s television station showed colder blue sites and warmer red sites on the moon’s surface, but there was no apparent light flash as the rockets made impact. Cameras mounted on the 891kg shepherding spacecraft were to beam live footage of the initial impact as the craft flew through the debris plume, collecting and relaying key data back to Earth before it too ploughs into the moon. However, a camera on the spacecraft did not capture an image of the impact as hoped, but scientists said they were confident that the explosive hit took place as planned. “We didn’t see a big splashy plume like we wanted to see,” said Michael Bicay, director of science at the Nasa’s Ames Research Center. “We don’t anticipate anything about presence or absence of water immediately. It’s going to take us some time,” cautioned Anthony Colaprete, project scientist and principal investigator for the $79 million LCROSS mission, which is also the first preparatory mission of the Constellation programme that aims to send Americans back to the moon by 2020. Colaprete projected it would take several days for analysts to evaluate the data. The LCROSS and was launched in June aboard the Atlas V with another probe—the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which is tasked with producing a detailed map of the moon. Nasa scientists will be looking at what spews out after 350 tonnes of debris is ejected from the cold, dark Cabeus crater, staking its hopes on water in the form of ice. The crater is 100km across and between 2.5-4km deep. (‘Reuters’ contributed to this story.) Source: Tech News - Livemint.com | 9 Oct 2009 | 10:42 am Mercedes to run triple-axle luxury coaches in India next fiscalPremium auto maker Mercedes-Benz plans to roll out triple-axle intercity luxury coaches on Indian roads in financial year 2010-2011, a top company official said here Friday.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 9 Oct 2009 | 10:30 am CBI begins probing allegations against oil regulatorThe Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Friday began its probe into the allegations against the Director General of Hydrocarbons, V.K. Sibal, that he took 'favours' from Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 9 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am Tougher criteria on the way for starting new TV channelFaced with a deluge of applications from those wishing to start a new TV channel, the information and broadcasting ministry has written to the telecom watchdog TRAI seeking its advice on introducing additional criteria to weed out non-serious players.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 9 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am Too early to comment on impact of drought, floods: PMPrime Minister Manmohan Singh Friday said it was to too early to comment on what would be the impact of drought and floods on the country's economy.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 9 Oct 2009 | 8:33 am HSBC InvestDirect plans to delist from Indian boursesHSBC InvestDirect has started the procedure to delist itself from Indian bourses, a top official said here Friday.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 9 Oct 2009 | 8:01 am First parcel of Mangala crude reaches Mangalore RefineryThe first parcel of crude from Cairn Energy's Mangala field reached the Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) Friday morning.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 9 Oct 2009 | 7:30 am US firm to remove oil from sunken Mongolian shipUS-based marine service firm Resolve Marine Group has won the bid to remove oil from a Mongolian vessel that sank off Paradip harbour in Orissa last month.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 9 Oct 2009 | 7:00 am Austrian Airlines plans to start another Delhi-Vienna serviceNew Delhi: After suspending its service from Mumbai, Austrian Airlines is considering plans to launch a second flight to Vienna from Delhi from next summer. “They (the airline) are considering having one additional flight out of Delhi in the summer schedule (from April next year),” Vienna Tourism Board (VTB) director Norbert Kettner said here. Replying to questions, he said the suspension of the Mumbai-Vienna flight has had a negative impact on the inflow of Indian tourists, almost 70% of whom stayed in four- or five-star hotels and spent large sums on shopping. The takeover of Austrian by German carrier Lufthansa was also one of the factors, with the merged airline being in the process of rationalising its route network, he said. But India was high on the list of countries the airline was planning to expand its operations to, Kettner said, adding that VTB and Austrian Tourism Board were in consultation with the airline to expand India operations. “Connectivity is a major issue. All signs so far are quite positive.” While the total number of overnight stays in Vienna by Indians went down by 7.8% in the first quarter of this year, it was satisfactory compared with similar figures from Germany and the UK, Kettner said. Describing the Indian market as “high potential”, he said over 50 million Indians are projected to vacation abroad by 2020 and Vienna was one of the major destinations. Source: World Business - Livemint.com | 9 Oct 2009 | 5:26 am India Shouldn't Compromise on Growth, Mukherjee Says - Bloomberg
Source: Business - Google News | 9 Oct 2009 | 4:16 am
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