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Maruti sales soar 32% in October!The country`s largest car maker Maruti Suzuki India on Monday reported a 32.45 percent jump in total sales at 85,415 units in October compared to the same period last year.Source: Zee News : Business | 2 Nov 2009 | 5:32 am Lakshmi Mittal richest biz tycoon in South Africa!India-born steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal remains the richest business tycoon in South Africa despite his fortune having halved in the past year due to the global recession.Source: Zee News : Business | 2 Nov 2009 | 5:32 am Putin cautions EU over Ukraine gas issue!Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warned his Swedish counterpart Fredrik Reinfeldt, rotating president of the European Union (EU), on Sunday that that there may be problems in transit of Russian gas to Europe.Source: Zee News : Business | 2 Nov 2009 | 5:32 am Hyundai October sales up 11%!The country`s second largest carmaker Hyundai Motor India on Monday reported 11.03 percent growth in sales in October compared to the same period a year earlier at 51,736 units.Source: Zee News : Business | 2 Nov 2009 | 5:32 am Shell to cut 5000 jobs as part of restructuring!Owing to the weak global economy, Royal Dutch Shell reported on Thursday a sharp drop in third-quarter earnings and production and said it would cut 5,000 jobs.Source: Zee News : Business | 2 Nov 2009 | 5:32 am Hopes high as diamond industry reopens todayThe industry is hoping for good sales in coming Christmas season, but is wary of hike in rough diamond prices.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 2 Nov 2009 | 3:13 am Indian auto sector growth soars - Economic Times
Source: Business - Google News | 2 Nov 2009 | 3:10 am IT dept begins sealing properties of Koda, associates - Times of India
Source: Business - Google News | 2 Nov 2009 | 3:09 am Gold Advances to a One-Week High in London as Dollar Declines - Bloomberg
Source: Business - Google News | 2 Nov 2009 | 3:07 am Indian Oil depot fire continues, toll 11Loud explosions were heard Monday from the Indian Oil depot here that caught fire as the blaze continued to rage for the fourth consecutive day with the toll rising to 11 after one person succumbed to burn injuries.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 2 Nov 2009 | 3:05 am McNally Bharat second quarter net profit Rs.3.6 croreEngineering firm McNally Bharat Engineering (MBE) posted a net profit of Rs.3.6 crore for the quarter ended Sep 30, against Rs.3.2 crore registered during the corresponding period last fiscal, it said here Monday.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 2 Nov 2009 | 3:04 am Tarang Software expanding India operationsLeading e-payment solutions provider Tarang Software Technologies is expanding its operations in the country to serve its growing list of customers across verticals, the city-based company said Monday.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 2 Nov 2009 | 3:02 am Maruti sales up 32 percent in OctoberIndia's leading car maker, Maruti Suzuki, Monday said it sold 85,415 vehicles in October as against 64,490 units in the corresponding month last year, registering a growth of over 32 percent.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 2 Nov 2009 | 3:01 am Bajaj motorcycle sales grow 52 percent in OctoberLeading two-wheeler major Bajaj Auto Monday said its motorcycle sales grew 52 percent in October to 249,681 units, as against the 163,850 units it sold in the corresponding month last year.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 2 Nov 2009 | 3:00 am World shares slide ahead of bank meetingsLONDON (Reuters) - World stocks added to the previous week's losses on Monday, hugging one-month lows as investors pulled back from a more than seven month rally and prepared for the eventual withdrawal of stimulative monetary policy.Source: Reuters: Money News | 2 Nov 2009 | 2:54 am REFILE-Tata Motors may let others assemble Nano-report - Reuters India
Source: Business - Google News | 2 Nov 2009 | 2:53 am HSBC says Asia M&A to focus on China, emerging marketsTAIPEI (Reuters) - HSBC Holdings, Europe's biggest bank, will focus its Asia acquisition strategy on China and other expanding markets, Sandy Flockhart, chief executive of Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corp said on Monday.Source: Reuters: Money News | 2 Nov 2009 | 2:52 am India’s M&A, PE deal activity to heat up in coming monthsNew Delhi: Driven by improved liquidity and business confidence, mergers and acquisitions as well as private equity activities in the country are showing signs of recovery and the deal space is likely to see an uptrend in the coming months, experts said. “The optimistic outlook of the global markets is now reflecting on the transactions landscape of the country. “The current quarter has set the ground for substantial recovery in the Indian transactions market driven by easy liquidity and increasing investors appetite,” global consultancy firm Ernst & Young national director and partner Transaction Advisory Services Ranjan Biswas said. Echoing similar opinion, Grant Thornton Partner Specialist Advisory Services C G Srividya had said: “There has been a stable level of M&A activity in the month of August 2009. With 25 deals valued at about $650 million, the transaction values have been primarily driven by significant domestic deals.” According to Ernst and Young, the third quarter of 2009 saw as many as 180 merger and acquisitions as well as private equity deals, with domestic transactions contributing to about 57% of the total transaction value. Meanwhile, as per Grant Thornton, the total number of M&A deals during the first eight months of 2009 stood at 183 deals with an announced value of $6.56 billion. The total number of private equity deals till August this year reached 131 deals with an announced value of $5.61 billion. Going forward, the overall transactions climate in the country is likely to improve in the coming months, Ernst and Young said in its latest transaction quarterly report. “Given the improving liquidity conditions in the economy coupled with increasing business confidence, firms are expected to tap the inorganic route as they look to grow in size,” Ernst & Young said. Further, with the pace of global economic deterioration slowing down, the investment appetite of private equity fund houses is expected to witness an upward trend, it added. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 2 Nov 2009 | 2:35 am India’s M&A, PE deal activity to heat up in coming monthsNew Delhi: Driven by improved liquidity and business confidence, mergers and acquisitions as well as private equity activities in the country are showing signs of recovery and the deal space is likely to see an uptrend in the coming months, experts said. “The optimistic outlook of the global markets is now reflecting on the transactions landscape of the country. “The current quarter has set the ground for substantial recovery in the Indian transactions market driven by easy liquidity and increasing investors appetite,” global consultancy firm Ernst & Young national director and partner Transaction Advisory Services Ranjan Biswas said. Echoing similar opinion, Grant Thornton Partner Specialist Advisory Services C G Srividya had said: “There has been a stable level of M&A activity in the month of August 2009. With 25 deals valued at about $650 million, the transaction values have been primarily driven by significant domestic deals.” According to Ernst and Young, the third quarter of 2009 saw as many as 180 merger and acquisitions as well as private equity deals, with domestic transactions contributing to about 57% of the total transaction value. Meanwhile, as per Grant Thornton, the total number of M&A deals during the first eight months of 2009 stood at 183 deals with an announced value of $6.56 billion. The total number of private equity deals till August this year reached 131 deals with an announced value of $5.61 billion. Going forward, the overall transactions climate in the country is likely to improve in the coming months, Ernst and Young said in its latest transaction quarterly report. “Given the improving liquidity conditions in the economy coupled with increasing business confidence, firms are expected to tap the inorganic route as they look to grow in size,” Ernst & Young said. Further, with the pace of global economic deterioration slowing down, the investment appetite of private equity fund houses is expected to witness an upward trend, it added. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 2 Nov 2009 | 2:35 am CIL may hire merchant banker to advise on divestment - Business Standard
Source: Business - Google News | 2 Nov 2009 | 2:34 am Government to auction coal blocks for captive use - domain-B
Source: Business - Google News | 2 Nov 2009 | 2:33 am Tata Motors may let others assemble NanoTata Motors may allow local car assemblers to put together its Nano and sell it under their own brand.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 2 Nov 2009 | 2:30 am Bajaj Auto Motorcycles Oct 2009 Sales Surges 52% - india-server.com
Source: Business - Google News | 2 Nov 2009 | 2:21 am Bajaj motorcycle sales rise 52% in OctoberNew Delhi: The country’s second largest two-wheeler maker, Bajaj, on Monday reported a 52.38% increase in its motorcycle sales at 2,49,681 units in October. The company had sold 1,63,850 units in October last year, Bajaj Auto Ltd (BAL) said in a statement. “Bajaj motorcycles grew 52% in October, 2009, despite several supply constraints. Bajaj is confident of maintaining this growth rate for the rest of 2009-10,” it added. Total two-wheeler sales during the month also increased by 51.06% to 2,49,974 units compared with 1,65,477 units in the same period a year ago, it added. BAL’s exports went up by 11.88% to 84,012 units in October from 75,092 units a year ago. This was the highest ever monthly export reported by the company. Total vehicle sales of the company last month stood at 2,80,455 units compared with 1,91,840 units in the same period a year ago, up by 46.19%, the statement said. However, BAL said its commercial vehicle sales were hampered by “production constraints”, but did not give any detail. The company sold 127 units of Kawasaki Ninja 250R, which was launched on October 7 in the country. BAL sold 95,139 units of its new 100cc Discover DTS-Si in October. Besides, it also sold 55,413 units of Pulsar. