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Thursday,
January 2, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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Exports register 15.62 pc growth in November IN GRAPHIC: STATE OF THE INDIAN ECONOMY 2002
ICICI Bank’s bond issue opens on Jan 6
Scandals, family feuds keep India Inc on its toes
Amitabh Bachchan to revive ABCL |
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HPMC gets out of red
Kapurthala firm asked to refund money 4 IIT students get President’s award
Pharma sector set to benefit
BOI introduces mobile ATM facility
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Exports register 15.62 pc growth in November New Delhi, January 1 Official figures released here today showed that the trade deficit for the first eight months of the current fiscal went up to $ 6247.65 million from 5814.93 million dollars in the comparable period of the previous year. During the period April to November 2003 exports grew by 15.65 per cent while imports grew by 14.25 per cent during the period as compared to the corresponding period of last year. Exports during April-November 2002 were valued at $ 32865.10 million against $ 28418.08 million last year. Exports in November were valued at $ 4135.09 million, up from $ 3763 million in 2001. Imports during the first eight months of the current fiscal were $ 39112.75 million, up from $ 34233.01 million in the same period last year. Imports in November were 5361.50 million, up from $ 4157.88 million. Oil imports during April-November this year were valued at $ 11728.86 million showing a growth of 21.09 per cent growth over $ 9686.26 million in the corresponding period of last year. Non-oil imports during the first eight months of the current fiscal were estimated at $ 27383.89 million which were 11.56 per cent higher than the level of $ 24546.75 million in the same period last year. |
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ICICI Bank’s bond issue opens on Jan 6 Mumbai, January 1 The subscription for bonds, to be issued in the form of debentures, would close on January 27, the private sector bank said in a release here today. “This is our first public bond offering as banking entity in 2002-03 and the
interest rates on various investment options under issue have been benchmarked to return on fixed deposits”, ICICI Bank’s head (retail channel and liabilities) Amitabh Chaturvedi said. The private sector bank has already received the nod from RBI, SEBI and CBDT for this bonds issue, he said. The issue offers three investment options — tax saving bonds, regular income bonds and children growth bonds, the release said. For the tax saving bonds, yield to maturity (YTM), based on tenure and face value, would vary between 10.7 per cent to 13.8 per cent, it said adding these bonds were eligible for tax rebates under section 88 of the Income Tax Act. The rating agencies ICRA and CARE have assigned AAA ratings for the bonds indicating high safety about timely payment of principal and interest, the release said. The Non Resident Indians and Overseas Corporate Bodies would be able to invest on both repatriable and non-repatriable basis, it said.
PTI |
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Scandals, family feuds keep India Inc on its toes New Delhi It was an year when India lost perhaps its single largest wealth creator, Reliance Chairman Dhirubhai Ambani. As if this was not enough, corporate ethics of one of India’s biggest corporate icons - Birlas - have been questioned in the L&T deal even as another iconic name of Bajaj has been dragged in a bitter family feud involving Bajaj Auto. Close on the heels of a spate of scandals hitting the US market, when Xerox Corporation confessed that its officials in India had paid bribes to secure government contracts in July this year, India Inc was shocked out of its wits. And even as these facts came to light and investigations are yet to be completed, Xerox has quietly effected a change of guard at the Indian office while its joint venture partner — B.K. Modi group — has denied any involvement in the deal. And even as investors are still coming to terms with such instances of alleged corporate frauds, Kumaramangalam Birla is battling for control of L&T with SEBI suspecting the mode of acquisition and L&T management pushing a proposal to hive off its cement division. At the centre of the L&T controversy is SEBI’s investigation into whether Birlas acquired indirect control of the company even before their stake in it crossed the 15 per cent mark even as the tussle on demerger of the company’s cement division is on. Again, another headline which surprised India Inc was a pronouncement by Shishir Bajaj, estranged brother of Bajaj Auto Chairman Rahul Bajaj, that he wants out but at a price of his asking. With mediations of former Maharashtra Chief Minister Sharad Pawar and other stalwarts failing to resolve the impasse, it appears that Shishir will have to convince the other Bajaj family members before his wishes are realised. The Kapur family wrangling, albeit on a much smaller scale, further strengthened the belief of investing public that family run businesses need to induce professionalism to be able to survive the present day aggressive environment. This family is again fighting over control of Atlas Cycles, with the estranged brother moving the Company Law Board for settling the dispute. Thus, a deluge of scandals and family wranglings finally jolted the government to action so that a whole new set of corporate governance norms, disclosure and listing regulations and accounting standards are in the process of being formulated.
