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Expect to sell over 1.7m Sq ft TDR in Q3: HDILHDIL has sold 0.3 million square feet TDRs. In an exclusive interview with CNBCTV18, Sarang Wadhawan of HDIL spoke on the latest development in the company.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 23 Nov 2009 | 8:20 am RPL imbroglio: SEBI issues fresh showcause notice to RILSEBI has issued a fresh show cause notice to RIL in the RPL case. The stock market regulator has asked why RIL shouldn\'t be prohibited from the securities\' market and from buying and selling. \"Why not disgorge proceeds from transacting in RPL shares?\"Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 23 Nov 2009 | 7:56 am Reliance Industries, India`s biggest conglomerateReliance Industries has made a cash offer to buy bankrupt US based petrochemicals firm LyondellBasell Industries.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 23 Nov 2009 | 7:36 am To make open offer for add\'l 20% in DPSC: SREI InfraIn an exclusive interview with CNBCTV18, Sunil Kanoria of SREI Infra, spoke on the latest developments in the company. Also watch the accompanying video.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 23 Nov 2009 | 7:19 am Reliance Cap gets foreign interest in life unitReliance Capital has been approached by three foreign insurance companies looking to take a stake in its life insurance business, its chief executive said on Monday.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 23 Nov 2009 | 7:08 am Vishal Retail CDR stands at Rs 730 croreVishal Retails corporate debt restructuring (CDR) package seems to have come through. The stock is up 7.5% at Rs 83. In an Interview with CNBCTV18, Ambeek Khemka, Group President of Vishal Retail discusses it.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 23 Nov 2009 | 6:19 am BF Utilities demerges infra, noninfra bizIn an interview with CNBCTV18, Amit Kalyani, Executive Director of BF Utilities, spoke about the company and its expansion plans.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 23 Nov 2009 | 5:40 am 3G spectrum services likely to start only by June 2010Sources say winning bidders will be assigned the spectrum by February 2010. However, the services can start only from June 2010.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 23 Nov 2009 | 5:39 am NEWSMAKER: Tayer to embody Dubai`s newfound cautionBy naming Ahmed Humaid alTayer as the new head of the Dubai International Financial Centre, Dubai has put on a new face that it hopes will convey a newfound caution and dispel its image of recklessness.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 23 Nov 2009 | 5:39 am Lyondell deal will up RIL\'s refining margins: ExpertsReliance Industries\' proposed deal to buy Dutch major LyondellBasell would improve the Indian company\'s refining marginsSource: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 23 Nov 2009 | 5:10 am ICICI, Infosys among best firms for nurturing talent!As many as five Indian firms, including ICICI Bank and Infosys, have made it to the list of top 12 companies in the Asia Pacific region for being instrumental in building leadership capability within their organisation.Source: Zee News : Business | 23 Nov 2009 | 4:28 am Oil above USD 78 in Asian trade!Oil prices moved above USD 78 a barrel in Asian trade today as a weaker US dollar helped boost demand, analysts said.Source: Zee News : Business | 23 Nov 2009 | 4:28 am Kraft weighs higher Cadbury bid: Source!Kraft Foods Inc may raise its offer for British chocolatier Cadbury or offer more cash in its bid if rival takeover offers emerge, a source familiar with the situation said on Sunday.Source: Zee News : Business | 23 Nov 2009 | 4:28 am Rupee up 16 paise at 46.45 a USD!The Indian rupee strengthened by 16 paise to 46.45 against the US currency extending Friday`s gains in early trade today on hopes of increased capital inflows into equity and dollar selling by exporters.Source: Zee News : Business | 23 Nov 2009 | 4:28 am Deutsche Bahn signs $26B Qatar railroad deal!An investment company owned by Qatar`s sovereign wealth fund has signed a $26 billion (euro17 billion) joint venture with Germany`s national railway operator to build a railroad network in the natural gas-rich Gulf sheikdom.Source: Zee News : Business | 23 Nov 2009 | 4:28 am RIL rises over 1% after Lyondell offer!Shares in energy major Reliance Industries rose more than 1% early on Monday after the company said over the weekend it made a cash offer to buy a controlling interest in LyondellBasell Industries.Source: Zee News : Business | 23 Nov 2009 | 4:28 am Microsoft wants News Corp to exit Google!Microsoft has held talks with Rupert Murdoch`s News Corp over a possible plan for the software giant to pay the media company to remove its news websites from Google, a report said Monday.Source: Zee News : Business | 23 Nov 2009 | 4:28 am Sensex up 99 pts, Reliance rallies!The BSE Sensex rose 99 points in early trade on Monday, led by gains in Reliance Industries that made an offer to buy controlling interest in U.S.-based bankrupt petrochemicals company LyondellBasell Industries.Source: Zee News : Business | 23 Nov 2009 | 4:28 am Nifty ends above 5100, RIL gains 3.3% - NDTV.com
Source: Business - Google News | 23 Nov 2009 | 3:36 am INTERVIEW - ICEX to go live soon, could skew marketMUMBAI (Reuters) - Indian Commodity Exchange Ltd (ICEX), country's fourth national commodity bourse, will go live in less than a week's time with 10 futures contracts and 250 members, its chief executive said on Monday.Source: Reuters: Money News | 23 Nov 2009 | 3:24 am IMF chief says global economy in holding patternDominique Strauss-Kahn, MD of IMF, said the top priority in rich countries should be making plans to clean up the fiscal mess.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 23 Nov 2009 | 3:22 am BSE Sensex provisionally closes up 0.8 pctMUMBAI (Reuters) – The BSE provisionally rose 0.8 percent on Monday, as Reliance Industries jumped after the energy giant made an offer to buy controlling interest in U.S.-based bankrupt petrochemicals company LyondellBasell.Source: Reuters: Money News | 23 Nov 2009 | 3:21 am Pratibha Industries JV gets 3.1 bln rupees orderPratibha Industries Ltd said its joint venture with Gammon India Ltd won an order worth 3.1 billion rupees from the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage BoardSource: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 23 Nov 2009 | 3:16 am Foreigners eye Reliance Cap life unitMUMBAI (Reuters) - Three foreign insurance firms have approached Reliance Capital about buying a stake in its life insurance business before a planned listing, the financial services firm's chief executive said on Monday.Source: Reuters: Money News | 23 Nov 2009 | 3:15 am India may get $1 bln IT outsourcing contractsLeading outsourcers such as Tata Consultancy, Infosys and Wipro stand to gain contracts worth about $1 billion in the next one or two years, the Economic Times reported on Monday.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 23 Nov 2009 | 3:14 am LIC restructuring Ulip costs to protect agent commissions - Economic Times
Source: Business - Google News | 23 Nov 2009 | 3:08 am Bank of China eyes more cash, may need $15 billionChina's banking regulator has urged big state lenders to raise their capital adequacy ratios to 13% next year after rapid loan expansions in 2009.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 23 Nov 2009 | 3:04 am General Motors sees China sales rising 50 pct in 2009General Motors expects its China sales to rise 50 percent in 2009 and increase 10 to 15 percent in 2010, a company executive said.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 23 Nov 2009 | 2:49 am GLOBAL MARKETS - Gold at new high as dollar slides, stocks gainLONDON (Reuters) - Gold powered to another record high on Monday as the dollar sank, while higher commodity prices lifted world equities.Source: Reuters: Money News | 23 Nov 2009 | 2:48 am RPL imbroglio: SEBI issues fresh showcause notice to RIL - Moneycontrol.com
Source: Business - Google News | 23 Nov 2009 | 2:45 am India gold buying cools off on record pricesMUMBAI (Reuters) - India gold buying cooled off on Monday after picking up slightly in the previous week as prices struck a fresh record high and the flow of scrap eased, dealers said.Source: Reuters: Money News | 23 Nov 2009 | 2:42 am IMF chief says global economy in holding patternWASHINGTON (Reuters) - The global economy is in a holding pattern and vulnerable to more upheaval, the head of the IMF said on Monday, adding a lasting recovery will depend on policymakers taking the proper steps in the coming months.Source: Reuters: Money News | 23 Nov 2009 | 2:34 am Govt to consider lowering import duty on hybrid vehiclesThe government will consider lowering import duty on hybrid vehicles to encourage the automakers to introduce more environment friendly products in the country.Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 23 Nov 2009 | 2:27 am Rupee up, but month-end importer demand caps riseThe rupee was little moved in afternoon trade as firm shares and broad weakness in the dollar continued to support the local unit.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 23 Nov 2009 | 2:25 am Kraft weighs higher Cadbury bid as rivals circle: SourceKraft Foods Inc may raise its offer for British chocolatier Cadbury Plc or offer more cash in its bid if rival takeover offers emerge.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 23 Nov 2009 | 2:25 am India gold buying cools off on record pricesMumbai: India gold buying cooled off on Monday after picking up slightly in the previous week as prices struck a fresh record high and the flow of scrap eased, dealers said. “Buying is negligible compared to the regular daily volumes,” said a dealer with a state-run bullion dealing bank in Mumbai. The most-traded December contract hit an all-time high of Rs17,534 per 10 grams and was trading 0.64% higher at Rs17,501 at 3:01pm. Buyers are comfortable only upto Rs17,200 level, said the dealer. Dealers said the flow of scrap has slowed as sellers sought higher prices. “The flow has slowed despite record high prices, I may end-up collecting 3 kgs till the end of the day,” said Jitendra Kantilal, partner Jugraj Kantilal & Co., a gold scrap dealer in Mumbai, which offered to buy scrap at Rs17,700. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 23 Nov 2009 | 2:22 am BofA-Merrill fears delay in financial reformsMumbai: India, whose protected financial sector helped insulate it from the worst of the global economic meltdown, should not be complacent in its push for financial sector reforms, a top Bank of America-Merrill Lynch executive said on Monday. “One thing that does worry me is that the conservative nature of Indian regulation. That may persist longer than it would otherwise have done because of the financial crisis,” said Kevan Watts, who heads the combined Indian operations of Bank of America and Merrill Lynch. The rousing re-election of the Congress party-led government in May, which freed it from dependence on communist allies, lifted hopes of an acceleration in long-delayed financial reforms. But the global financial meltdown has dampened Indian appetite for financial liberalisation, especially as limits on foreign banks and active regulation of the financial sector were seen as sheltering it from the worst of the downturn. “The danger is, that if you like, India will rest on its laurels of having circumvented the crisis well,” Watts told the Reuters India Investment Summit in Mumbai. India has for years talked about allowing a greater role for foreign banks and giving equal voting rights to foreigners in private-sector banks, currently limited to 10% irrespective of their actual holding. No foreign firm is allowed to operate in the pension sector and private Indian players have only a limited presence. The life insurance market was opened nine years ago, but companies are not allowed to raise debt or go public in their first decade of operation, putting the onus on shareholders to fund costlier growth. Foreign ownership in the life insurance sector is capped at 26%. Watts said financial reforms could help India’s large savings to make its way into productive investments. India has about $400 billion in domestic savings, but little is funnelled through the banking channel currently to fund, for example, the country’s huge requirements to build infrastructure. Capital Flows Watts, who has spent nearly three decades with Merrill Lynch and has been based in India for about 18 months, said swings in foreign capital flows were a concern, but taxing them was not a solution. “I think volatility of fund flows is certainly something I would be worrying about if I was advising the government,” said Watts, who early in his career worked for the British treasury. “When you start taxing things, there are a lot of unintended consequences,” the Oxford alumnus said, adding, “Critically for India, any unilateral move of that kind would really damage its reputation globally.” He said India should instead use existing mechanisms, such as sterilising inflows by issuing special bonds. India’s central bank has in the past used market intervention bonds to absorb excess liquidity generated by large foreign capital inflows. Foreign investors have so far bought more than $15 billion of local equities in 2009, after selling $13 billion in 2008, helping send Indian stocks up about 75% and lifting the rupee to its highest in more than a year. The capital inflows are part of a trend globally that is seeing investors chasing faster growing emerging markets, given sluggish recovery and low interest rates in developed economies. This has raised concerns inflows may create asset price bubbles and drive currencies to uncompetitive levels. That has prompted some economies, including Brazil and Taiwan, to impose controls and others, such as Russia, to say they were considering such steps. Watts said India should also encourage more domestic participation in its equity markets to counter the impact of foreign investment flows. Indian institutional investors lack muscle to counter rapid fund flows. For instance, government pension funds are not allowed to invest in equities, while investment by private pension funds is limited to just 5% of their assets. Financial reform is “not about whether foreigners can own 49% of life insurance joint ventures or 26%,” he said. “Perhaps the most important thing that the Indian government can do is to encourage the further development of domestic Indian institutional investors,” he said. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 23 Nov 2009 | 2:17 am Credit outlook for Indian banks dim, says Moody's - Times of India