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 2 Nov 2009 | 2:19 am Bajaj motorcycle sales rise 52% in OctoberNew Delhi: The country’s second largest two-wheeler maker, Bajaj, on Monday reported a 52.38% increase in its motorcycle sales at 2,49,681 units in October. The company had sold 1,63,850 units in October last year, Bajaj Auto Ltd (BAL) said in a statement. “Bajaj motorcycles grew 52% in October, 2009, despite several supply constraints. Bajaj is confident of maintaining this growth rate for the rest of 2009-10,” it added. Total two-wheeler sales during the month also increased by 51.06% to 2,49,974 units compared with 1,65,477 units in the same period a year ago, it added. BAL’s exports went up by 11.88% to 84,012 units in October from 75,092 units a year ago. This was the highest ever monthly export reported by the company. Total vehicle sales of the company last month stood at 2,80,455 units compared with 1,91,840 units in the same period a year ago, up by 46.19%, the statement said. However, BAL said its commercial vehicle sales were hampered by “production constraints”, but did not give any detail. The company sold 127 units of Kawasaki Ninja 250R, which was launched on October 7 in the country. BAL sold 95,139 units of its new 100cc Discover DTS-Si in October. Besides, it also sold 55,413 units of Pulsar. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 2 Nov 2009 | 2:19 am Air India ties up with Aerostar for engine maintenanceMumbai: National air-carrier, Air India, has entered into a strategic alliance with Sharjah-based Aerostar Asset Management to provide engine repair and management solutions to airline operators across the Middle-East. The alliance for engine MRO would work under the brand The A Team. A marketing agreement was recently executed between the two companies and the brand will be formally launched at the Dubai Air show to be held during November 15-19, a company press release said on Monday. Aerostar Asset Management is a company promoted by the ETA Star Group which has a strong presence in the Middle-East. Aerostar has been involved in jet engine management for various customers since 2005. A Team will utilise the existing engine overhaul facilities of Air India at Mumbai and marketing set up of Aerostar in the Middle-East, the release said. The alliance would sell repair services for jet engines such as GE CF6-50 and 80 series, P&W 4000 series, GE-90 series and CFM56-7 series and would also cover CFM56-5 series engine in the near future, the release said. Air India’s Engine Overhaul facility, established in 1966, has been catering to third-party MRO services since 1999. The facility is approved by director general of civil Aviation, India, Federal Aviation Administration, USA, and European Aviation Safety Agency. It is also an ISO rated facility. The alliance would provide practical and cost-effective solutions for engine repair management which will result in reduced cost of ownership for engines operators, the release said. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 2 Nov 2009 | 2:03 am MTNL 3G connection for Rs 109 in Mumbai - Rediff
Source: Business - Google News | 2 Nov 2009 | 1:50 am PREVIEW - Big media stocks rally; will business follow?NEW YORK (Reuters) - When it comes to the media business, the script reads that advertising will soon bounce back, a rush of deal making is around the corner and a smart investor should scoop up cheap stocks straight away.Source: Reuters: Money News | 2 Nov 2009 | 1:46 am Blast in Rawalpindi kills 24Rawalpindi: A suspected Taliban suicide bomb killed at least 24 people in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi on Monday, officials said, as the government announced a reward for the capture, dead or alive, of the group’s leader. Pakistan Taliban militants are being squeezed out of their remote strongholds on the Afghan border by a massive army offensive, and have retaliated by stepping up bomb attacks and commando-style raids on urban targets. The army offensive is being closely watched by the US and other powers embroiled in neighbouring Afghanistan, as the border area has become a sanctuary for insurgent groups from both countries as well as foreign Al-Qaeda militants. “It was a suicide attack. So far, 24 people have been killed,” Imdadullah Bosal, Rawalpindi’s administration chief, told Reuters. The blast came as the Pakistan government announced rewards of up to $5 million for information leading to the capture, dead or alive, of Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud and more than a dozen other leaders. With the army involved in the offensive against Hakimullah and his followers in their South Waziristan strongholds, the militants have retaliated by stepping up a bombing campaign against urban targets across the country. The attack in Rawalpindi, a large sprawling city that twins the smaller, administrative capital, Islamabad, took place in an area that is home to the army headquarters as well as some hotels. “It was a huge blast. Smoke is rising from the scene,” Nasir Naqvi, who runs a travel agency near the site of the blast, told Reuters. Officials said many of the victims were elderly people who had gathered at a bank to withdraw their pensions. TV stations showed ambulances and police vehicles racing through the streets, sirens wailing. The announcement of the bounty on Hakimullah’s head was made through newspaper advertisements as security forces zeroed in on his Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (Taliban Movement of Pakistan) strongholds in South Waziristan. “These people are definitely killers of humanity and deserve exemplary punishment,” read the front-page advertisement, with photographs of Hakimullah and seven senior lieutenants in The News. “Help the government of Pakistan so that these people meet their nemesis.” A reward of over $600,000 each was announced for Hakimullah, his top aide Wali-ur-Rehman, and his cousin, Qari Hussain Mehsud, who is known as “the mentor of suicide bombers”. The trio spoke last month to a group of journalists in Sararogha, a major Taliban base in South Waziristan, but have not been sighted since. Security forces have captured Kotkai, the birthplace of Hakimullah and hometown of Hussain, in the Waziristan offensive, and on Sunday the military said it was on the outskirts of Sararogha and Makeen, also strongholds of Hakimullah. In the deadliest militant attack in more than two years, more than 100 people were killed and scores more wounded on Wednesday when a car bomb detonated in a crowded market in the northwest frontier city of Peshawar. In a related development, the United Nations on Tuesday announced it had raised a security alert for the Northwest Frontier Province and Federally Administered Tribal Areas - which include Waziristan - ordering all non-essential international staff to leave. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 2 Nov 2009 | 1:39 am Blast in Rawalpindi kills 24Rawalpindi: A suspected Taliban suicide bomb killed at least 24 people in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi on Monday, officials said, as the government announced a reward for the capture, dead or alive, of the group’s leader. Pakistan Taliban militants are being squeezed out of their remote strongholds on the Afghan border by a massive army offensive, and have retaliated by stepping up bomb attacks and commando-style raids on urban targets. The army offensive is being closely watched by the US and other powers embroiled in neighbouring Afghanistan, as the border area has become a sanctuary for insurgent groups from both countries as well as foreign Al-Qaeda militants. “It was a suicide attack. So far, 24 people have been killed,” Imdadullah Bosal, Rawalpindi’s administration chief, told Reuters. The blast came as the Pakistan government announced rewards of up to $5 million for information leading to the capture, dead or alive, of Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud and more than a dozen other leaders. With the army involved in the offensive against Hakimullah and his followers in their South Waziristan strongholds, the militants have retaliated by stepping up a bombing campaign against urban targets across the country. The attack in Rawalpindi, a large sprawling city that twins the smaller, administrative capital, Islamabad, took place in an area that is home to the army headquarters as well as some hotels. “It was a huge blast. Smoke is rising from the scene,” Nasir Naqvi, who runs a travel agency near the site of the blast, told Reuters. Officials said many of the victims were elderly people who had gathered at a bank to withdraw their pensions. TV stations showed ambulances and police vehicles racing through the streets, sirens wailing. The announcement of the bounty on Hakimullah’s head was made through newspaper advertisements as security forces zeroed in on his Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (Taliban Movement of Pakistan) strongholds in South Waziristan. “These people are definitely killers of humanity and deserve exemplary punishment,” read the front-page advertisement, with photographs of Hakimullah and seven senior lieutenants in The News. “Help the government of Pakistan so that these people meet their nemesis.” A reward of over $600,000 each was announced for Hakimullah, his top aide Wali-ur-Rehman, and his cousin, Qari Hussain Mehsud, who is known as “the mentor of suicide bombers”. The trio spoke last month to a group of journalists in Sararogha, a major Taliban base in South Waziristan, but have not been sighted since. Security forces have captured Kotkai, the birthplace of Hakimullah and hometown of Hussain, in the Waziristan offensive, and on Sunday the military said it was on the outskirts of Sararogha and Makeen, also strongholds of Hakimullah. In the deadliest militant attack in more than two years, more than 100 people were killed and scores more wounded on Wednesday when a car bomb detonated in a crowded market in the northwest frontier city of Peshawar. In a related development, the United Nations on Tuesday announced it had raised a security alert for the Northwest Frontier Province and Federally Administered Tribal Areas - which include Waziristan - ordering all non-essential international staff to leave. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 2 Nov 2009 | 1:39 am Asian factory activity expands further in OctBEIJING (Reuters) - Factory activity in Asia picked up further in October, with growth in China hitting its fastest in 18 months, suggesting the continent is on an economically solid footing and will likely lead the global recovery.Source: Reuters: Money News | 2 Nov 2009 | 1:06 am Why were DMK ministers silent on earlier spectrum scam, asks JayalalithaaAIADMK general secretary J. Jayalalithaa asked Monday why the DMK ministers in the BJP led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government remained mute spectators when more than Rs.100,000 crore loss was caused to the nation by faulty telecom spectrum allocation policies.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 2 Nov 2009 | 1:03 am Northeast will continue pre-paid mobile connectionsPre-paid mobile telephone services will continue in northeast India though the union home ministry has banned it in Jammu and Kashmir over 'serious security concerns', officials said here Monday. Like Kashmir, many areas of the northeast are also beset with insurgencies.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 2 Nov 2009 | 1:02 am Restrict movement of heavy vehicles in Shimla: High courtShimla is to decongest its roads by regulating traffic and streamlining the movement of heavy goods vehicles during peak hours.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 2 Nov 2009 | 1:01 am Tata Motors may let others assemble Nano - reportMUMBAI (Reuters) - Tata Motors, India's largest vehicles maker, may allow local car assemblers to put together its Nano and sell it under their own brand, the Business Standard reported on Monday.Source: Reuters: Money News | 2 Nov 2009 | 12:36 am Suzuki quadruples guidance on soaring India salesTOKYO (Reuters) - Suzuki Motor Corp quadrupled its annual operating profit forecast on Monday as sales soared in its main Indian market, setting it apart from other Japanese automakers that have depended heavily on the sinking U.S. market.Source: Reuters: Money News | 2 Nov 2009 | 12:28 am Govt mulls more incentives for exporters - papersNEW DELHI (Reuters) - The government may offer more incentives for exporters on top of the stimulus measures announced last year to help labour-intensive export firms hit by the global economic slump, newspapers quoted the trade minister as saying.Source: Reuters: Money News | 2 Nov 2009 | 12:14 am Nagarjuna Construction net up 4% at Rs 44 cr - Business Standard
Source: Business - Google News | 2 Nov 2009 | 12:01 am Private sector hikes wage bill, but cautiouslyWage bills in the private sector are upward bound once again, but the increases are well below the levels seen in the boom years.Source: Business Line - Home Page | 2 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am Centre may auction captive coal blocksKolkata. Nov. 1 The Centre is planning to take the auction route to award the captive coal blocks to private sector.Source: Business Line - Home Page | 2 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am Shipping cos’ Q2 net sinks, as freight market remains dampThe steep fall in freight rates has knocked the wind out of the sails of domestic shipping companies in terms of earnings, with major shipping firms reporting sharply lower profits and, in some cases, net losses in the second quarter of theSource: Business Line - Home Page | 2 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am Pusa-1121 prices crash on bumper cropKarnal (Haryana), Nov. 1 Basmati farmers are a distraught lot, with prices of the premium Pusa-1121 variety crashing by over Rs 500 a quintal in the last 15Source: Business Line - Home Page | 2 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am Correction mode likely to stayThe market went into a correction mode last week after indicating in the second half of October that it might make such a move. This week too, Dalal Street may witness a downward trend. Some observers said the Sensex may plunge to 14,000 level inSource: Business Line - Home Page | 2 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am Will India cope with emerging food security challenges?Agriculture and allied activities contribute to about a fifth of India's GDP; and close to two-third of the population (over 600 million) is dependent on farm and related activities for livelihood. Yet, the sector is a laggard, having grown at aSource: Business Line - Home Page | 2 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am Gold vulnerable to further profit taking in short termThe flow of economic data continues to influence the commodities market. Positive data flows do impact markets positively and vice versa. Without doubt, in recent months, the flow of economic data, generally speaking, has been encouraging. Yet,Source: Business Line - Home Page | 2 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am New provision cover norms to cost banks dearListed Indian banks may have to shell out more than Rs 11,000 crore in the next oneSource: Business Line - Home Page | 2 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am No Boeing deliveries to India till end-2010Mumbai, Nov. 1 There will be no major deliveries from Boeing to the Indian aviation industry till end-2010 and early 2011.Source: Business Line - Home Page | 2 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am Weak trend persists in L&TI have bought one lot of L&T November futures @ Rs 1,675. I have lost heavily so far. What should be my stand at this point in time? Kindly advice. – Mriganka DasSource: Business Line - Home Page | 2 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am Motor racing-Bridgestone to halt F1 tyre supplyTokyo: Bridgestone Corp will not renew its tyre supply contract for Formula One after the current deal expires at the end of the 2010 season, the Japanese manufacturer said on Monday. The sole supplier of tyres to the series since 2007, Bridgestone will continue its interest in Formula One next season but wanted to concentrate on new technology and products after that. “The company has decided to redistribute its resources as part of a changing business strategy,” public relations manager Kaoru Tomizawa told Reuters. “There has been a change of direction towards further developing areas of the business where demand is greatest and which support the company’s aims.” Bridgestone’s decision to leave Formula One comes after Japan’s number two carmaker Honda pulled its team out of the sport last December to cut costs. Subaru and Suzuki subsequently quit the world rallying championship while bike maker Kawasaki scrapped its MotoGP team in the grip of a severe market downturn. Economic crisis Bridgestone insisted the global economic crisis was not wholly to blame for its decision. “It is not mainly the depressed economic situation,” Tomizawa added. “We are looking more at where tyre demand needs to be focused.” Bridgestone has been supplying tyres to Formula One since 1997 and became the sole provider a year earlier than scheduled when French rival Michelin withdrew after the 2006 season. “(Our) collaboration with F1 has contributed to increased brand awareness and the recognition of Bridgestone as a leader in the global tyre industry,” the company said in a statement. “Having achieved these goals, Bridgestone is now poised to take its technological and brand building efforts to the next level.” Bridgestone said it would try to reassign workers at its Tokyo base but that no decision had been made about possible job cuts as a result of its Formula One exit. “We still have a year left in F1 so no final decision has been taken on how it will impact the employees,” Tomizawa said. “But we would like to respect their contribution before deciding about that.” Bridgestone announced last month it was closing tyre plants in Australia and New Zealand. Source: World Business - Livemint.com | 1 Nov 2009 | 11:42 pm Motor racing-Bridgestone to halt F1 tyre supplyTokyo: Bridgestone Corp will not renew its tyre supply contract for Formula One after the current deal expires at the end of the 2010 season, the Japanese manufacturer said on Monday. The sole supplier of tyres to the series since 2007, Bridgestone will continue its interest in Formula One next season but wanted to concentrate on new technology and products after that. “The company has decided to redistribute its resources as part of a changing business strategy,” public relations manager Kaoru Tomizawa told Reuters. “There has been a change of direction towards further developing areas of the business where demand is greatest and which support the company’s aims.” Bridgestone’s decision to leave Formula One comes after Japan’s number two carmaker Honda pulled its team out of the sport last December to cut costs. Subaru and Suzuki subsequently quit the world rallying championship while bike maker Kawasaki scrapped its MotoGP team in the grip of a severe market downturn. Economic crisis Bridgestone insisted the global economic crisis was not wholly to blame for its decision. “It is not mainly the depressed economic situation,” Tomizawa added. “We are looking more at where tyre demand needs to be focused.” Bridgestone has been supplying tyres to Formula One since 1997 and became the sole provider a year earlier than scheduled when French rival Michelin withdrew after the 2006 season. “(Our) collaboration with F1 has contributed to increased brand awareness and the recognition of Bridgestone as a leader in the global tyre industry,” the company said in a statement. “Having achieved these goals, Bridgestone is now poised to take its technological and brand building efforts to the next level.” Bridgestone said it would try to reassign workers at its Tokyo base but that no decision had been made about possible job cuts as a result of its Formula One exit. “We still have a year left in F1 so no final decision has been taken on how it will impact the employees,” Tomizawa said. “But we would like to respect their contribution before deciding about that.” Bridgestone announced last month it was closing tyre plants in Australia and New Zealand. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 1 Nov 2009 | 11:42 pm Motor racing-Bridgestone to halt F1 tyre supplyTokyo: Bridgestone Corp will not renew its tyre supply contract for Formula One after the current deal expires at the end of the 2010 season, the Japanese manufacturer said on Monday. The sole supplier of tyres to the series since 2007, Bridgestone will continue its interest in Formula One next season but wanted to concentrate on new technology and products after that. “The company has decided to redistribute its resources as part of a changing business strategy,” public relations manager Kaoru Tomizawa told Reuters. “There has been a change of direction towards further developing areas of the business where demand is greatest and which support the company’s aims.” Bridgestone’s decision to leave Formula One comes after Japan’s number two carmaker Honda pulled its team out of the sport last December to cut costs. Subaru and Suzuki subsequently quit the world rallying championship while bike maker Kawasaki scrapped its MotoGP team in the grip of a severe market downturn. Economic crisis Bridgestone insisted the global economic crisis was not wholly to blame for its decision. “It is not mainly the depressed economic situation,” Tomizawa added. “We are looking more at where tyre demand needs to be focused.” Bridgestone has been supplying tyres to Formula One since 1997 and became the sole provider a year earlier than scheduled when French rival Michelin withdrew after the 2006 season. “(Our) collaboration with F1 has contributed to increased brand awareness and the recognition of Bridgestone as a leader in the global tyre industry,” the company said in a statement. “Having achieved these goals, Bridgestone is now poised to take its technological and brand building efforts to the next level.” Bridgestone said it would try to reassign workers at its Tokyo base but that no decision had been made about possible job cuts as a result of its Formula One exit. “We still have a year left in F1 so no final decision has been taken on how it will impact the employees,” Tomizawa said. “But we would like to respect their contribution before deciding about that.” Bridgestone announced last month it was closing tyre plants in Australia and New Zealand. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 1 Nov 2009 | 11:42 pm Oil company Denbury to buy Encore for $3.2 billionThe transaction, which represents a 35% premium for Encore based on its Friday close, is expected to close in the first quarter of next year.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 1 Nov 2009 | 11:38 pm City Union Bank board approves 1 for 4 rights issueThe bank will raise Rs480 million via rights issue.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 1 Nov 2009 | 11:36 pm Manufacturing growth slows in OctMumbai: India’s manufacturing activity expanded for the seventh consecutive month in October, but at a slightly slower pace as growth in new orders and output slowed, a survey showed. The HSBC Markit Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), based on a survey of 500 companies, fell to 54.5 in October from 55 in September. A reading above 50 means activity expanded during the month. Growth in domestic new orders may be beginning to suffer from the impact of a drought, but stronger foreign demand was helping to cushion the blow, HSBC senior Asian economist Robert Prior-Wandesforde said. “The PMI, which led the upturn in the industrial cycle, has gone essentially nowhere over the last six months. It is, however consistent with robust growth in industrial production of around 8-10% on an annual basis,” he said. “If falls in the output and total new orders indices were a touch disappointing, a rise in the employment index back above 50.0 and a decent improvement in the new export orders index to its highest level since August last year offered welcome news,” he added. The new orders index fell to 56.7, from September’s 58.3. In August, this index had touched a four-month low of 56.2. “Also helpful, from a policy perspective at least, were falls in both input and output prices indices. Although early days, the latter looks to have a decent relationship with wholesale price inflation and might help calm what are clearly extremely frayed nerves at the Reserve Bank of India,” Prior-Wandesforde said. The headline index had shrunk for five months through March, hitting a trough of 44.4 in December 2008. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 1 Nov 2009 | 11:16 pm Suzuki raises guidance on soaring India salesTokyo: Suzuki Motor Corp quadrupled its annual operating profit forecast on Monday as sales soared in its main Indian market, setting it apart from other Japanese automakers that have depended heavily on the sinking US market. Suzuki, like South Korean rival Hyundai Motor Co, has been a major beneficiary of a global shift in consumer preference towards smaller cars, partly fanned by government incentives on purchases of less polluting vehicles. Both carmakers’ huge presence in India, where the economy’s resilience and tax incentives have jumpstarted demand for cars, has helped them weather the storm better than most in the industry. Suzuki, Japan’s fourth-biggest automaker, raised its operating profit outlook to ¥40 billion ($445 million) for the year to March, from an initial forecast of ¥10 billion. It now expects a net profit of ¥15 billion instead of ¥5 billion. Consensus forecasts from 16 brokerages put Suzuki’s operating profit for the year at ¥46.6 billion, and net profit at ¥22.8 billion. Earlier, Daihatsu Motor Co, the minivehicle unit of Toyota Motor Corp, and Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd, the maker of Subaru cars, also lifted their full-year forecasts after better-than-anticipated six-month results. For July-September, Suzuki, known for its Swift and Alto hatchback cars, reported a 7.1% fall in operating profit to ¥24.98 billion from the second quarter last year, as global sales volumes decreased and the yen strengthened against the dollar. The result was double an estimate of ¥12.45 billion in a poll of three analysts by Thomson Reuters. Net profit grew 27% to ¥10.38 billion, while revenue dropped 25% to ¥604.4 billion. Last week, Suzuki’s Indian unit, Maruti Suzuki India, reported a near doubling in its quarterly net profit, also powered by brisk exports to Europe. Daihatsu, which dominates Japan’s 660cc minivehicle segment with Suzuki, now expects an annual operating profit of ¥26 billion instead of ¥17 billion as sale exceed expectations in Indonesia and Malaysia, where it has a big presence. In July-September, Daihatsu’s operating profit fell 35% to ¥6.13 billion. Net profit sank 41% to ¥3.25 billion. Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd, also owned partly by Toyota, now expects to eke out an annual operating profit of ¥1 billion instead of a ¥35 billion loss previously forecast. Its second-quarter operating profit was ¥8.24 billion, down 31% from a year earlier. Shares of Suzuki lost 3.5% during the second quarter, underperforming Tokyo’s transport sector subindex, which was flat. Before the results were announced, Suzuki ended down 2.9% at ¥2,170 amid broad-based selling in Tokyo as the dollar weakened against the yen. Daihatsu, whose shares gained 2.1% during the quarter, closed down 2.5% at ¥920 after its announcement. Fuji Heavy lost 5.2% to end at ¥345 despite the higher forecasts. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 1 Nov 2009 | 11:12 pm Michael Jackson film dances to No. 1 worldwideLos Angeles: Michael Jackson’s much-hyped concert movie reigned at the worldwide box office on Sunday, but its performance in North America was hardly a thriller. “This Is It,” composed mostly of rehearsal footage recorded in the weeks before the “King of Pop’s” death in June, earned an estimated $101 million in the five days since opening globally on Wednesday, distributor Columbia Pictures said. Moviegoers in the United States and Canada contributed $32.5 million. In the days leading up to its opening, industry forecasters had said it could earn at least $40 million. Columbia said it had hoped for an opening in the $30 million to $40 million range. “This has always, always been a worldwide play,” said Rory Bruer, president of worldwide distribution at Columbia’s parent Sony Corp. “We’re very happy with the results domestically, but ecstatic with the worldwide.” Top territories included Japan with $10.4 million, Britain with $7.6 million, Germany with $6.3 million, France with $5.8 million, Australia with $3.6 million and China with $3.2 million. Rival studios, perhaps looking to put Sony in the hot seat, had been particularly bullish about the film. One executive, requesting anonymity, predicted the film could make $660 million globally during its limited two-week run -- $260 million domestically and $400 million internationally. Columbia had shied away from issuing global forecasts because of a dearth of comparable concert films. The record for such movies is held by “Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus -- Best of Both Worlds,” which earned $65 million domestically last year. The film’s prospects were not helped by Halloween, which fell on a Saturday for the first time since 1998, siphoning off a large swathe of potential North American moviegoers on the biggest night of the week. Columbia said it extended the planned two-week limited run in North America through Thanksgiving (29 Nov). Foreign territories will extend the run on a case-by-case basis. The studio paid Jackson’s estate and closely held concert promoter AEG about $60 million for the rights, but will deduct the production costs from its tab. As for box office revenues, which are usually split evenly with movie theater owners, Sony will share its haul with the estate and AEG according to a complex, undisclosed formula. Columbia’s sister company, Sony Music, has done much better with Jackson’s recordings. His albums have sold more than 5.7 million copies this year in the United States, according to tracking firm Nielsen SoundScan. For the traditional three-day period, beginning Friday, “This Is It” earned $21.3 million. Last weekend’s North American champ, Paramount Pictures’ micro-budget horror flick “Paranormal Activity,” slipped to No. 2 with $16.5 million in its sixth weekend, taking its total to $84.8 million. Paramount is a unit of Viacom Inc. No other new releases dared compete with Halloween festivities. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 1 Nov 2009 | 10:54 pm Shell to cut 5000 Jobs as part of restructuringHouston: Owing to the weak global economy, Royal Dutch Shell reported on Thursday a sharp drop in third-quarter earnings and production and said it would cut 5,000 jobs. The 5,000 jobs would be cut from the Anglo-Dutch oil and gas group as part of a restructuring that began earlier this year. The job losses are part of a programme called Transition 2009, which was put in place by Peter Voser, who started as chief executive in July. The cutbacks represent some 4.9% of the corporation’s 102,000-member staff, and almost 10% in those divisions Shell is merging. Voser said the corporation had to take “stringent measures to further improve our performance” and its “competitive cost position”. Although the corporation had “some indications that energy demand and pricing are improving,” he said, “the outlook remains very uncertain, and we are not expecting a quick recovery. “Voser said the reorganisation, due to be completed by the end of the year was “progressing well” and had already reduced operating costs by $1 billion (0.676 billion euros) in the first nine months of this year. The energy giant said production in the third quarter amounted to 2. 93 million barrels a day, lower than the 3.39 million barrels analysts had counted on. Shell’s third quarter earnings on a current cost of supplies (CCS) basis were $3 billion (2. 03 billion euros) compared with $10.9 billion during the same period last year. Voser said Shell’s third quarter results “were affected by the weak global economy.” This was more than the $2.62 billion analysts had predicted. Basic CCS earnings per share decreased by 72% versus the like quarter a year ago. Net profits amounted to $3.2 billion, compared with $8.5 billion in the like period last year. The decline in oil and gas prices hit Shell’s upstream division, which saw profits fall 82% to $1.54bn as oil and gas production fell. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 1 Nov 2009 | 10:46 pm Shell to cut 5000 Jobs as part of restructuringHouston: Owing to the weak global economy, Royal Dutch Shell reported on Thursday a sharp drop in third-quarter earnings and production and said it would cut 5,000 jobs. The 5,000 jobs would be cut from the Anglo-Dutch oil and gas group as part of a restructuring that began earlier this year. The job losses are part of a programme called Transition 2009, which was put in place by Peter Voser, who started as chief executive in July. The cutbacks represent some 4.9% of the corporation’s 102,000-member staff, and almost 10% in those divisions Shell is merging. Voser said the corporation had to take “stringent measures to further improve our performance” and its “competitive cost position”. Although the corporation had “some indications that energy demand and pricing are improving,” he said, “the outlook remains very uncertain, and we are not expecting a quick recovery. “Voser said the reorganisation, due to be completed by the end of the year was “progressing well” and had already reduced operating costs by $1 billion (0.676 billion euros) in the first nine months of this year. The energy giant said production in the third quarter amounted to 2. 93 million barrels a day, lower than the 3.39 million barrels analysts had counted on. Shell’s third quarter earnings on a current cost of supplies (CCS) basis were $3 billion (2. 03 billion euros) compared with $10.9 billion during the same period last year. Voser said Shell’s third quarter results “were affected by the weak global economy.” This was more than the $2.62 billion analysts had predicted. Basic CCS earnings per share decreased by 72% versus the like quarter a year ago. Net profits amounted to $3.2 billion, compared with $8.5 billion in the like period last year. The decline in oil and gas prices hit Shell’s upstream division, which saw profits fall 82% to $1.54bn as oil and gas production fell. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 1 Nov 2009 | 10:46 pm Shell to cut 5000 Jobs as part of restructuringHouston: Owing to the weak global economy, Royal Dutch Shell reported on Thursday a sharp drop in third-quarter earnings and production and said it would cut 5,000 jobs. The 5,000 jobs would be cut from the Anglo-Dutch oil and gas group as part of a restructuring that began earlier this year. The job losses are part of a programme called Transition 2009, which was put in place by Peter Voser, who started as chief executive in July. The cutbacks represent some 4.9% of the corporation’s 102,000-member staff, and almost 10% in those divisions Shell is merging. Voser said the corporation had to take “stringent measures to further improve our performance” and its “competitive cost position”. Although the corporation had “some indications that energy demand and pricing are improving,” he said, “the outlook remains very uncertain, and we are not expecting a quick recovery. “Voser said the reorganisation, due to be completed by the end of the year was “progressing well” and had already reduced operating costs by $1 billion (0.676 billion euros) in the first nine months of this year. The energy giant said production in the third quarter amounted to 2. 93 million barrels a day, lower than the 3.39 million barrels analysts had counted on. Shell’s third quarter earnings on a current cost of supplies (CCS) basis were $3 billion (2. 03 billion euros) compared with $10.9 billion during the same period last year. Voser said Shell’s third quarter results “were affected by the weak global economy.” This was more than the $2.62 billion analysts had predicted. Basic CCS earnings per share decreased by 72% versus the like quarter a year ago. Net profits amounted to $3.2 billion, compared with $8.5 billion in the like period last year. The decline in oil and gas prices hit Shell’s upstream division, which saw profits fall 82% to $1.54bn as oil and gas production fell. Source: World Business - Livemint.com | 1 Nov 2009 | 10:46 pm Oil higher in Asian trade but investors cautiousEven though there are signs of economic recovery, the recovery appears to be on a shaky ground and also somewhat uncertain.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 1 Nov 2009 | 10:35 pm Hong Kong shares open 2.39% lowerThe benchmark Hang Seng Index down 519.04 points.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 1 Nov 2009 | 10:31 pm Manufacturing growth slows in October - PMIGrowth in domestic new orders may be beginning to suffer from the impact of a drought, but stronger foreign demand was helping to cushion the blow.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 1 Nov 2009 | 10:24 pm Tight provisioning norms to hit bank profits - Moody'sMUMBAI (Reuters) - Tighter provisioning norms announced by the Reserve Bank in its policy review last week could have a significant impact on banks' profits over the short term, Moody's said in a note on Monday.Source: Reuters: Money News | 1 Nov 2009 | 10:22 pm Stocks, forex, bond markets closed todayMumbai: Indian stocks, bonds and forex markets are closed on Monday for a local holiday. Trading resumes on Tuesday. The 30-share BSE index closed 0.97% down on Friday at 15,896.28 points. The partially convertible rupee ended at Rs46.96/97 per dollar on Friday, about 0.5% stronger than its previous close. The 10-year benchmark bond yield ended at 7.30%, above its previous close of 7.26%. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 1 Nov 2009 | 10:19 pm Asian shares drop after Wall Street hitHong Kong: Asian stocks slid on Monday, with Seoul hitting a two-month low after a sell-off in banking shares slammed Wall Street, a slide viewed as a sign that investors are losing faith in the economic recovery. Worries about the US financial sector resurfaced after CIT Group Inc, the lender to small and mid-sized US companies, filed for bankruptcy and an accounting expert said Citigroup may need further write-downs. But the fallout on Asian equity markets was limited and higher-yielding currencies quickly recovered from early losses, with some market players blaming the volatile moves on profit-taking and portfolio reshuffling before year-end. The dollar dipped while oil prices edged higher to bounce back from a sharp drop on Friday along with shares, with US crude oil up 25 cents a barrel to $77.25. Hedge funds and other players were cited as sellers of emerging market stocks and currencies last week, looking to take profits on their best trades before many funds close their books for the year in November. “Further profit-taking in risk positions is expected this week and into the end of the year,” said Patrick Bennett, Asia currency and rates strategist at Societe Generale in Hong Kong. The MSCI index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 1.5%, touching a one-month low, while the Thomson Reuters index of regional stocks shed 1.8%. Japan’s Nikkei average dropped 2.7%, mirroring the 2.8% slide in the US S&P 500 on Friday -- its biggest one-day drop since July. But futures on the S&P edged up in Asia, providing some relief that the selling pressure would not extend into the new month. A spike in the VIX volatility index on the S&P, known as Wall Street’s fear gauge, also stirred worries that investors were starting to brace for a deeper drop in stocks. But the move in the equity options market was not mirrored in Asia. Implied volatility, a gauge of option market expectations of future moves, on Nikkei futures edged up only slightly. The slide in US shares came despite an array of positive third-quarter earnings. According to Thomson Reuters data, 80% of the 344 companies in the S&P 500 that reported earnings so far have beat analyst expectations. Gains in higher-yielding currencies, weighed on the dollar and the gauge of its performance against six major currencies dipped 0.1% to 76.277. The Australian dollar rose 0.2% to $0.9007, while the euro edged up 0.2% to $1.4740. Some of the early volatility in higher-yielding currencies was due to a sharp fall in the South African rand tied to selling by a Japanese margin trader broker. Traders suspected that a mistaken trade may have sparked the sharp drop. Government bonds gained on the stock market woes. The benchmark 10-year Japanese government bond yield dipped 2 basis points to 1.385%, down from a 2- month high reached last week. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 1 Nov 2009 | 10:17 pm Asia share drop limited after Wall Street hitHedge funds and other players were cited as sellers of emerging market stocks and currencies last week.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 1 Nov 2009 | 10:15 pm Crop estimate to steer sugar, grain marketsIndia's summer-sown harvest may have fallen at least 10% this year, setting the stage for large sugar imports and record vegetable oil imports.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 1 Nov 2009 | 10:09 pm Manufacturing growth slows in October - PMIMUMBAI (Reuters) - India's manufacturing activity expanded for the seventh consecutive month in October, but at a slightly slower pace as growth in new orders and output slowed, a survey showed.Source: Reuters: Money News | 1 Nov 2009 | 10:04 pm CIT Group files for bankruptcy, among biggest in U.S.NEW YORK (Reuters) - CIT Group Inc, a lender to hundreds of thousands of small and medium-sized businesses, filed for bankruptcy on Sunday, as the global financial crisis left it unable to fund itself and the recession clobbered its loans.Source: Reuters: Money News | 1 Nov 2009 | 9:26 pm Japanese shares open lowerJapanese share prices opened lower today, with the benchmark Nikkei-225 index falling 130.97 points.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 1 Nov 2009 | 7:48 pm Next 2 quarters seen better despite NPAs - Economic Times