Source: Business - Google News | 23 Nov 2009 | 2:13 am Reuters Summit - BofA-Merrill fears India reform delaysMUMBAI (Reuters) - India, whose protected financial sector helped insulate it from the worst of the global economic meltdown, should not be complacent in its push for financial sector reforms, a top Bank of America-Merrill Lynch executive said on Monday.Source: Reuters: Money News | 23 Nov 2009 | 2:09 am Foreign cos keen on Reliance Cap life unit stakeMumbai: Three foreign insurance firms have approached Reliance Capital about buying a stake in its life insurance business before a planned listing, the financial services firm’s chief executive said on Monday. The firm, which has operations in asset management, insurance, mortgages, and broking, and owns stakes in two commodity bourses, plans to set up a small investment banking team by March and close a private equity fund by this year, Sam Ghosh told the Reuters India Investment Summit. Reliance Capital plans to sell up to 26% of its Reliance Life unit, including through an initial public offering, and has said it would sell about 10% to a strategic investor ahead of a listing. “We would obviously like a life insurance company, someone who hasn’t come to India. About three globally have approached us,” he said, adding some private equity funds had also expressed interest in taking a stake in the unit. Reliance Life, the country’s No. 4 private life underwriter by assets under management, is seeking a waiver from a requirement that an insurance company be in business for 10 years before an IPO. It aims to be the first Indian life underwriter to list, and Ghosh said he was confident of getting government approval. “Finance ministry is waiting for approval from the insurance regulator. It is a technical interpretation of the act,” he said, adding the finance ministry could waive the 10-year requirement. India now has 22 life insurers, after the market was opened in 2000 to challenge state-owned Life Insurance Corp.’s monopoly. Existing regulations prevent insurers from selling stakes of more than 26% to foreign partners. Some of the first foreign-backed insurance joint ventures, including between ICICI Bank and Prudential Plc, Max India and New York Life, and Housing Development Finance Corp and Standard Life, are said by market players to be eyeing IPOs after they cross the 10-year mark next year. Premiums Ghosh said Reliance Life expected annual growth of up to 20% in premiums earned for the fiscal year to March 2010, marginally faster than peers, but still sees a “small loss” for the fiscal year. Ghosh has earlier said that unit aimed to breakeven by the next financial year. Reliance Life expects total premium to quadruple to about Rs200 billion ($4.3 billion) in 2011/12 from Rs49.3 billion at the end of 2008/09, Ghosh said in September. Reliance Capital, part of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, also runs India’s top mutual fund, Reliance Capital Asset Management. It wants to build an investment banking team by March and close a 10 billion to Rs15 billion private equity fund by December. “We have the distribution element, a large number of franchisees, 6,000 plus, and an investment banking licence,” he said, saying such a move was a natural progression. “We have raised retail money for IPOs. We should gradually move into getting mandates.” Source: Home - Livemint.com | 23 Nov 2009 | 2:09 am Foreign cos keen on Reliance Cap life unit stakeMumbai: Three foreign insurance firms have approached Reliance Capital about buying a stake in its life insurance business before a planned listing, the financial services firm’s chief executive said on Monday. The firm, which has operations in asset management, insurance, mortgages, and broking, and owns stakes in two commodity bourses, plans to set up a small investment banking team by March and close a private equity fund by this year, Sam Ghosh told the Reuters India Investment Summit. Reliance Capital plans to sell up to 26% of its Reliance Life unit, including through an initial public offering, and has said it would sell about 10% to a strategic investor ahead of a listing. “We would obviously like a life insurance company, someone who hasn’t come to India. About three globally have approached us,” he said, adding some private equity funds had also expressed interest in taking a stake in the unit. Reliance Life, the country’s No. 4 private life underwriter by assets under management, is seeking a waiver from a requirement that an insurance company be in business for 10 years before an IPO. It aims to be the first Indian life underwriter to list, and Ghosh said he was confident of getting government approval. “Finance ministry is waiting for approval from the insurance regulator. It is a technical interpretation of the act,” he said, adding the finance ministry could waive the 10-year requirement. India now has 22 life insurers, after the market was opened in 2000 to challenge state-owned Life Insurance Corp.’s monopoly. Existing regulations prevent insurers from selling stakes of more than 26% to foreign partners. Some of the first foreign-backed insurance joint ventures, including between ICICI Bank and Prudential Plc, Max India and New York Life, and Housing Development Finance Corp and Standard Life, are said by market players to be eyeing IPOs after they cross the 10-year mark next year. Premiums Ghosh said Reliance Life expected annual growth of up to 20% in premiums earned for the fiscal year to March 2010, marginally faster than peers, but still sees a “small loss” for the fiscal year. Ghosh has earlier said that unit aimed to breakeven by the next financial year. Reliance Life expects total premium to quadruple to about Rs200 billion ($4.3 billion) in 2011/12 from Rs49.3 billion at the end of 2008/09, Ghosh said in September. Reliance Capital, part of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, also runs India’s top mutual fund, Reliance Capital Asset Management. It wants to build an investment banking team by March and close a 10 billion to Rs15 billion private equity fund by December. “We have the distribution element, a large number of franchisees, 6,000 plus, and an investment banking licence,” he said, saying such a move was a natural progression. “We have raised retail money for IPOs. We should gradually move into getting mandates.” Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 23 Nov 2009 | 2:09 am Credit outlook for Indian banks dim, says Moody'sThe credit outlook for the Indian banking system remains negative because of poor asset qualities and rising problem loans, according to global rating agency Moody's.Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 23 Nov 2009 | 2:05 am Reliance Industries, India's biggest conglomerateReliance Industries is India's largest listed firm with a market value of about $75 billion.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 23 Nov 2009 | 2:05 am Reliance shares up on value in Lyondell dealShares in Reliance Industries rose to one-month highs as traders said its offer for bankrupt petrochemicals company LyondellBasell Industries was well timed.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 23 Nov 2009 | 1:33 am Rupee up but month-end importer demand caps riseMumbai: The Indian rupee was little moved in afternoon trade on Monday as firm shares and broad weakness in the dollar continued to support the local unit, but some month-end dollar demand prevented further gains. At 1:55pm, the partially convertible rupee was at Rs46.45/46, 0.3% stronger than Rs46.60/61 at close on Friday. Dealers said there was good demand from importers and oil refiners to meet month-end import committments. Oil is India’s largest import and refiners are the biggest buyers of dollars in the domestic currency market. Shares were trading up about 0.9% led by gains in energy major Reliance Industries Ltd after it made an offer to buy a controlling interest in US-based bankrupt petrochemicals company LyondellBasell Industries. The US dollar drifted lower against the euro and other major currencies on Monday, losing its shine to a surging gold price and more dovish comments from US central bankers. In the currency futures market, the most traded near-month contracts on the National Stock Exchange and MCX-SX were quoting at Rs46.4575 and Rs46.4550 respectively, with the total traded volume on the two exchanges at about $1.6 billion. . Source: Home - Livemint.com | 23 Nov 2009 | 1:16 am Oil and gas to take the baton from banks - Economic Times
Source: Business - Google News | 23 Nov 2009 | 1:10 am Insurance scheme for apple growers in Himachal PradeshThe Himachal Pradesh government has launched an insurance scheme for apple growers in the state in view of the adverse weather conditions that hit production this year.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 23 Nov 2009 | 1:03 am Credit outlook for Indian banks dim, says Moody'sThe credit outlook for the Indian banking system remains negative because of poor asset qualities and rising problem loans, according to global rating agency Moody's.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 23 Nov 2009 | 1:02 am Cracks in Mumbai sea link no cause for alarm: chief engineerThe cracks and leaks detected on the surface of Mumbai's Bandra-Worli sea link bridge are of 'very minor' nature and are being tended to regularly, Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) Chief Engineer S. Sabnis said Monday.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 23 Nov 2009 | 1:02 am Reliance Industries drives Sensex riseThe Reliance Industries scrip helped a key benchmark index rise over 0.92 percent around Monday noon.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 23 Nov 2009 | 1:01 am Visa clampdown on Chinese affecting Himachal projects: Chief MinisterChief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal has urged the central government to take an early decision on granting employment visas to Chinese workers as they have had to leave road projects in Himachal Pradesh after a visa clampdown.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 23 Nov 2009 | 1:00 am Fuel-efficiency standards for automobile sector by 2011New Delhi: The Government is in the final stage of notifying the fuel efficiency standards for automobile sector in the country which will be enforced from 2011, environment minister Jairam Ramesh said on Monday. “We are right now engaged in finalising administrative formalities on how these standards has to be notified either through the Energy Conservation Act or the Motor Vehicles Act,” Ramesh said at the inaugural session of the two-day 4th Environment Friendly Vehicles (EFV) conference here. He said there is no two views that “we should move to a mandatory fuel efficiency standards regime by 2011” as the transport sector contributes about 15 to 20% of the total greenhouse gas emissions in India. How it should be done is being debated within the government, he said. At present, transport sector is placed at number three after the power and agriculture sector as far as the national emissions are concerned. “But the rate at which the automobile sector is growing our own estimations are that by the year 2030 it could account close to 25% of our GHG emissions. Hence not only because of the air pollution point of view but also the climate change point of view, environment-friendly transportation assume special importance,” Ramesh added. Ramesh said by 2011, it will be mandatory for automobile manufacturers to sell vehicles with energy-efficiency tags, adding the information on the labels will have to be certified by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE). The industry has already come on board for voluntary certification and in two years will take on the mandatory norms. “The labelling of vehicles will not be based on one standard but different standards for different categories of automobiles such as small cars and commercial vehicles. “Also, instead of California route which mandates curtail on emissions, we will follow a conventional route of legislating the KMP (kilometre per hour) figure,” Ramesh said. The government’s decision on mandatory fuel efficiency standards holds importance against the backdrop of the next month’s Copenhagen summit on climate change where India can showcase its commitment to emerge with solutions to tackle global warming. The environment minister also discussed about the recently notified air quality standards, which he said put India on par with Europe and in many cases were much more stringent than those in the US. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 23 Nov 2009 | 12:39 am Reliance shares up on value in Lyondell dealMUMBAI (Reuters) - Shares in energy major Reliance Industries rose to one-month highs on Monday as traders said its offer for bankrupt petrochemicals company LyondellBasell Industries was well timed and would help its core businesses.Source: Reuters: Money News | 23 Nov 2009 | 12:33 am Oil rises more than 1% as dollar swings lowerPerth: Oil prices rose more than 1% to top $78 a barrel on Monday, after the US dollar lost its footing and heightened tensions between key oil exporter Iran and Western nations raised speculation of a potential supply threat. The dollar, down 0.5% against a basket of currencies, was also a key factor in driving up prices of other commodities, with gold powering to a fresh record high of more than $1,160 an ounce. Investors typically buy commodities as a hedge against inflation and a weaker US currency. US crude for January delivery rose 96 cents to $78.43 a barrel by 0736 GMT, after having risen by $1 earlier. London Brent crude rose $1.04 to $78.24. “The rising Iran tensions, alongside US dollar weakness and gold’s record high levels, have helped buoy oil prices,” said Michelle Kwek, an analyst at Informa Global Markets in Singapore. Iran’s armed forces launched air defence war games on Sunday to show off the country’s deterrence capabilities in the face of Western pressure over its nuclear programme, and a cleric in the Revolutionary Guards warned the Islamic republic would fire missiles at “the heart of Tel Aviv” if attacked. The threats came a day after senior officials from six world powers said they were disappointed Iran had not accepted proposals intended to delay its potential to make nuclear weapons, with US president Barack Obama having warned that there could be a package of sanctions against Iran within weeks. While energy demand in the United States remains sluggish, crude consumption in China, the world’s No. 2 oil consumer, has rebounded strongly in recent months as its economy looks poised to post an impressive growth of around 8% this year. China’s apparent oil demand in October rose 10.3% from a year earlier, the seventh rise in a row, as refiners produced at record rates among more signs of a solid recovery in the world third-largest economy. Oil prices have gained about 75% so far this year, thanks to the weak dollar and signs of a global economic recovery, but they are still nearly 47% off their high of more than $147 a barrel in July 2008. Analysts said oil prices have been trading within the $75-$82 band of the past one month and would need a lot more upside pressure to leap out of the $82 levels. Barclays Capital said in a research note on Friday the upside would also probably be capped by Opec, which has indicated that any quick run-up in prices is likely to be met by a proactive approach to calm them, and until distillate demand showed some sustained improvements. With a raft of economic data on tap in the United States in a holiday-thinned week, including existing home sales on Monday, revised GDP figures on Tuesday and the minutes of Fed’s last policy meeting the day after, investors are set to scrutinise the numbers for signs of economic activity perking up in the world’s top oil consumer. Money managers boosted net long crude oil positions on the New York Mercantile Exchange in the week through 17 November, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said in a report on Friday. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 23 Nov 2009 | 12:28 am Fuel-efficiency standards for automobile sector by 2011:Ramesh - Sify
Source: Business - Google News | 23 Nov 2009 | 12:27 am Tata Tele to bill roaming calls per secondFrom Monday, Tata Teleservices will charge 1 paisa per second for calls made while roaming across India, irrespective of the network used.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 23 Nov 2009 | 12:18 am EM ASIA DEBT-New ICICI Bank bonds weak in steady market - Reuters India
Source: Business - Google News | 23 Nov 2009 | 12:01 am Day Trading GuideSource: Business Line - Home Page | 23 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am Future Group to launch 10-15 brands every yearNew Delhi, Nov. 22 Kishore Biyani-led Future Group is developing well-performing labels from its private label kitty into strong stand-alone brands.Source: Business Line - Home Page | 23 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am RIL bid for Lyondell marks India Inc’s resurgence in M&A cycleMumbai/New Delhi, Nov. 22 Reliance Industries’ bid for LyondellBasell, if successful, could mark India Inc’s highest buyout at nearly $13 billion (around Rs 60,000 crore), say top industry sources.Source: Business Line - Home Page | 23 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am Gold futures may test resistance levelsComex gold futures ended higher once again Friday broadly due to dollar weakness boosting gold’s appeal as a hedge against the dollar.Source: Business Line - Home Page | 23 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am Small is not beautiful in IT worldThe bigger you are, the bigger you get, is the message echoing from the Indian IT services industry. Small and mid-sized IT companies have trailed their large counterparts in managing revenue growth during the downturn.Source: Business Line - Home Page | 23 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am IT cos voice concern over proposed US law on hiringNew Delhi, Nov. 22 Two US senators have introduced a legislation seeking to prohibit companies that lay off large number of American workers, from subsequently hiring temporary workers (such as tech professionals) from outside the US.Source: Business Line - Home Page | 23 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am One in four cos expands equity in Sept quarterBL Research Bureau It is not just raw material costs or interest rates that pose a risk to India Inc’s earnings in the quarters ahead.Source: Business Line - Home Page | 23 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am Positive sentiment stays, but volatility to riseThe weekly outlook for Dalal Street’s key indices appears positive.Source: Business Line - Home Page | 23 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am No entry-fee for DoCoMo roamingTATA DoCoMo, the GSM brand of Tata Teleservices Ltd, on Sunday announced the extension of its seconds-based billing to roaming services as well.Source: Business Line - Home Page | 23 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am Aegis Logistics (Rs 163.6): BuyWe recommend a buy in Aegis Logistics stock from a short-term perspective. It is visible from the charts that the stock has been on a stable uptrend since the March low of Rs 52, forming higher trading zones. Within this uptrend, the stock hadSource: Business Line - Home Page | 23 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am Maruti Suzuki to launch van to replace VersaThe country's largest car maker, Maruti Suzuki India (MSI), today said it will launch a new van within this fiscal to replace its MPV Versa, whose production has been stopped.Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 22 Nov 2009 | 11:47 pm Gold futures at new high on Asian cues, weak dollarContinuing the record setting spree, gold hit yet another high of Rs 17,605 per 10 gram for April contract in the futures market today.Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 22 Nov 2009 | 11:42 pm Reliance shares up on value in Lyondell dealMumbai: Shares in energy major Reliance Industries rose to one-month highs on Monday as traders said its offer for bankrupt petrochemicals company LyondellBasell Industries was well timed and would help its core businesses. Over the weekend Reliance said it had made a cash offer to buy control of LyondellBasell. A deal would create one of the largest petrochemical firms in the world, and comes when valuations are still low following the global downturn and Reliance is cashed up, analysts said. Sources have put the value of the deal at around $10 billion to $12 billion, which would be India’s second-biggest ever foreign takeover. In 2007, Tata Steel bought Corus for $13 billion. However, the deal differs from other big overseas deals given the relative size of companies, balance sheet strength and bankruptcy status of the LyondellBasell, Goldman Sachs said in a research report. “We have been noting that Reliance could pursue inorganic growth as we see no major projects lined up to consume about US$20 billion of excess cash flow for FY2011 to FY2014 after its committed capex,” Goldman Sachs said. It would also mark a return of Indian firms to large-scale M&A, after the global credit crunch and economic downturn made it difficult for firms such as aluminium maker Hindalco and Tata Motors, which bought Jaguar Land Rover, to digest big deals made in 2007 and early 2008. At 11.55 pm, Reliance, which has a 14% weighting in the main Mumbai index, was up 3.1% at Rs2,191. The main index gained 0.8%. Reliance is India’s largest conglomerate with interests in petrochemicals, refining, oil and gas exploration, and retail. Strong Cash Position Reliance, which has a market value of $75 billion, has been looking to take advantage of low valuations to expand internationally. Analysts said it has more than required muscle to finance the deal. It has $4 billion in cash, $8 billion in treasury stock that can be sold, and, if it doubled its current net debt-to-equity it could borrow another $10 billion, Macquarie said in a recent research note. A deal would give Reliance greater bargaining power in sourcing, and a strong presence in the United States and Europe, and technology patents. “The deal is not going to be negative prime facie, that is obvious. The only concern is what could be the drag on Reliance’s profits but that is offset by the global presence and others,” said Deven Choksey, chief executive at brokerage KR Choksey. Reliance is aiming to attain global scale for its conventional energy platform -- petrochemicals, refining and oil and gas exploration -- and invest in its new businesses such as retailing and alternative energy, chairman Mukesh Ambani said last week at the annual meeting of shareholders. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 22 Nov 2009 | 11:19 pm To use GDR proceeds for subscriber acquisition: Dish TV - Moneycontrol.com
Source: Business - Google News | 22 Nov 2009 | 11:15 pm Speak to employees before selling any state-owned firm: MamataWhile ruling out divestment of any unit under her ministry, Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee has asked the government to consider giving shares of state-run companies it planned to disinvest to the employees.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 22 Nov 2009 | 11:01 pm Sensex opens in the green, up 0.46 percentA key Indian equities index opened on a positive note Monday and was up 0.46 percent in morning trade.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 22 Nov 2009 | 11:01 pm Reliance Industries up 1.7 percent on LyondellBasell bidThe scrip of Reliance Industries, India's largest private company, rose nearly 2 percent Monday morning after its weekend announcement that it had bid for a controlling stake in bankrupt Dutch petrochemicals firm LyondellBasell Industries.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 22 Nov 2009 | 11:00 pm Mamata defends high salaries to intellectuals in rail panelsRailway Minister Mamata Banerjee has defended her decision to rope in intellectuals and theatre personalities into railway committees and their so-called hefty salaries that have come under criticism from the ruling Left Front in West Bengal.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 22 Nov 2009 | 11:00 pm Sensex rises 102 points in opening tradeThe Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex on Monday gained 102 points in opening trade on heavy buying by foreign funds and retail investors, driven by firming trend on other Asian bourses.Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 22 Nov 2009 | 10:55 pm No replacement for US dollar: PMWashington: Praising the entrepreneurial spirit of the American enterprise, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said that there can be no substitution for the US dollar. “As far as I can see right now there is no substitute for the dollar,” the Prime Minister said in an interview to CNN. Responding to questions about the economic crisis in the United States, the Prime Minister said: “There is a temporary setback and temporary questioning, about relevance of the American model, but I have seen these things much before.” Singh said even the Chinese, who holds $2.5 trillion in reserve assets, have not disposed off even a fraction of them. “That is a measure of the confidence that the world has in the dollar. There are problems. There is the confidence problem, which can be very destabilizing,” he said. “My own feeling is that the world has not entered an era of irreversible shift in the economic strength of the United States,” he added. ‘Pak not doing enough in 26/11 attack case’ Accusing Pakistan of not doing enough to bring to book the perpetrators of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, Singh has said India does not know whom to deal with in Islamabad as the army is the most powerful force in the neighbouring country. “No, they (Pakistan) have not done enough,” Singh told CNN in an interview which was taken in New Delhi and aired minutes before the Prime Minister arrived in Washington on the first State Visit of the Obama administration. “They have taken some steps. I have discussed this matter with (Pakistan) prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, when we met at Sharm al-Sheikh (in Egypt). The joint statement we issued, he assured us Pakistan will do all that is possible to bring to justice the perpetrators of Mumbai massacre,” he said. “But it is our feeling that Pakistan has not done enough. Hafeez Saeed is roaming around freely. Maulana Azhar Masood and other terrorist elements, the Lashkar-e-Toiba, according to Pakistan’s own admissions is actively involved in perpetrating massacre in Mumbai, they are moving around freely. The conspiracy took place in Pakistan,” Singh said. He said a “friendly” government in Pakistan, which would be equally determined to tackle terrorism, would take the case to its logical conclusion. “That is not happening,” the Prime Minister said. Asked if he believed the Pakistani army was serious in tackling terrorists, Singh said he is not certain if the military will take on those elements. Implementation of the landmark civil nuclear deal, the situation in Pakistan and terrorism emanating from there would be high on the agenda as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Barack Obama meet here on Tuesday for talks during which they are expected to give a major push to the Indo-US strategic ties. The two countries will sign a number of pacts, including an MoU on counter-terrorism to provide a legal framework for stepped up cooperation against the menace, and discuss the problem of climate change ahead of the Copenhagen Source: Home - Livemint.com | 22 Nov 2009 | 10:38 pm U.S. business economists raise 2010 growth outlookWASHINGTON (Reuters) - A group of U.S. business economists boosted their forecast for economic growth over the next year, but said the jobless rate will remain stubbornly high, a survey released on Monday showed.Source: Reuters: Money News | 22 Nov 2009 | 10:36 pm Maruti to double exports from Mundra - Economic Times
Source: Business - Google News | 22 Nov 2009 | 10:24 pm Markets rise 0.4% early, Reliance ralliesMumbai: Indian shares rose 0.4% on Monday morning, led by energy giant Reliance Industries after it made an offer to buy a controlling interest in US-based bankrupt petrochemicals company LyondellBasell Industries. Reliance, which has the largest weighting in the index, was up 1.4% at Rs2,154.50. “The difference between any other large acquisition and this one is that this deal is being pursued at the time of a downcycle in petchem space, making valuations cheap,” said Vaibhav Sanghavi, director of Ambit Capital. “Also, Reliance has always had a comfortable balance sheet. That, along with the synergies and existing liquidity is helping the stock,” added Sanghavi. Reliance, the country’s largest-listed firm, is offering about $12 billion for control of LyondellBasell, according to sources, and if successful it would be one of the largest overseas acquisitions by an Indian company. At 10:22am, the 30-share BSE Index was up 0.41% at 17,091.75, with 22 components gaining. The 50-share NSE index was up 0.5% at 5,079.05. “I think we can hold on to the gains in the day as dollar is weak for now. We should close in the green today,” said Gajendra Nagpal, CEO of Unicon Financial. Positive Asian markets also helped sentiment, with MSCI’s measure of Asian markets other than Japan rising 0.6%. Japanese markets were closed for a public holiday. Telecom stocks declined as the tariff war in the sector intensified after Tata Teleservices extending its per-second billing scheme to roaming calls. Top mobile operator Bharti Airtel dropped 2.7% to Rs280.85, while rival Reliance Communications shed 0.9% to Rs172.25. In the broader market, gainers were more than double the number of losers on a volume of 51 million shares. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 22 Nov 2009 | 10:18 pm Sensex rises 102 points in opening tradeThe Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex today gained 102 points in opening trade on heavy buying by foreign funds and retail investors, driven by firming trend on other Asian bourses.Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 22 Nov 2009 | 10:17 pm Asia stocks mixed as figures on US economy awaitedSeoul: Asian stock markets were mixed on Monday after a decline on Wall Street and as investors hunkered down ahead of a stream of figures that could confirm the US economy is recovering at a slower pace. Trading was subdued with financial markets in Japan closed for a national holiday. Oil hovered above $78 a barrel while the dollar rose against the yen and fell versus the euro. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was up 140.15 points, or 0.6%, at 22,588.44 while South Korea’s Kospi was off 2.72, or 0.2%, at 1,617.88. Elsewhere, Australia’s index gained 0.6% and China’s Shanghai benchmark rose 0.1%. Markets were lower in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, New Zealand and the Philippines. Investors are cautious because of an upcoming slew of figures on the world’s largest economy including revised GDP growth for the third quarter. Many analysts expect the initial estimate of a 3.5% annual growth rate to be lowered. Also due this week are reports on home sales, unemployment, consumer confidence and demand for big-ticket manufactured goods. “Everybody is watching to see if the US consumer will go out and spend,” said Jackson Wong, vice president at Tanrich Securities in Hong Kong. There’s also a focus on the US dollar, he said, after it regained strength amid safe haven buying sparked by Dell’s gloomy business outlook and European Central Bank plans to start reining in stimulus programs. Investors tend to seek refuge in the US currency and gold when they perceive other assets such as emerging market stocks and commodities have become too risky. Stocks, particularly in Asia, have risen dramatically from their lows in March but there are nagging doubts the global economic recovery isn’t keeping up with the markets. On Friday in New York, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 14.28, or 0.1%, to 10,318.16, skidding for the third straight session. For the week, the Dow fell 119 points, or 1.1%. The broader Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 3.52, or 0.3%, to 1,091.38, while the Nasdaq composite index, dominated by tech stocks like Dell Inc., fell 10.78, or 0.5%, to 2,146.04. Investors sold US stocks after Dell said net income dropped 54% in the third quarter and warned it faced an uneven recovery. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 22 Nov 2009 | 10:14 pm CORRECTED - India Tata Tele to bill roaming calls per second - Reuters
Source: Business - Google News | 22 Nov 2009 | 10:01 pm Rupee up 16 paise at 46.45 a dollarThe Indian rupee strengthened by 16 paise to 46.45 against the US currency extending Friday's gains in early trade today on hopes of increased capital inflows into equity and dollar selling by exporters.Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 22 Nov 2009 | 9:57 pm Gold strikes record price on inflation worriesSingapore: Gold powered to a record above $1,160 an ounce on Monday after a rally in the dollar ran out of steam, strong oil prices resurrected inflation worries, and a drop in US stocks stirred doubt about the economic outlook. Bullion, which has gained around 32% so far in 2009, struck a succession of lifetime highs in November as sentiment turned extremely bullish after India acquired 200 tonnes of the precious metal from the International Monetary Fund. Gold was quoted at $1,162.85 an ounce by 9:24am, up $14.65 an ounce from New York’s notional close on Friday. It hit another record at $1,164.35 in thin trade also driven by technical buying after bullion surpassed previous records. “We’re in unchartered territory. It’s going to move fairly freely. Momentum becomes quite a big driver of prices. You could see the hint of safe haven buying returning,” said Mark Pervan, ANZ’s senior commodities analyst. “There is increasing expectation that the market could deleverage risk towards the end of the year. There’s a view that we could see some selling in equity markets, that lowering a risk would also benefit gold prices.” US gold futures for December delivery added $16.7 an ounce to $1,163.50 on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, having struck a record at $1,164.80. The world’s largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, SPDR Gold Trust, said its holdings stood at 1,117.493 tonnes as of Nov 20, unchanged from the previous business day. Trading was thin, with Japanese speculators away on holiday, but dealers noted buybacks and limited scrap sales by jewellers in Asia on expectations that gold prices could rise further. The dollar headed lower in thin trade on Monday, giving up some of last week’s gains, while oil rose above $78 a barrel on heightened tensions between Iran and Western nations. In theory, a weaker dollar makes dollar-priced gold cheaper for holders of other currencies, while strong oil prices raise the metal’s safe-haven appeal against inflation. “You’ve got more high-profile hedge funds visibly investing in gold. That’s yet another factor encouraging moves into gold by the wider investor community,” said David Barclay, commodity strategist at Standard Chartered in Hong Kong. Options traders are betting that gold will hit $1,200 an ounce or higher by early next year, and strong options interest could in turn lift underlying prices further into the uncharted territory. US stocks fell for a third straight day on Friday as investors took weaker-than-expected results from computer maker Dell and homebuilder D.R. Horton as a further sign the recovery would be anemic. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 22 Nov 2009 | 9:56 pm ‘Twilight’ sequel smashes box office forecastsLos Angeles: “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” scored the third-highest opening weekend of all time at the North American box office, earning an estimated $140.7 million during its first three days, its distributor said on Sunday. The vampire romance sequel vastly exceeded expectations, which had started at $100 million ahead of its release but steadily rose to about $125 million as early sales data rolled in on Friday. It is well on its way to exceeding the $193 million total of its predecessor, “Twilight,” which was released exactly a year ago. The record for an opening record is $158 million, set last year by the Batman sequel “The Dark Knight.” The 2007 movie “Spider-Man 3” follows with $151 million. “New Moon” replaced “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” ($136 million) at No. 3. Summit Entertainment said “New Moon” also set an opening-day record with Friday sales of $72.7 million, surpassing the $67.2 million haul of “The Dark Knight.” That tally was bolstered by record-breaking midnight sales of $26.3 million. The old mark was set earlier this year by “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” with $22.2 million. The closely held studio said “New Moon” also earned $118.1 million from 25 foreign markets. Data from individual countries were not immediately available. Exit-polling data in North America indicated that women accounted for 80% of the audience and half the audience was aged under 21. “New Moon” revisits the dangerous romance between high school student Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson). After falling in love with each other in “Twilight,” Bella and Edward break up in “New Moon.” Bella finds solace in her friendship with Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), an American Indian who is also a werewolf. Jacob protects Bella from vampires who kill humans but she still longs for the gentle blood-sucker Edward who got away. All the stars have become sex symbols and regulars in gossip columns and fans lined up to see the sequel days before it opened. The “Twilight” film franchise is based on a series of four novels of the same name by Stephenie Meyer, which her publisher says have sold 85 million copies worldwide. A third film is due in June. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 22 Nov 2009 | 8:44 pm India may get $1 bln IT outsourcing contracts - paperMUMBAI (Reuters) - Leading Indian outsourcers such as Tata Consultancy, Infosys and Wipro stand to gain contracts worth about $1 billion in the next one or two years as U.S. banks emerge from the troubled asset relief programme, the Economic Times reported on Monday.Source: Reuters: Money News | 22 Nov 2009 | 8:35 pm 50% of FII investment comes from 'tax havens'Nearly half of the Rs 70,000 crore in offshore investment that's come into Indian bourses this fiscal, till October, is from alleged tax havens such as Mauritius, Hong Kong and Luxembourg.Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 22 Nov 2009 | 5:06 pm Manufacturing sector showing stronger signs of recovery due to stimulus: CIIIndia's manufacturing sector witnessed an increased rate of recovery in the second quarter this fiscal, primarily helped by government stimulus even as exports continued to decline, says a survey conducted by an industrial lobby.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 22 Nov 2009 | 1:00 pm Sustaining the level of growth is the challengeEdited excerpts from an interview with Anand Kripalu, managing director, Cadbury India Ltd. How have you led the charge in recent years?  Expanding reach: Kripalu says the firm aims at reaching more shops with the new Perk. Sharp Image Was involving the sales team in product development a key move? Yes, even in the Perk mix, there have been wholesale packs, etc., that have been crafted based on retailer insights from the sales teams. Sometimes you create the whole marketing mix based on consumer insights and then the sales guy comes along and says, “Hey, this won’t work.” But that opinion comes in too late because we have to launch. We are trying to make sure that some of these things work if brought in much earlier. What’s the agenda with the new Perk? A key effort with the Glucose Perk is to get into shops where the old Perk never existed. In a market like India, you get a competitive advantage from being in traditional trade (grocery stores.) How has distribution improved and what do you see as a challenge going ahead? The number of wholesalers we reach has grown seven-eight times in the last three years. Chocolate is largely an urban thing, but we are going further. Each year, you get the lower hanging fruit but then you have to catch the higher hanging fruit to sustain the same level of growth. And that is the challenge. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 22 Nov 2009 | 12:45 pm The markets have gone ahead before time: ParekhThe hot topic in global markets for many days has been the dollar carry trade. Economists around the world have been apprehensive of how the dollar carry trade is driving up asset classes around the world and whether emerging economies such as India need to impose any kind of capital controls. Carry trade involves transactions in which investors borrow in a low interest currency and use the money to invest in higher-yielding assets in other countries. In India, the stock market has doubled since March. Experts such as Housing Development Finance Corp. Ltd (HDFC) chairman Deepak Parekh fear that an asset bubble may be in the making. In an interview, Parekh spoke on the dollar carry trade, how long the dollar was expected to remain weak, the impact that would have on asset prices, and the outlook for interest rates. Edited excerpts: How long do you expect the dollar to remain weak and what impact would that have on asset prices hereon?  Rate outlook: HDFC chairman Deepak Parekh says interest rates will remain more or less flat in the next six months or so. PTI Hard infrastructure (growth) is still not happening, otherwise credit growth should not be so low. Credit growth in these six months is the biggest concern I have. It is one of the few six months where the deposit growth is almost twice the credit growth, which has never happened... That is not a good sign. You talk to the infrastructure companies, Larsen and Toubro or Siemens, all these companies, they say order books are full, order books are high but lifting is not happening. So we are not building new steel plants fast, we have not started building cements plants. Ultra mega power plants are going very slowly due to bureaucratic reasons; tying up loose ends. Tying up of loose ends takes years, not months but years. That will be our downfall if we do not change. What is the point of having cheap money accessible to huge amount of foreign funds when you can’t build a steel plant? The Tatas have been trying to build a steel plant in Orissa for how many years. Three steel plants can come up in that time. We do not have the luxury to wait and someone should realize that this is not the way to go about. Are you worried about what the dollar carry trade inflow will mean if we are not able to absorb it in a truly constructive fashion? If we are not able to absorb it, do we need to look at other ways of stemming this inflow? Money will go wherever they see reasonable returns. Money will go wherever there is safety. India is a safe country to invest and India will give returns. Look at what has happened in Brazil. They put a capital tax when you invest because they had a similar problem. We are more or less at the same level. Huge amount of inflows went into Brazil. Two-three months ago they put a capital tax. The inflow into Brazil has not slowed, because people have surplus money, people have to invest. Where do you invest? They are willing to pay the tax and invest. If you check the Brazilian inflow has slowed down marginally. That is all. So even if you put capital controls or put caps or something you will also find, unless you want to insulate yourself and become a domesticated inward looking economy, you have to face it. What is it that the economy is facing? Asset bubbles like real estate, stock market bubble, too much money in futures and exchange, and too much money on derivative transactions. So there are risks involved. People who are doing that have to live with the risks. Are you saying that there is very little that we can do to be able to regulate it then? No, it is a pity that we are unable to use the money... We are a capital-starved country. If we are able to move growth up to, let us say, around 7% levels next year, do you think some of this money will be efficiently, constructively deployed? I am sure they can be. Just build roads. But you are not seeing signs of it as yet? I do not see signs. Just build roads across the country, that will bring economic development. How do you see the next six months working out in terms of interest rates? I think the interest rates are stable today. Chances of going down are limited. I would say that chances of marginally increasing are there because of inflationary pressures, not because of liquidity issues. There is still enormous liquidity in the system. So technically rates should not go up and may not even go up in the next six months because you still see around Rs1 lakh crore every day in reverse repo and that is not the only surplus money banks are having. Banks invest in higher SLR (statutory liquidity ratio, or investment in government bonds and approved securities) than mandatorily required. Banks have money in mutual funds which are temporarily parked in liquid funds. So you have to take a combination of all that to see what is the surplus money in the system. So I feel that in the next six months or so, interest rates will more or less remain flat. If at all they have to be increased they will be marginal, half a percent or so, not more. Not pressurized a little more by inflation, fuelled by all this liquidity supply? Even then I do not think that they can go up significantly because the demand pick-up is still slow. If the credit growth is twice the speed of deposit growth maybe you will see a little larger impact on interest rates. But at the moment I do not see interest rates going up in the first quarter. The credit growth is poor only because companies are not investing as fast as they need to in asset building right now? Not investing. Yes. Any reason why—is it because we are just about finishing the process of inventory restocking as people called it? We are still waiting for demand on the ground to pick up. Is that what companies are telling you? I do not think so. Companies are not saying that. Companies are saying that we are not yet getting our act together, getting all permissions to start a large project. cnbctv18@livemint.com Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 22 Nov 2009 | 12:45 pm SMS prices set to crashSMS rates are set to crash with telecom watchdog TRAI reconsidering its longstanding policy of non-interference on tariffs.Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 22 Nov 2009 | 12:31 pm Diversified MF schemes shineThe performance of tax planning mutual fund schemes vis-a-vis diversified schemes in the past one year is causing a lot of uneasiness among investors.Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 22 Nov 2009 | 12:30 pm The wrong place at the right timeMumbai: Not everything in the photograph is, at first, immediately clear. The shop in the deserted background has been reduced to a yellow-and-green matrix formed by the hanging packets of potato chips. The advertisement for HDFC Standard Life is too awash with light to read easily. Even the gun is really just an elongated, metallic blur; we infer that it is a gun because we know who is holding it. Only its owner has been caught in sharp relief, his face composed but his stride reeking of the braggadocio of a young man who knows that a city, at least for the moment, is cowering before him.  Iconic image: Sebastian D’Souza’s photo of Ajmal Kasab at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus got a special mention in the Spot News category at the World Press Photo award; and (right) D’Souza. D’Souza, a spry 56-year-old, is the photo editor at the Mumbai Mirror, a newspaper housed in The Times of India building—so close to the terminus that last 26 November, he could hear a grenade go off even as he sat in his office. His team was already preparing to leave for the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower, from where rumours of a shootout had filtered into the newsroom. When he heard the explosion, D’Souza grabbed his backpack and sprinted towards the terminus, slipping in just before the police cordoned off the area. Another photographer, Rajnish Kakade of Associated Press, recalls that he wasn’t quite as lucky: “My office is a little further off. I was just 15 minutes too late.” For the next 40 minutes, D’Souza played an intricate game of cat and mouse, hiding behind pillars and in shadows, sneaking through the carriages of stationary trains, chasing after the indistinct figures of Kasab and Abu Ismail. At times, he ran into knots of crouching policemen, all reluctant to open fire. He saw the owner of a bookshop gunned down mere metres away, one hand still clutching onto the stall as he fell. “Kasab heard the sound of my camera, but every time he looked my way, I ducked,” he says. “At some point, I realized I was wearing a light-coloured T-shirt, and that if I moved too much, they would see me. Something told me to run away.” Cold-minded In all, D’Souza took at least 100 photos, not once looking down at the viewfinder of his Nikon to see what he’d captured. “I’d been in the riots in Mumbai and Gujarat, but I don’t think this was as dangerous as a riot,” he says. “Here you knew there were two men. In a riot, you don’t know who will come after you to kill you.” Only after the pair of terrorists left the station and the police crept back in to assess the damage did D’Souza look through his pictures. “The famous photo was the sharpest of the lot,” he says. “But there were other photographers, and I thought they would have gotten some photos too. Later I’d ask them: ‘Where were you guys? You shouldn’t have been afraid.’” Finding himself barred from the terminus, Kakade had made his way to the Taj, where he spent the night and most of the next two days. “I met Sebastian when he came to the hotel at 5 the next morning, but it was only around 8:30 or 9 that I saw his picture in the paper,” Kakade says. “It was so clear. It showed his presence of mind—it was shot cold-mindedly. Even then I thought it was a candidate for the World Press Photo award.” He was right; it would win a special mention in the Spot News category.  This was live D’Souza’s photo is particularly gripping as a capsule of incongruity. “We usually have images of a terrorist that conform to a stereotypical idea,” says Devika Daulet-Singh, director of Photoink, a New Delhi-based photo agency. “This guy looks like a college student—he could be anybody. It shakes up all your ideas. More importantly, you actually got an image of the attack. Usually, when something happens, say in Kashmir, you maybe get images of the bodies later, if that. This was live.” Even before the terrorist assault on Mumbai ended, D’Souza’s photo had appeared in publications around the world, but it would be another seven months before he saw his subject again. In June, D’Souza appeared at the Arthur Road court house to testify against Kasab. “He had lost all his musculature,” he remembers. “Earlier he had looked firm and trim. Now he looked softer.” Copies of D’Souza’s photos were handed around the courtroom, and as Kasab looked at them over his lawyer’s shoulder, D’Souza remembers, “something happened to him. He looked ill. He put his head down on the desk, and then he told the judge that he wanted to go back to his cell, that he wasn’t feeling well”. The judge disregarded that request. “So Kasab started crying. Seeing those photos, he must have felt something.” The cross-examination of D’Souza was brief. “Kasab’s lawyer asked me if I knew what ‘morphing’ meant. He was trying to trap me,” he says. “I replied: ‘It’s the first time I’m hearing the word. You tell me what it means.’” But his cheekiest, most pithy response had come at the very beginning of that trial session. Asked, as a matter of formality, if he recognized the defendant, D’Souza looked directly at Kasab and said: “His photo made me famous. How could I forget?” samanth.s@livemint.com Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 22 Nov 2009 | 12:30 pm Dollar index set to guide FII inflowsWill foreign institutional investors (FIIs), who have injected more than $15 billion into the markets this year, raising fresh concerns about the adverse impact of short-term capital flows, continue with their buying spree?Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 22 Nov 2009 | 12:28 pm RIL may fuel India Inc's overseas M driveWith signs of green shoots showing in economies worldwide, India Incs appetite for overseas acquisitions got a fresh lease of life with Reliance Industries estimated $10-12 billion offer for a controlling interest in bankrupt LyondellBasell Industries.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 22 Nov 2009 | 12:24 pm Obama-Singh to run last mile on nuclear dealTrying to resolve sticking points on the India-US civil nuclear cooperation agreement on the one hand, and narrow differences on their approach to climate change on the other, India and the US are likely to sign a joint Memorandum on Energy Security, Clean Energy and Climate Change during Prime Minister Manmohan Singhs visit to the United States this week.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 22 Nov 2009 | 12:21 pm IAF orders more Tejas LCAs to replace MiG-21sThe Indian Air Force is taking a crucial step towards accepting the indigenous Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) as a replacement for its ageing MiG-21 fighters. Senior air force officers told Business Standard that IAF was ordering a second Tejas squadron (20 aircraft), in addition to the 20 fighters already on order.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 22 Nov 2009 | 12:15 pm Quick Edit | On the prowl againThe announcement by Reliance Industries Ltd that it has bid for a controlling stake in LyondellBasell, the world’s third largest chemical company, is a sign that animal spirits are back in Indian boardrooms. One effect of the financial panic that struck the world at the end of 2008 was that major Indian companies decided to steer clear of ambitious investment plans. The investment surge was stopped in its tracks and government spending had to be increased to prevent a collapse in growth. Companies have been able to raise new equity and refinance old debts over the past six months, thanks to the easing of financial conditions. But much of that money has been used to repair balance sheet damage rather than fund new growth plans. Reliance’s bid could make this the biggest overseas acquisition by an Indian company. As those companies that went in for ambitious leveraged buyouts realized, a lot will depend on how well the financial risks are managed by the acquirer. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 22 Nov 2009 | 12:13 pm Bank rates go down in spite of RBI signalThe Reserve Bank of Indias second quarter monetary policy review signalled an exit from the central banks accommodative stance, leading many to believe that interest rates would move in only one direction north.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 22 Nov 2009 | 12:13 pm At software powerhouse SAS, the good life is under siegeCary, North Carolina: A tour of its carefully tended, 300-acre corporate campus here leaves little doubt why surveys, year after year, rate SAS Institute Inc., the world's largest private software company, among the best places to work. There is the subsidized day care and preschool. There are the four company doctors and the dozen nurses who provide free primary care. The recreational amenities include basketball and racquetball courts, a swimming pool, exercise rooms and 40 miles of running and biking trails. There is a meditation garden, as well as on-site haircuts, manicures, and jewellery repair. Employees are encouraged to work 35-hour weeks. Academics have studied the company’s benefit-enhanced corporate culture as a model for nurturing creativity and loyalty among engineers and other workers. Six years ago, in a report on 60 Minutes, a news magazine on US channel CBS News, correspondent Morley Safer called working at SAS “the good life”.  Nurturing creativity: A day care centre subsidized by SAS in Cary, North Carolina. The US software firm, which encourages employees to work 35-hour weeks, is consistently ranked among the best places to work. Jeremy M Lange / NYT “It will be a dogfight,” says Bill Hostmann, an analyst at Gartner Inc. “SAS has never faced a competitor like IBM And I do think IBM sees SAS as a big, fatted cow.” The term “business intelligence software” applies to a wide range of products and services, but all the technology is aimed at helping businesses mine nuggets of insight from mountains of data. SAS has traditionally specialized in advanced software to analyze huge data sets and to generate predictive statistical models for large corporations and government agencies. Credit card companies, for example, use SAS to detect unusual buying patterns in real time, and to spot potentially fraudulent charges. Giant retail chains use SAS to tailor pricing and product offerings down to the store level. Telecommunications companies use SAS to identify the few thousand customers, among millions, most likely to switch to another cell phone carrier, and to aim marketing at them. SAS software is also used to parse sensor signals from North Sea oil rigs, combined with weather and structural data, to predict failure of parts before it happens. Of the 100 largest companies worldwide, 92 use SAS software. But as the stream of firms’ collected data turns into a torrent, SAS and other software companies are trying to find new ways to harness it. The information is generated not only by computerized systems for tracking operations, customers and sales. It also comes from new data sources such as website visits, social network chatter and public records accessible over the Internet, as well as genome sequences, sensor signals and surveillance tapes, all in digital form. This data explosion, experts say, is an untapped asset at most companies, which lack the tools and skills to exploit it. Yet the long-range potential, they say, is to use this data for far more fine-grained analysis of markets, customer behaviour and operations, making business more of a science and less a seat-of-the-pants art. ”Now, the data is available so business can move toward evidence-based decision-making,” says Erik Brynjolfsson, an economist and director of the Center for Digital Business at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “This market is a huge opportunity.” That opportunity is not lost on SAS. “Our advantage is the incredible depth of our technology, developed over years and applied to specific industries,” says James H. Goodnight, the chief executive and a co-founder of SAS. “No one can match our toolbox.” Indeed, no one underestimates SAS’ technical prowess. The big question is whether the firm’s seemingly pampered culture can embrace the higher-octane institutional metabolism that it will need to succeed. “We know we have to change—no question about it,” says Jim Davis, 51, a senior vice-president at SAS. “Our market space has changed dramatically in the last 18 months or so, more than at any time over the 33-year history of the company. We can’t sit back. Things are only going to get faster.” SAS invested heavily in research and development, and even today allocates 22% of the company’s revenue to research. The formula has paid off in steady growth, year after year. Revenue reached $2.26 billion (Rs10,531 crore) in 2008, up from $1.34 billion five years earlier. Yet the company also faces the classic challenge of being the innovative pioneer—enjoying rich profit margins but facing new competition from rivals seeking to gain market share with lower prices and substitute technology. In the last two years, the major software companies have scooped up firms in the business intelligence market. Among the larger moves, SAP bought French firm Business Objects for $6.8 billion, IBM bought Cognos Inc. for $4.9 billion and Oracle picked up Hyperion for $3.3 billion. Still, those firms compete in the broad business intelligence market for reporting and analysis products. Such data on sales, shipments, customers and operations amount to a numbers-laden portrait of the recent past. The SAS stronghold is a more sophisticated kind of software typically called “advanced analytics and predictive modelling”, which uses historical and current data to try to peer into the future and model likely outcomes. The competitive thrust that really grabbed SAS’ attention came in late July, when IBM announced that it planned to pay $1.2 billion for SPSS Inc., a maker of predictive modelling software. IBM has placed SPSS and Cognos into a new business analytics and optimization group. That business will be supported by 200 scientists, and the company has said it will retrain or hire 4,000 consultants and analysts to work in the group. “This is the big growth strategy for IBM, the company's next big play for this decade,” says Ambuj Goyal, a computer scientist who is general manager of IBM’s business analytics software unit. “SAS comes from the legacy world of statisticians and programmers. The real opportunity is in deploying this technology broadly in corporations.” To counter IBM and others, SAS is looking to forge a tighter relationship with a big technology services company. It is also shortening product development cycles to 12-18 months, down from 24-36. “That’s what the market expects,” Davis says. The most sweeping change is the company’s move toward the Internet model of software delivery—as a service that customers tap into over the Web, much as Google Inc. and other Internet companies do. SAS has dipped its toe in, with some initial products. But a major expansion is planned, supported by a vast $70 million data center scheduled to begin operating next year. The remotely delivered software is part of a drive to broaden the market for SAS technology beyond an elite corps of quantitative analysts and into the rank-and-file of corporate professionals. Analysts say firm’s strategy looks sound, even if the outcome is uncertain. “SAS has to do a lot of things right to succeed,” says Peter Sondergaard, senior vice-president of research for Gartner. “But if it executes correctly, it could be a winner.” ©2009/The New York Times Source: World Business - Livemint.com | 22 Nov 2009 | 11:53 am At software powerhouse SAS, the good life is under siegeCary, North Carolina: A tour of its carefully tended, 300-acre corporate campus here leaves little doubt why surveys, year after year, rate SAS Institute Inc., the world's largest private software company, among the best places to work. There is the subsidized day care and preschool. There are the four company doctors and the dozen nurses who provide free primary care. The recreational amenities include basketball and racquetball courts, a swimming pool, exercise rooms and 40 miles of running and biking trails. There is a meditation garden, as well as on-site haircuts, manicures, and jewellery repair. Employees are encouraged to work 35-hour weeks. Academics have studied the company’s benefit-enhanced corporate culture as a model for nurturing creativity and loyalty among engineers and other workers. Six years ago, in a report on 60 Minutes, a news magazine on US channel CBS News, correspondent Morley Safer called working at SAS “the good life”. Nurturing creativity: A day care centre subsidized by SAS in Cary, North Carolina. The US software firm, which encourages employees to work 35-hour weeks, is consistently ranked among the best places to work. Jeremy M Lange / NYT “It will be a dogfight,” says Bill Hostmann, an analyst at Gartner Inc. “SAS has never faced a competitor like IBM And I do think IBM sees SAS as a big, fatted cow.” The term “business intelligence software” applies to a wide range of products and services, but all the technology is aimed at helping businesses mine nuggets of insight from mountains of data. SAS has traditionally specialized in advanced software to analyze huge data sets and to generate predictive statistical models for large corporations and government agencies. Credit card companies, for example, use SAS to detect unusual buying patterns in real time, and to spot potentially fraudulent charges. Giant retail chains use SAS to tailor pricing and product offerings down to the store level. Telecommunications companies use SAS to identify the few thousand customers, among millions, most likely to switch to another cell phone carrier, and to aim marketing at them. SAS software is also used to parse sensor signals from North Sea oil rigs, combined with weather and structural data, to predict failure of parts before it happens. Of the 100 largest companies worldwide, 92 use SAS software. But as the stream of firms’ collected data turns into a torrent, SAS and other software companies are trying to find new ways to harness it. The information is generated not only by computerized systems for tracking operations, customers and sales. It also comes from new data sources such as website visits, social network chatter and public records accessible over the Internet, as well as genome sequences, sensor signals and surveillance tapes, all in digital form. This data explosion, experts say, is an untapped asset at most companies, which lack the tools and skills to exploit it. Yet the long-range potential, they say, is to use this data for far more fine-grained analysis of markets, customer behaviour and operations, making business more of a science and less a seat-of-the-pants art. ”Now, the data is available so business can move toward evidence-based decision-making,” says Erik Brynjolfsson, an economist and director of the Center for Digital Business at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “This market is a huge opportunity.” That opportunity is not lost on SAS. “Our advantage is the incredible depth of our technology, developed over years and applied to specific industries,” says James H. Goodnight, the chief executive and a co-founder of SAS. “No one can match our toolbox.” Indeed, no one underestimates SAS’ technical prowess. The big question is whether the firm’s seemingly pampered culture can embrace the higher-octane institutional metabolism that it will need to succeed. “We know we have to change—no question about it,” says Jim Davis, 51, a senior vice-president at SAS. “Our market space has changed dramatically in the last 18 months or so, more than at any time over the 33-year history of the company. We can’t sit back. Things are only going to get faster.” SAS invested heavily in research and development, and even today allocates 22% of the company’s revenue to research. The formula has paid off in steady growth, year after year. Revenue reached $2.26 billion (Rs10,531 crore) in 2008, up from $1.34 billion five years earlier. Yet the company also faces the classic challenge of being the innovative pioneer—enjoying rich profit margins but facing new competition from rivals seeking to gain market share with lower prices and substitute technology. In the last two years, the major software companies have scooped up firms in the business intelligence market. Among the larger moves, SAP bought French firm Business Objects for $6.8 billion, IBM bought Cognos Inc. for $4.9 billion and Oracle picked up Hyperion for $3.3 billion. Still, those firms compete in the broad business intelligence market for reporting and analysis products. Such data on sales, shipments, customers and operations amount to a numbers-laden portrait of the recent past. The SAS stronghold is a more sophisticated kind of software typically called “advanced analytics and predictive modelling”, which uses historical and current data to try to peer into the future and model likely outcomes. The competitive thrust that really grabbed SAS’ attention came in late July, when IBM announced that it planned to pay $1.2 billion for SPSS Inc., a maker of predictive modelling software. IBM has placed SPSS and Cognos into a new business analytics and optimization group. That business will be supported by 200 scientists, and the company has said it will retrain or hire 4,000 consultants and analysts to work in the group. “This is the big growth strategy for IBM, the company's next big play for this decade,” says Ambuj Goyal, a computer scientist who is general manager of IBM’s business analytics software unit. “SAS comes from the legacy world of statisticians and programmers. The real opportunity is in deploying this technology broadly in corporations.” To counter IBM and others, SAS is looking to forge a tighter relationship with a big technology services company. It is also shortening product development cycles to 12-18 months, down from 24-36. “That’s what the market expects,” Davis says. The most sweeping change is the company’s move toward the Internet model of software delivery—as a service that customers tap into over the Web, much as Google Inc. and other Internet companies do. SAS has dipped its toe in, with some initial products. But a major expansion is planned, supported by a vast $70 million data center scheduled to begin operating next year. The remotely delivered software is part of a drive to broaden the market for SAS technology beyond an elite corps of quantitative analysts and into the rank-and-file of corporate professionals. Analysts say firm’s strategy looks sound, even if the outcome is uncertain. “SAS has to do a lot of things right to succeed,” says Peter Sondergaard, senior vice-president of research for Gartner. “But if it executes correctly, it could be a winner.” ©2009/The New York Times Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 22 Nov 2009 | 11:53 am New companies introduce ads among tweetsTuesday was another typical day for John Chow, blogger and Internet entrepreneur in Vancouver, British Columbia. Chow treated his 50,000 Twitter followers to a photograph of his lunch (barbecued chicken and French fries), discussed the weather in Vancouver and linked to a new post on his Internet business blog.  