Source: Business - Google News | 1 Nov 2009 | 12:46 pm Nikesh Arora | We worry about products first, money laterNew Delhi: On the sidelines of the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit 2009, held on 30-31 October, Nikesh Arora, president of global sales operations and business development at Google Inc. and a member of the company’s operating committee, spoke about Google’s approach to copyright law, factors changing the Internet and how the company can grow without turning “evil”. Edited excerpts: During your session, you spoke about how the Internet is becoming more social and more real-time. Content is being produced all the time by millions of people through Facebook, Twitter and other networks. How does this affect Google’s most important business: search? The Internet is not unstructured. It is really a mass of structured information that you need to figure out a way of navigating through. The Web has changed very significantly in two ways. First, the sheer volume of data being added has increased rapidly. In the last five years, more data and content have been generated than in the previous 100 years combined. Secondly, the speed of updates has increased tremendously. Think about it. A regular newspaper is updated once a day. A newspaper’s website used to be updated at the same speed. But now, even these websites are updated continuously during the day. These two changes put tremendous amounts of pressure on technological resources. That’s the biggest challenge. How does this affect your core search advertising business? How do you engage with advertisers in this changed environment?  Firm stand: Nikesh Arora says the need to innovate is what drives Google and not being ‘evil’ is something all its employees believe in. Sanjeev Verma / Hindustan Times So, we are constantly working on our advertising service and algorithms, as hard as we are working on keeping users happy. The idea is to make advertising look as much as possible like information. If you are in a desert, a billboard for drinking water is information. But six billboards in one place is advertising. How are Internet users responding to this surfeit of information? There is this constant debate: is the Internet making people less social or more social? Should I let my child use the Internet on his computer? Today, people can whip out a mobile phone and immediately search for a piece of information. Research shows that the ability to instantly find information is a much better way to retain and process this information than having to remember it and cram it down. So as long as people have tools to navigate through all this information, they won’t be overwhelmed. People now go on to the Web and expect information to be there. If a fact does not appear on the Web, people expect it to be false. If it’s true, it’s online. In your session, you said Google is an “information communication distribution network”. Now Google has business or products in all those things: information, communication, distribution and networks. How does Google approach those four things strategically? Which ones are key? And if Google had to start today, would it still be doing search? It is important to see Google the business differently from Google as a technology movement. Effectively, what inspires us is our need to create amazing products. We don’t worry about how or when we are going to make money out of a product innovation. That will come later. When the telephone was invented, it wasn’t created for direct marketing. That came later. Someone came up with this amazing idea to communicate better. And then, someone else came up with the idea to make money with it. Google doesn’t design to monetize. First, we want to create a product that makes consumer go “wow”, and then create a user base and then figure out a way of making money. Also, on stage you said that the concept of copyright has changed. Can you elaborate on that change? I am not saying you should have access to copyright material without having to pay for it. What I am saying is that you should be able to digitally search for this information and digitally index it. If a library somewhere obscure has a book that 500 people around the world desperately want, there should be a way for them to know it is there. One has to rethink these things in the digital age. That’s what I mean by this change. In the future, we will need to keep changing our rules to allow for technological possibilities. On the Web, do you think advertising is the means of subsidizing for content, especially for media outlets, or do you think people will pay for content? People do pay for content. Look at iTunes or the Kindle. People are paying for content and there is no advertising at all on those platforms. On the other hand, there is content available on the Web subsidized by news. So, there will be content along this whole spectrum from subsidized to advertising-free. Magazines come somewhere in the middle. What about news? Maybe in certain areas of news there is oversupply of content on the Web. After a Google results announcement, for instance, there are thousands of articles about it. After the first four or five, I don’t want to read anything. What do you do with 1,000 interpretations of the same thing? I don’t know how to resolve this problem. There is value in the content. Something has to happen to resolve this over-supply of redundant news. There is a rethink going on about this oversupply. To step back a little, Android, Chrome OS and the Chrome browser all had experts wondering why Google brought out those products. They didn’t fit into the conventional Google family of products and services... If you think of the process of using the Web, there are three stages to this: First, the ability to organize the content you find. YouTube does this for video, Picasa for photos, Google Maps do it for locational content. The next part is getting to the content itself. Think of it as a pipe you need to navigate through with a device. You need the device. The mobile phone is a case in point. After the Android, BlackBerry and other smartphones came out, search traffic through mobile has gone up 20 times. So, there is merit in having devices that can take care of that part of connectivity puzzle. Google believes there is a lot more efficiency that can be brought to these devices and operating systems. Operating systems weren’t designed to work in a connected environment. We believe there are efficiencies to be brought into this. That explains Android and Chrome OS. Then the only piece left is the piece of wire or the Wi-Fi connection at the end. If we think we have technologies and ideas to bring efficiencies to that area, we could do that. There is no big Google strategy that says only focus here and not there. The strategy is to keep making products and see what happens. So you could be an Internet operator or service provider one day? I will say maybe. So that if we do it one day, it doesn’t look like I denied it. Five years ago, I would have probably said we’d not do an operating system. But then someone at Google had a great idea. Have you or have you not applied for a WiMax licence in India as everyone has been writing about? I read about it in the same newspapers as you. There is a common complaint that companies acquired by Google have a tendency to disappear without a trace. Jaiku and Dodgeball being examples. Why is that? It is all about iterative product development. You think of a new feature, you programme it, expose to a small portion of user base, take feedback, redeploy it the next morning and so on till you are ready. So there is a trial and error with new ideas. Which is one aspect of these acquisitions. The other aspect is (that) sometimes it takes time to evaluate these ideas. Some ideas get dropped. Others come back in a new avatar. And I would think there are a lot more firms we’ve absorbed that have been launched successfully than otherwise. So in most cases, just hold on. We’re working on them. As you keep growing larger and making more money, how difficult is it for Google to stick to its famous mantra of not being “evil”? Not being evil is not something we periodically decide to keep doing or not. It is not a strategy we choose. Not being evil is part of our company DNA. Today, you can sit during a product meeting at Google and someone will suddenly ask if we are being evil with this product or service. It is something that all our 20,000 employees believe in. It also makes great business sense. But it is a great line only if you can live up to it. sukumar.r@livemint.com Source: Tech News - Livemint.com | 1 Nov 2009 | 12:45 pm Chidambaram talks tough on PakistanMadurai: Union home minister P. Chidambaram on Saturday warned Pakistan against meddling in India’s affairs, and said any more terror attacks from across the border would be retaliated “very strongly”.  Hard talk: P. Chidambaram. Madhu Kapparath / Mint Chidambaram, in his speech in Tamil, said India would retaliate strongly against any attempt by Pakistan to send infiltrators into India and “we have strength to tackle any such infiltration”. He said he had been consistently warning Pakistan against meddling in India’s affairs but if it continued to do so, “we will deal with it strongly”. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 1 Nov 2009 | 12:45 pm Can Citigroup carry its own weight?Over the past 80 years, the US government has engineered not one, not two, not three, but at least four rescues of the institution now known as Citigroup Inc. In previous instances, the bank came back from the crisis and prospered. Will Citigroup rise again from its recent near-death experience? The answer to that question concerns not only the 276,000 employees who work at what was once the world’s largest bank, but the US’ taxpayers as well. Even as Citi’s stock has soared from a low of $1.02 (Rs48) to its current $4.09—and the company has eked out a $101 million profit in the third quarter along the way—it’s still unclear whether it can climb out of the hole that its former leaders dug before and during the mortgage mania. If Citigroup remains stuck, taxpayers will be on the hook for outsize losses.  Hurdles ahead: Citigroup headquarters in New York. Analysts at Fitch Ratings project that Citigroup will continue to be plagued with hefty loan loss provisions and that its operations will remain weak into 2010. Eremy Bales / Bloomberg As a result, the government has handed Citigroup $45 billion under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) over the last year. Through the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), a major bank regulator, the government has also agreed to back roughly $300 billion in soured assets that sit on Citigroup’s books. Even as other troubled institutions recently curtailed their use of another FDIC programme that backs new debt issued by banks, Citigroup has continued to tap the arrangement. Citigroup is also one of only two TARP recipients so desperate for capital that they’ve swapped government-issued shares into common stock, diluting existing shareholders. (GMAC is the other.) While Citigroup has written down tens of billions of dollars worth of mortgages on its books, there are looming problems in its huge credit card portfolio. Of the company’s $1.2 trillion in credit commitments outstanding in the second quarter, $873 billion were credit card lines. A measure of the bank’s efforts to wrestle that problem to the ground is the interest it charges customers: In October, Citigroup raised interest rates on some credit card holders to 29.99%. Chris Whalen, editor of the Institutional Risk Analyst, calls Citigroup “the queen of the zombie dance”, referring to the group of financial institutions that the government has on life support. Vikram S. Pandit, Citigroup’s chief executive officer, said in an interview that he was confident that Citi was on the right course, focusing on global banking and shedding segments of the company—such as insurance and the brokerage business—that aren’t part of that mission. To date, he said Citigroup had sharply reduced its expenses, improved how it monitors risk, and established a management team that he said would return the bank to sustained profitability. “Our distinctiveness is we connect the