Sponsored updates: Websites such as Ad.ly and Izea.com are paying users for sharing ads on networks such as Twitter and Facebook Chow is among a growing group of celebrities, bloggers and regular Internet users who are allowing advertisers to send commercial messages to their personal contacts on social networks. For the last month, he has used the services of Ad.ly, a start-up based in Los Angeles, and Izea.com, based in Orlando, Florida, to periodically surrender his Twitter stream to the likes of Charter Communications Inc., the Make a Wish Foundation and an online seminar about working from home. In October, Chow’s income from Twitter ads was around $3,000. “I get paid for pushing a button,” he said. It is perhaps the last frontier in advertising—getting regular people to send a sentence or two of text, on behalf of paying advertisers, to their friends and admirers. The idea, according to the entrepreneurs who are developing such services for Twitter and other Web networks, is that people trust recommendations from those they know and respect, while they increasingly ignore nearly ever other kind of ad message in print, on television and online. Even the Internet giants are warming to the idea of harnessing informal chats between friends to promote their products and services. This month, Amazon.com Inc. said it would start paying commissions to individuals who refer buyers to the site via Twitter messages. (People must first sign up for Amazon Associates, a programme in which Amazon pays Web publishers for referrals to its site.) But the bigger opportunity may be in matching advertisers with so-called influencers—the more popular users of services such as Twitter. A number of start-up firms, such as Ad.ly, Izea and Peer2, a division of Creative Asylum, a Hollywood ad agency, are pursuing the opportunity to put persuasive messages into regular dialogue on social networks. “We don’t want to create an army of spammers, and we are not trying to turn Facebook and Twitter into one giant spam network,” said Joey Caroni, co-founder of Peer2. “All we are trying to do is get consumers to become marketers for us.” For the most popular celebrities and bloggers on Twitter, such advertising can generate a surprisingly sizable payday. Ad.ly and Izea, which runs a service called Sponsored Tweets, say celebrities such as Kim Kardashian and musician Ernie Halter can earn up to $10,000 by sending a single message to their hundreds of thousands of followers. Izea receives at least 15% of the advertiser’s payment to more popular Twitter users, and up to half for the less distinguished. Ad.ly takes a 30% cut across the board. While both companies note their celebrity connections and the involvement of big advertisers such as Microsoft Corp. and National Broadcasting Co., they really salivate at the prospect of marrying less notable Internet personalities with the huge pool of smaller advertisers. For example, an expert on cycling, with 1,000 Twitter followers, might agree to send an ad about a new bike helmet—a message that might well be implicitly trusted by his followers. One problem is that many Internet users eschew the idea of these ads, saying they commercialize authentic dialogue and undermine people’s credibility. “It interferes with your relationship with your friends and your audience,” said Robert Scoble, a technology blogger with more than 100,000 followers on Twitter, who says he “unfollows” people on Twitter who send him ads. Facebook does not allow members to insert paid ads into status updates or profiles. “For us, it goes against the authenticity of the page,” said Brandon McCormick, a Facebook spokesman. Peer2 gets around the ban by offering users points instead of dollars; points are redeemable for Amazon products. Part of the unease with this emerging form of advertising is rooted in the past. Three years ago, with a service called PayPerPost, Izea paid bloggers to pitch products to their readers. The endorsements were not clearly labelled as ads, and the service kicked up a dust storm of criticism in the blogosphere. Ted Murphy, the CEO of Izea, a 30-person business backed by $10 million in venture capital, said the company initially “made a big mistake” by not setting disclosure standards for publishers and advertisers. Today, ad networks promote their standards; Izea’s ads on Twitter are typically demarcated with signifiers such as “£ad” or “£sponsor”. One new company trying to add transparency to the business is Likes.com of San Francisco, which plans to introduce its ad network in December. The company encourages bloggers and Twitter users to specify their tastes in restaurants, movies, books and other products, and then to publish those recommendations to their blogs and social network pages. Advertisers can then see who has favoured their products in the past, and how effective their recommendations have been at getting people to click on links. Depending on the advertiser, bloggers and Tweeters will be paid for every ad they send out, or every time someone clicks on the link. Every Likes.com ad is clearly labelled as such, and once people click on a link, they are taken to another page that is also clearly labelled as a sponsorship. People are limited to posting an ad from Likes.com once every other day. “We are trying to limit it, to prevent people from losing their following,” said Bindu Reddy, a former Google product manager who started the company with her husband, Arvind Sundararajan, a former Google engineer. “We know people are queasy about this.” ©2009/THE NEW YORK TIMES Source: Tech News - Livemint.com | 22 Nov 2009 | 11:21 am New companies introduce ads among tweetsTuesday was another typical day for John Chow, blogger and Internet entrepreneur in Vancouver, British Columbia. Chow treated his 50,000 Twitter followers to a photograph of his lunch (barbecued chicken and French fries), discussed the weather in Vancouver and linked to a new post on his Internet business blog. Sponsored updates: Websites such as Ad.ly and Izea.com are paying users for sharing ads on networks such as Twitter and Facebook Chow is among a growing group of celebrities, bloggers and regular Internet users who are allowing advertisers to send commercial messages to their personal contacts on social networks. For the last month, he has used the services of Ad.ly, a start-up based in Los Angeles, and Izea.com, based in Orlando, Florida, to periodically surrender his Twitter stream to the likes of Charter Communications Inc., the Make a Wish Foundation and an online seminar about working from home. In October, Chow’s income from Twitter ads was around $3,000. “I get paid for pushing a button,” he said. It is perhaps the last frontier in advertising—getting regular people to send a sentence or two of text, on behalf of paying advertisers, to their friends and admirers. The idea, according to the entrepreneurs who are developing such services for Twitter and other Web networks, is that people trust recommendations from those they know and respect, while they increasingly ignore nearly ever other kind of ad message in print, on television and online. Even the Internet giants are warming to the idea of harnessing informal chats between friends to promote their products and services. This month, Amazon.com Inc. said it would start paying commissions to individuals who refer buyers to the site via Twitter messages. (People must first sign up for Amazon Associates, a programme in which Amazon pays Web publishers for referrals to its site.) But the bigger opportunity may be in matching advertisers with so-called influencers—the more popular users of services such as Twitter. A number of start-up firms, such as Ad.ly, Izea and Peer2, a division of Creative Asylum, a Hollywood ad agency, are pursuing the opportunity to put persuasive messages into regular dialogue on social networks. “We don’t want to create an army of spammers, and we are not trying to turn Facebook and Twitter into one giant spam network,” said Joey Caroni, co-founder of Peer2. “All we are trying to do is get consumers to become marketers for us.” For the most popular celebrities and bloggers on Twitter, such advertising can generate a surprisingly sizable payday. Ad.ly and Izea, which runs a service called Sponsored Tweets, say celebrities such as Kim Kardashian and musician Ernie Halter can earn up to $10,000 by sending a single message to their hundreds of thousands of followers. Izea receives at least 15% of the advertiser’s payment to more popular Twitter users, and up to half for the less distinguished. Ad.ly takes a 30% cut across the board. While both companies note their celebrity connections and the involvement of big advertisers such as Microsoft Corp. and National Broadcasting Co., they really salivate at the prospect of marrying less notable Internet personalities with the huge pool of smaller advertisers. For example, an expert on cycling, with 1,000 Twitter followers, might agree to send an ad about a new bike helmet—a message that might well be implicitly trusted by his followers. One problem is that many Internet users eschew the idea of these ads, saying they commercialize authentic dialogue and undermine people’s credibility. “It interferes with your relationship with your friends and your audience,” said Robert Scoble, a technology blogger with more than 100,000 followers on Twitter, who says he “unfollows” people on Twitter who send him ads. Facebook does not allow members to insert paid ads into status updates or profiles. “For us, it goes against the authenticity of the page,” said Brandon McCormick, a Facebook spokesman. Peer2 gets around the ban by offering users points instead of dollars; points are redeemable for Amazon products. Part of the unease with this emerging form of advertising is rooted in the past. Three years ago, with a service called PayPerPost, Izea paid bloggers to pitch products to their readers. The endorsements were not clearly labelled as ads, and the service kicked up a dust storm of criticism in the blogosphere. Ted Murphy, the CEO of Izea, a 30-person business backed by $10 million in venture capital, said the company initially “made a big mistake” by not setting disclosure standards for publishers and advertisers. Today, ad networks promote their standards; Izea’s ads on Twitter are typically demarcated with signifiers such as “£ad” or “£sponsor”. One new company trying to add transparency to the business is Likes.com of San Francisco, which plans to introduce its ad network in December. The company encourages bloggers and Twitter users to specify their tastes in restaurants, movies, books and other products, and then to publish those recommendations to their blogs and social network pages. Advertisers can then see who has favoured their products in the past, and how effective their recommendations have been at getting people to click on links. Depending on the advertiser, bloggers and Tweeters will be paid for every ad they send out, or every time someone clicks on the link. Every Likes.com ad is clearly labelled as such, and once people click on a link, they are taken to another page that is also clearly labelled as a sponsorship. People are limited to posting an ad from Likes.com once every other day. “We are trying to limit it, to prevent people from losing their following,” said Bindu Reddy, a former Google product manager who started the company with her husband, Arvind Sundararajan, a former Google engineer. “We know people are queasy about this.” ©2009/THE NEW YORK TIMES Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 22 Nov 2009 | 11:21 am Tata Tele to bill roaming calls per secondMumbai: Mobile services provider Tata Teleservices Ltd on Sunday extended its per-second billing scheme to roaming calls as well, as the tariff war in the world’s fastest growing wireless market heats up. On Friday, industry leader Bharti Airtel Ltd introduced a new billing plan that cut mobile roaming rates by nearly 60%, depressing the company’s shares. From Monday, Tata Teleservices, 26% owned by Japan’s NTT DoCoMo Inc., will charge one paisa per second for both incoming and outgoing calls made while roaming across the country, irrespective of the network used, the company said. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 22 Nov 2009 | 11:10 am Cadbury prefers merger with Hershey over Kraft ReportCadbury Plc would prefer a merger with US chocolate maker Hershey Co rather than Kraft Foods Inc, the British company's chairman Roger Carr told the Sunday Telegraph.Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 22 Nov 2009 | 10:40 am PM says no substitute for US dollarPrime Minister Manmohan Singh said there was no substitute to the US dollar for replacement as the global reserve currency. Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 22 Nov 2009 | 9:40 am AmEx takes aim at PayPal with RevolutionWashington: With its deal to buy Revolution Money Inc., American Express Co. (AmEx) is taking aim at the growing market for online and alternative payments, in a challenge to recognized leader PayPal Pte. Ltd, analysts said. The financial services giant announced plans on Wednesday to buy the Web payments firm started in 2005 by Internet firm AOL Llc founder Steve Case, with the purchase price set at $300 million (Rs1,398 crore). Analysts say AmEx is most interested in the so-called peer-to-peer services of Revolution, which enables low-cost money transfers among individuals and businesses. “I think it’s a challenge to PayPal, but it’s more than that,” said Ed Kountz, an analyst who follows financial technologies at Forrester Research. “AmEx is positioning themselves for more effective innovation, and for the next generation customer.” Kountz said a variety of new technologies are emerging for person-to-person and alternative payments, but that few companies have been able to get the critical mass with both consumers and merchants to gain a foothold. PayPal, a unit of eBay, has been able to dominate in this area but Google Checkout has struggled, say analysts. Kountz said the market is growing with younger customers looking for convenient ways to make person-to-person transactions without cash, and with credit card usage hurt by the financial crisis. “People are feeling greater comfort with cashless transactions,” said Kountz. Revolution also aims to compete against traditional credit card firms by handling payments at a lower fee. Joe Weisenthal at the online analysis site Business Insider said Revolution is “frequently described as a PayPal killer”, but has been unable to grow during the financial crisis. The action by AmEx comes with PayPal expanding its offerings with new ways to transfer money using mobile phones or social networks such as Facebook. Revolution “offers a unique card that seems to blend the idea of traditional credit and debit cards with Internet-based payments along the lines of PayPal and Google’s service”, said Jim Kim of the financial technology website FierceFinanceIT. “We’ll see how the other big boys react.” Kountz said AmEx and Revolution “looks like a good marriage, but the proof will be in the delivery”. Florida-based Revolution Money sprung from the venture capital group led by Case, with the mission “to drive transformative change by shifting power to consumers”, according to the group. AmEx hopes to close the deal in early 2010 subject to regulatory approval. Source: Tech News - Livemint.com | 22 Nov 2009 | 9:09 am MFs on stock exchanges fund houses strategiseMarket regulator SEBI’s proposal to allow mutual funds (MFs) to trade on recognised exchanges through brokers has asset management companies thinking up necessary strategy changes. Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 22 Nov 2009 | 8:29 am Make the NPS compulsory if it has to take offSuddenly, there’s seems to be an abundance of people who are eager to write off the New Pension System (NPS).Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 22 Nov 2009 | 8:27 am Buyback of FCCBs may be discontinued after Jan 1Time may be running out for Indian companies planning to buyback their own foreign currency-denominated bonds trading at a discount. Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 22 Nov 2009 | 8:24 am Add on loan norms set to changeThe norms for ‘structured obligations’ or instruments through which firms borrow from overseas banks based on existing domestic loans, are likely to change.Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 22 Nov 2009 | 8:22 am Funding breather for realty firmsFor cash-strapped realty firms, there is good news around the corner. The finance ministry is planning to allow the developers of integrated township to use funds from overseas or external commercial borrowings (ECB) by one more year. Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 22 Nov 2009 | 8:18 am Disney woos school kidsDespite television, Internet and other video-games children still want to read, claims Disney Publishing Worldwide (DPW,India). Rachit Vats reports. Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 22 Nov 2009 | 8:08 am SAP is on the cloud but walks middle pathThe debate over “cloud computing” – shorthand for the business of accessing software applications and services over the Internet or related networks – is a lot like that.Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 22 Nov 2009 | 7:47 am Porsche takeover will make Volkswagen world’s number oneBerlin: Europe’s auto major Volkswagen is set to become the world’s number one, pushing Japan’s Toyota to the second place, by taking over sports car manufacturer Porsche. The boards of directors of Volkswagen and Porsche endorsed the acquisition on Friday last week, ending years of takeover struggle between the two German automobile giants, partly owned by two estranged family clans. Porsche, which made an unsuccessful bid to take over Volkswagen earlier this year, would now become the 10th brand of the VW family. Until recently, Porsche was controlled by Porsche Holding AG, a listed company owned by the family of VW chairman Ferdinand Piech, a grandson of the Porsche founder Ferdinand Porsche, and by the Porsche family. Porsche’s attempt to take over the much bigger Volkswagen backfired and its CEO Wendeln Wiedekind had to leave in July. It suffered heavy losses largely due to its unsuccessful bid. Porsche racked up huge debts to get 51% stake in Volkswagen, but fell short of the 75% stake needed to take over the company when it could not raise the money needed due to the global financial crisis and drop in car sales. In August, the two families buried their differences and agreed to a fusion in order to protect their stakes in the company. In terms of the number of cars sold, Volkswagen and Porsche are already the world’s number one, according to a market study. The two companies sold over 4.4 million cars world wide during the first nine months of this year compared to 4 million cars sold by Toyota. Ford-Mazda had combined sales of 3.7 million cars. Financially troubled former world number one General Motors of the United States sold 3.6 million cars. The fusion between the two companies is being planned in two Phases. Volkswagen will take-over 49.9% of Porsche till the end of 2009 and it will be completed by 2011. Porsche will continue to operate as an independent company within the VW family. Besides taking over Porsche, Volkswagen also acquired on Friday the insolvent manufacturer of auto components and convertibles Karmann. The VW plans to build small cars from 2014 at Karmann’s production plant in Osnabrueck, in northern Germany. Volkswagen plans to invest 25.8 million euros in the next two years with focus on Germany to build up Porsche and Karmann and to strengthen the company’s position in world markets, VW management announced after the board meeting at its headquarters in Wolfsburg. It intends to produce a new small new car under the brand name Karmann. A part of the new investments planned will be spent on developing new environment friendly cars, innovative technologies and new production plants, especially abroad. Market analysts say that both companies will benefit from the deal. With the support of Volkswagen, Porsche will be able to repay its debts amounting to more than 10 billion euros. Volkswagen would have become susceptible to hostile takeover bids if Porsche had sold its stake. Porsche is also an asset for Volkswagen because of is good image and experience in marketing, which are important above all in the US market. The two companies together will have the broadest range of brands and new models among all leading auto makers, the analysts say. Source: World Business - Livemint.com | 22 Nov 2009 | 3:26 am Lakshmi Mittal doubles his stake in Ophir EnergyNew Delhi: Steel magnet Lakshmi N Mittal has paid over $110 million to double his stake in Africa- focused Ophir Energy Plc to 21.2% even as he exited the oil and gas business in the Central Asian nation Kazakhstan. “We would like to confirm that we recently doubled our investment in this (Ophir Energy) company,” said Sudhir Maheshwari, managing director of Mittal Investment Sarl, the holding company of Mittal family interest. He however, refused to divulge financial details saying both Mittal Investment and Ophir were private companies. Industry sources said Mittal Investment had in May 2008 agreed to buy 47 million shares in Ophir Energy at 250 pence a share in two tranches. In the first tranche it bought 21.1 million shares for $105.3 million in May 2008 and recently it subscribed to the second trance of 26,421,790 new shares for about $113 million to double its stake to 21.2%. Established in 2004, Ophir is an independent oil and gas exploration company with a diversified exploration portfolio encompasing 16 projects in 8 different African jurisdictions. With this, Mittal Investment has become the largest shareholder in Ophir Energy, overtaking its Mvelaphanda Holdings Pty Ltd, the South African industrial and resources conglomerate founded by Ophir’s non-executive chairman Tokyo Sexwale. Mvelaphanda now has 17.9%. Sources said Mittal has appointed Harak Bhantia and Rajan Tandon on the board of Ophir which has assets in Senegal (1 block), Congo Brazzaville (1 block), Equatorial Guinea (1 block), Gabon (4 block), Nigeria - Sao Tome (1 block), Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (4 blocks), Somaliland (1 block) and Tanzania (3 blocks). Maheshwari said Mittal Investment has pulled out of a project to develop an oil field in Kazakhstan in partnership with Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC). “Mittal Investments has decided that it does not wish to pursue the investment opportunity in Satpaev. This will now be developed by ONGC Videsh alone.” Two years ago, Mittal Investment used Kazakh government to muscle its way into the Satpayev oilfield in the Caspian Sea where ONGC Videsh Ltd, the overseas arm of the state-run firm, was shortlisted for a stake. However, on the eve of signing an agreement for the field, it decided to pullout. Mittal, which had dumped OVL in April 2007 to acquire 50% stake in Caspian Investments Resources (CIR) from Russian oil firm Lukoil for $980 million, is now looking at selling its interest in the firm. The stake was first offered to OVL which has declined, Maheshwari said without elaborating. Sources said Mittal is now looking for buyers including those in China to sell its stake in CIR. LUKOIL which holds the remaining stake in CIR, may also be a potential buyer. OVL, which in 2007, relented to the Kazakh government’s condition of getting Mittal in the highly prospective Satpayev field, has written to the Kazakh government saying the 25 per cent stake in Satpayev would now be acquired by it and not by ONGC-Mittal Energy Ltd- the joint venture it had with Mittals. CIR acquisition was also to be done by OMEL but the India-born billionaire went ahead on his own citing opposition to OMEL from LUKOIL. Sources said Mittal has now decided to exit oil and gas business in Kazakhstan and so offered its stake in CIR to OVL who declined it apparently because it thought the company was a sinking ship with oil production falling and actual reserves not matching the annouced figures. Sources said OVL had anticipated that Mittal may not continue with Satpayev and so had few months back sought specific permission from the Cabinet to go ahead with its investment the entire $400 million in the field on its own. Kazakh national oil firm KazMunaiGas will be the operator of the field, holding remaining 75 per cent stake. An Exploration and Production Contract which would be signed soon. The Satpayev block, situated in the Pre-Caspian Basin of Kazakhstan in Caspian Sea, covers an area of 1,582 square kilometere. OMEL, and now OVL, is to pay $26 million as signing amount to the Kazakhstan government for 25% stake in Satpayev field. Besides, it would also pay $80 million as one-time assignment fee. Over and above these, it has committed a minimum exploration investment of $165 million and an additional optional exploration expenditure of $235 million. Satpayev is situated in highly prospective region of North Caspian Sea and in proximity to at least four fields. A peak output of 287,000 barrels per day is envisaged from the 256 million tons of reserves in the field. Kazakhstan had initially identified Satpayev and Makhambet blocks in the Caspian Sea for giving 50% stake in either of them to OVL. Later, it reduced the stake on offer to 25% on condition that OVL team up with Mittal, who has steel plants in that country. OVL relented and in June 2007 made a proposal to KazMunaiGas, but in subsequent negotiations Kazakhstan’s state-run firm did not agree on the percentage of stake OVL would get. It also dererred on giving operatorship to OVL during exploratory and appraisal stages. CIR owns Nelson Resources, which LUKOIL purchased for $2 billion in 2005. Nelson carries out oil and gas production projects in Kazakhstan. It has oil production assets in the Kazakh oilfields of Alibekmola, Kozhasai, Severnye Buzachi, Karakuduk and Arman. The current production from the fields, is less than 40,000 barrels per day and is falling. Source: World Business - Livemint.com | 22 Nov 2009 | 3:06 am
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