world better than anyone else,” he said, noting Citigroup’s global reach. “We have a great capability of building a business around that. And we are in the process of building a culture around that.” Pandit said he was working with federal regulators on a schedule for paying back TARP funds, which he said was crucial to restoring Citigroup’s image among consumers. In trying to right itself, Citigroup plans to undo much of what it did during a period some insiders call the lost decade—with events that included merging with Travelers Group in 1998 and a huge, dizzying expansion of its asset base. To untangle the company, Pandit has split Citigroup in half. One part consists of operations that Citigroup executives consider central to the bank’s future; these include retail banking worldwide, investment banking and transaction services for institutional clients. The other part contains businesses that Citigroup executives hope to exit or unload. This includes asset management and consumer lending, such as residential and commercial real estate, as well as auto loans and student loans. Citigroup is also selling some of the many companies it acquired in recent years. However, buyers are few. To be sure, Citigroup’s financial cushion has fattened significantly, thanks in large part to taxpayer relief—prompting some banking analysts to be relatively optimistic about the bank’s prospects. One is Matt O’Connor, an analyst at Deutsche Bank AG. He says that Citigroup is still saddled with potential risks, but that it’s well positioned for an economic recovery, in that it can sell off assets more quickly, or for another downturn, since it has government protection and relatively little commercial real estate exposure. “We find Citi shares could reach $10,” O’Connor wrote in a recent report to investors. “However, this may be several years away and many uncertainties remain—both to Citi and banks overall.” Yet, compared with other big banks such as JPMorgan Chase and Co. or Goldman Sachs, Citigroup’s operations are not yet generating enough profits to cover potentially devastating write-downs to come. In the third quarter, none of the units upon which Citigroup has pinned its hopes showed a jump in revenue. Analysts at Fitch Ratings project that Citigroup will continue to be plagued with hefty loan loss provisions and that its operations will remain weak into 2010. The primary reason for Citigroup’s woes, of course, is relatively straightforward. The bank simply placed too large a bet on risky consumer loans, especially mortgages. These were often repackaged into complex financial instruments that went sour when the economy collapsed. Citi ended up eating these losses. Citigroup also sank deeper into the swamp of troubled loans than its peers, according to interviews with more than a dozen former employees and analysts, because of a number of other factors: a culture of deal-making that trumped efforts to help existing businesses grow on their own; constant churn among the executive ranks; the sapping of top talent; the blunting of dissent; and a drive to mimic competitors’ risk-taking while failing to assess when those gambles were becoming perilous. A by-product of these flaws is now smouldering on taxpayers’ doorstep, causing worries on Capitol Hill that the US may never get back the bailout money it gave to Citigroup. Representative Lloyd Doggett, a Texas Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, recently registered unease about the government’s guarantee of $300 billion in Citi’s assets and how effectively treasury secretary Timothy Geithner, was monitoring the bank. Although history does not repeat, now and then, as Mark Twain famously proclaimed, it rhymes. Nowhere in the financial world, perhaps, is that more true than for Citigroup. During the 1920s, the institution, then known as National City Bank, opened stores around the country to encourage the middle class to invest in stocks and bonds. With little money down—10% of the cost of a trade was all an investor needed to buy shares—investors poured into the stock market. Charles E. Mitchell, CEO of National City, hyped these sales throughout the period. Then came the Great Crash of 1929. Vilified as a “bankster” in the aftermath of the crash, Mitchell testified to Congress that banks “were too ready to loan, too ready to meet the competition of neighbours, too willing to cut down their margins to a point of encouraging excessive bargaining”. Before the crash, industry practice allowed National City not only to underwrite securities but also to employ a sales army to peddle them to depositors. After Congressional hearings determined that this conflict of interest was a major cause of the debacle, lawmakers passed the Glass-Steagall Act, separating activities of commercial banks from those of investment firms. Although thousands of smaller banks failed, government policies to prop up the banking sector helped National City and other major banks. Fifty years later, what was then known as Citicorp found itself in trouble again as huge loans to developing countries in Latin America soured. Citicorp survived this crisis with an infusion of cash from a Saudi Arabian prince and a gift from Alan Greenspan, then the chairman of the Federal Reserve. Greenspan’s Fed kept interest rates unusually low, allowing Citicorp and other troubled banks to borrow money cheaply and lend at higher rates. By 1998, Citicorp had more than regained its footing and was willing to take a more aggressive stance. At the direction of its chief executive, John S. Reed, Citicorp agreed to join forces with the Travelers Group, an amalgam of insurance, brokerage and investment banking services run by a brash deal maker named Sanford I. Weill. The largest merger in history followed, creating a colossus named Citigroup with $700 billion in assets. Because Travelers had an investment firm under its umbrella, the creation of Citigroup prompted Congress to eliminate what remained of the Depression-era separation between Main Street banking and Wall Street trading. Reed and Weill argued persuasively for the change, and, along with the rest of the financial industry, deployed an armada of lobbyists in Washington. In 1999, Congress overturned Glass-Steagall. Profits soared, and by 2003, Citigroup was generating nearly $18 billion a year in them. But even as the money flowed, the euphoria over earnings was tempered by personnel upheaval, recurrent scandals and the realities of managing such a behemoth. Weill’s longtime sidekick and heir apparent, Jamie Dimon, was ousted eight months after the merger. (He now runs JPMorgan.) A steady exodus of top talent followed Dimon’s departure from Citigroup; it has only accelerated since the financial crisis began in 2007. After a series of financial scandals that tarnished the bank’s reputation, Weill announced his retirement as chief executive at the end of 2003, handing the reins to Charles O. Prince III, his longtime general counsel who had navigated the company through its various legal and regulatory crises but had never run a major financial institution. Prince did not return several phone calls seeking comment. Deal-making largely continued unabated under Prince, while the bank’s myriad parts were never effectively knit together. During his three-and-a-half-year reign, Citigroup bought five large mortgage lenders or loan servicers and four credit card lenders or portfolios. Even with occasional regulatory restraints, Citigroup’s assets ballooned from $1.49 trillion to $2.19 trillion from 2005 to 2007, an increase of 46.9% (and three times the size of Citigroup’s balance sheet when the merger that created it occurred). But amid that impressive growth, dubious mortgage loans and questionable trading in mortgage and other debt-related securities began to undermine Citigroup’s finances. One ugly class of securities continues to haunt the bank: collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs. From 2004 to the beginning of 2008, Citigroup underwrote $70 billion in CDOs but had to keep $57 billion of that amount on its own books when it couldn’t find buyers, according to a class-action lawsuit filed in federal court in Manhattan, on behalf of disgruntled Citigroup investors. The suit contends that by late 2006, Citigroup’s CDO operations “had devolved into a Ponzi scheme where unsold portions of older CDO securitizations were recycled as the asset base for new CDO securitizations”. Furthermore, the lawsuit says, Citigroup executives engaged in various accounting gimmicks to conceal the bank’s ownership of assets that eventually soured. Citigroup denies the allegations and says it will vigorously fight the suit. Still, the unfortunate truth about the bank during the last several years, according to analysts and former insiders, is that it was managed horribly. “They just blew it,” said one former Citigroup executive, who like many others interviewed for this article requested anonymity because of pending lawsuits and a desire to preserve relationships with former colleagues. “It’s really hard to drive the car if you don’t have the headlights on.” If Citigroup was driving blind, regulators seem to have been unaware. Officials at the Office of Comptroller of the Currency and the Fed—overseen at the time by Geithner, who has since become the treasury secretary—stood by as Citigroup amassed a portfolio that would ultimately generate losses of more than $35 billion. Citigroup’s financial architecture remains rickety. One reason is that it relies much more heavily than most other large domestic banks on uninsured deposits in overseas locales, where customers are quick to pull their money at the first sign of trouble. Also, some of the accounting machinery it put in place to temporarily move assets off of its balance sheet (and make the bank look financially healthier) has backfired. Pandit maintained that Citigroup’s strategy would take some time and depended in part on how the economy fared. Should the economy continue to improve, for instance, he said the bank would snare handsome returns when it sells off assets. Other assets, like some mortgages, for example, will simply be paid off over time, he said. “We have time,” he said. “If markets do turn around, these are going to be very valuable businesses. This is going to take awhile.” Yet analysts say that for Citigroup to survive, it must quickly sell the businesses it wants to exit. And that is especially hard to do given that it is shopping its wares at a time when few people appear to want them, particularly Citigroup’s middle-tier operations in far-flung regions around the globe. ©2009/THE NEW YORK TIMES feedback@livemint.com Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 1 Nov 2009 | 12:18 pm Ispat strives to avert threat of takeoverMumbai: Armed with Ispat Industries Ltd shareholders’ approval to convert part of a Rs7,000 crore loan into equity in the event of a payment default, 14 creditors led by IFCI Ltd, India’s oldest institutional lender, have tightened their grip on the steel maker. At the annual general meeting in September, Ispat shareholders gave their consent to the lenders acquiring a 19.53% stake by subscribing to preferential shares worth Rs665 crore at Rs19.38 per share in case of a default. If the option is exercised, creditors will raise their stake to 30.39% from 10.86%.  High stake: Ispat Industries vice-chairman Vinod Mittal. Daniel Acker / Bloomberg Financial institutions have the option to convert some of the loans into equity shares, Ispat executive director, finance, Anil Sureka confirmed to Mint in an interview on 26 October. The Mittals, brothers of L.N. Mittal, chairman of the world’s largest steel maker ArcelorMittal, risk losing control of the Rs9,063.41 crore firm if they fail to repay the loan on time and trigger the conversion clause. Lenders approved a second corporate debt restructuring (CDR) package for Ispat on 29 May that allowed the firm to repay their debt between 2010 and 2018. The recast came with riders requiring the promoters to pledge their shares and shareholders’ consent to convert Rs665 crore worth of loans into equity in case of a default by the company. Companies come under CDR when they face difficulties in repaying loans, according to B. Ravindranath, executive director at IDBI Bank Ltd, one of the lenders to Ispat. In a CDR, which requires lenders to delay the repayment schedule and convert some interest owed into principal, some promoters are required to pledge their shares depending on the financial package offered to the firm, he added. Ravindranath declined to comment on the Ispat debt recast. The bank doesn’t comment on individual borrowers, he said. Lenders approved a similar CDR package for Ispat Industries, JSW Steel Ltd, Essar Steel Ltd and Lloyds Steel Industries Ltd in 2002 when the firms were stricken by low demand for the alloy and their cash flows weren’t enough to repay debt. Essar, JSW and Lloyds repaid their loans and expanded their production capacities, but Ispat failed to do so. Ispat has been especially hit hard by high production costs because, unlike rivals Tata Steel Ltd, Essar Steel and JSW, it lacks captive mines producing iron ore and coal that add up to 40% of the cost of making steel. Ispat has had to buy these raw materials from the global market. A steep rise in the price of raw materials in the absence of captive mines and high logistics costs hurt the company’s margins, Ispat informed its shareholders in September. The principal advantages Indian steel makers have are easy access to iron ore and coal mines and low wages, according to Peter Fish, founder of MEPS International Ltd, a British steel consultant. “This gives them an opportunity to be profitable in global markets,” Fish said in a telephone interview from London on 28 October. Ispat Industries doesn’t have that advantage. The company spent Rs4,650 crore, or more than half its revenue, to buy raw materials, and paid Rs1,061 crore as interest to lenders in the fiscal year ended March when its sales earned Rs9,063.44 crore. Tata Steel, which sources iron ore from its own captive mines, spent only Rs5,709.91 crore, or about one-fifth of its sales of Rs24,024.45 crore, on raw materials. Even without pledging a controlling stake to creditors, corporate defaulters face the risk of being taken over, according to a Mumbai-based lawyer. Under new Reserve Bank of India draft guidelines, lenders can take over the business and management of a corporate borrower even after a single payment default, according to Suhas Tuljapurkar, a partner at Legasis, a Mumbai-based law firm that advises companies on corporate and financial issues. The draft guidelines have been released for feedback and are expected to become policy. Lenders are preparing to implement these guidelines, Tuljapurkar added. Until now, it has been rare for lenders to take control of a company in the event of a loan default. Creditors have preferred instead for such cases to be settled through the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR), which deals with companies that are in poor financial health, or a debt recovery tribunal. Ispat promoters aren’t taking any chances, raising funds and putting in place a plan to cut costs and turn around the company’s fortunes. “We have four projects that will make us comparable to our peers, double our margins to 40% by 2011 and save Rs1,250 crore a year,” said Sureka, a chartered accountant who has been with the company for more than a decade. The Mumbai-based steel company is building a gas-fired 110MW power plant, a coke oven plant with partner Stemcor Holdings Ltd, the world’s largest steel trading company, a pellet plant with a partner that will be finalized this year and developing an iron ore mine that will supply half of its needs of the material. “We expects these projects to go on stream by financial year 2010-11,” Sureka said. The company has tied up Rs470 crore to build the power plant. Some 70% of the gas required to fuel the plant will be sourced from the coke oven plant and blast furnace that emit natural gas as a waste byproduct, Sureka said. Another source of ready money will be from the sale of seven duplex apartments that Ispat Industries built in a joint venture with a Mumbai-based developer. The company expects to raise between Rs300 crore and Rs350 crore from the sale. “We do not need any fresh funds as we have provided a portion of land at the 1,200 acre steel complex at Dolvi in Maharashtra as equity to both the coke oven and pellet plants,” said Sureka, who is a board member of Ispat. The new projects will save Rs300 crore each a year to source iron ore and power, Rs500 crore on coke and Rs150 crore from its captive pellet plant. The company, which sells 90% of its production in the domestic market, can buy coke at $120 (Rs5,640) a tonne, compared with the $220 it pays outside suppliers. Power will cost Rs1.50 per kWh, compared with the Rs5.50 per kWh it pays the Maharashtra State Electricity Board. The captive iron ore plant will insulate Ispat from price volatility in the global market. Ispat now buys iron ore from NMDC Ltd, India’s largest iron ore producer, which links its price to global prices. Indian companies are expanding steel capacity to feed growing domestic demand, fuelled by an expected infrastructure boom. The government estimates that spending on infrastructure, including bridges, ports and power plants, will require $550 billion of investment in the next five years in a country where steel demand is also growing on the back of home and auto sales. ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steel maker, has announced plans to buy a 35% stake in Uttam Galva Steels Ltd, which plans to build a 1 mt plant in phases in Orissa. JSW and Essar Steel both plan to raise steel capacity and have set up franchise-based steel retail chains across the country to sell value-added products directly to end-users. If the commodity cycle is kind, Ispat Industries’ turnaround plan may succeed, helping it pay its debt on time and averting the risk of a takeover by creditors. Recession in the US, Europe and Japan has led to a plunge in steel demand, but according to the World Steel Association, the global steel market is expected to grow 9.2% in 2010 as demand rebounds. According to MEPS International’s Fish, it will be 2012 before the global market bounces back to 2007 levels. Ispat’s Sureka says the company is confident it will meet its debt repayment obligations. “Lenders have only an option to convert loans into equity shares, but we will repay the loans before the conversion clause triggers as our margins improve,” he said. baiju.k@livemint.com Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 1 Nov 2009 | 11:56 am India is growth tonic for mid-tier global pharmaTwo months ago, Michigan-based Perrigo Company, one of the world's largest over-the-counter (OTC) pharmaceutical producers with over $2 billion sales, acquired 85 per cent in Mumbai-based Vedants Drugs and Fine Chemicals for nearly Rs 60 crore.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 1 Nov 2009 | 11:41 am End-use of IPO funds under lensThe Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) has decided to conduct a quarterly scrutiny of the end-use of funds raised through initial public offers (IPO).Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 1 Nov 2009 | 11:40 am Tata Tea seeks distribution tie-ups on a global scaleIndian beverages giant Tata Tea is looking at expanding its global network through tie-ups and acquisitions. The priority is a distribution joint venture with companies of the scale of Coca-Cola and PepsiCo.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 1 Nov 2009 | 11:37 am Tata Motors mulls letting assemblers brand NanoSeven months after the launch of Nano, Tata Motors is toying with the idea of letting local garage assemblers put together the worlds cheapest car and also sell it under a brand of their own.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 1 Nov 2009 | 11:36 am Quick Edit | The coming season of LUVTrust an advertising man to come up with a smart way to describe an emerging economic reality. Borrowing from what a blogger wrote last week, Martin Sorrell of WPP said in a weekend interview that western Europe will see an L-shaped recovery, the US will see a U-shaped recovery and the major developing countries will see a quick V-shaped bounce. Together, you have the LUV-shaped recovery. There is growing evidence that this is indeed how things will look. The International Monetary Fund and others have been pointing this out for some time now. The question: Is it time to bring back the late and unlamented decoupling thesis? That would be a leap of faith. Asian countries trade a lot among themselves in intermediate inputs, but a huge chunk of final global demand still comes from US consumers. The latest data show they continue to be shell-shocked. Yet, we would not be surprised if decoupling gets another airing in the coming summer of LUV. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 1 Nov 2009 | 11:33 am Five state-run firms to get higher Maharatna statusThe centre has decided to confer within a month the status of 'Maharatna' - a newly rolled-out grade for public sector enterprises - on at least five companies, giving them more leeway in financial and policymaking matters.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 1 Nov 2009 | 7:00 am Safe food, hygiene will make eating out a pleasure in DelhiIn a move to project Delhi as a 'safe food destination' during the 2010 Commonwealth Games, a massive refurbishment programme is on to assess how hygienic the eateries in the metropolis are and how edible the food is.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 1 Nov 2009 | 5:04 am
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