PTI |
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Amitabh Bachchan to revive ABCL Jaisalmer, January 1 The company has already repaid 99 per cent of its debts and the remaining are being cleared to revive ABCL, Bachchan told reporters here yesterday. Instead of taking up big projects, the ABCL would now concentrate on small projects, he said. The company suffered huge financial losses in organising Miss World pageant in Bangalore a few years ago, the superstar said. “In the dead of night, a day before the Miss World pageant, the city Police Commissioner summoned me to a police station asking me to deposit Rs 2.50 crore for security arrangements. And only I know how I arranged this huge amount at two in the night. The Bangalore police is also demanding another Rs 2 crore.” Bachchan said the idea of floating the company struck him in 1995 during his foreign tour when he found that multinational coporations were planning to enter India’s entertainment market.
PTI |
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HPMC gets out of red Shimla, January 1 The Board of the Directors of the HPMC, which met here today under the Chairmanship of Mr Narinder Bragta, the Horticulture Minister, reviewed the functioning of the corporation. It was revealed at the meeting that the turnover the corporation increased from Rs 1,646.55 lakh to Rs 2,047.84 lakh during the first half of this financial year as compared to the previous year. The corporation, which was sustaining losses since its inception, generated the profit during year 2000-01 and the current year. |
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Kapurthala firm asked to refund money Mumbai, January 1 The market regulator had rejected Janaraksha’s application for registration. The CIS entity had also failed to wind up its existing schemes to repay investors, SEBI said in a release here today. If the company failed to return dues within one month from the order on December 27, 2002, the regulator may debar the entity and its officials concerned from operating and accessing the capital market for five years, it said. Reference would be made to the Department of Company Affairs (DCA) to wind up the CIS entity, SEBI said, adding that it would also approach government and the police to register civil/criminal cases against the company.
PTI |
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4 IIT students get President’s award Mumbai, January 1 The paper on “A new approach to fracture initiation and fatigue crack growth”, by Rajiv Prakash and Subodh Raut, was given the best paper award in solid state mechanics section, Prof Vijay G Ukadgaonkar, Department of Mechanics, IIT told PTI here today. The paper on Determination of J-estimation scheme for internal axial surface piping elbows” by Sachin Shirguppe and Aditya Kulkarni got the best award in the computational mechanics section, Ukadgaonkar said. Both the projects, sponsored by the Board of Research in Nuclear Sciences of the Department of Atomic Energy, were guided by Ukadgaonkar and Dr S R Bhat, Safety division of Bhabha Atomic Research centre.
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by Ashok Kumar Pharma sector set to benefit LAST
week, we had signed off with the promise that, this week, we would zero in on the prospects of prominent players from this segment. The player in question here is Indo-Gulf. This company no longer figures among the market favourities, but it too had its days and hence merits a mention. Till recently, Indo-Gulf was a single product company with fertilizers being its focus area. This changed in 1997 when it forayed into the relatively more lucrative copper business. In fact, in terms of sales, copper became Indo-Gulf’s primary business the same year-its contribution to revenues has risen from 53 per cent in 1999 to around 80 per cent in 2002. As a result, the fertiliser division’s contribution to revenues has fallen from 47 per cent to around 20 per cent over the same period. From a meagre 2 per cent share in FY98, the company has captured a 45 per cent market share of the domestic copper business. Apart from additional capacity expansion in copper, the company is also contemplating vertically expanding its operations by buying cooper mines. The company believes that it enjoys a cost advantage for exporting to far east countries in terms of transportation cost as it is the nearest sourcing point for these markets. The company also boasts of its own jetty facility, which helps in reducing costs further. On an average, the company expects to savings of $ 15-16/tonne on this account. Since it buys around 80 per cent of its requirements from international markets, its profitability in the copper business depends as much on its skills in anticipating price trends, as on operational efficiency. However, the company uses a combination of cash and forward contracts in the copper business. This helps in avoiding volatility, and the same time taking advantage of any opportunity in the cash market. When backed by a good monsoon, the fertiliser business will also contribute to the bottom line of Indo-Gulf. Henceforth, the company can once again bank on both its business. However, the copper business, which is seeing an upturn, appears to be Indo-Gulf’s chief growth driver in the coming years. Returning to the market front, we have received a spate of letters from thankful investors for timely investment tip on Dr Reddy’s Labs at a price of less that Rs 700 around two months ago. With the stock having topped Rs 900, these investors have made profits. Dr Reddy won a patent case against Pfizer for its product amlodipine maleate, whereby the company plans to introduce a slightly different version of a patented drug amlodipine besylate. The pharma sector will definitely benefit by the first-ever victory for patent by an Indian company in the USA. This victory paves way for the launch of generic drugs in the world’s largest market in 2003. However, there is an apprehension that a cheaper alternative to Pfizer’s hypertension drug Norvasc is likely to erode the market size of Novarsc in the US markets and thus hurt Dr Reddy’s prospects for its August launch of the generic version. Ranbaxy has also mentioned that it is set to receive royalty from Bayer as its NDDS is ready for marketing. Furthermore, there are rumours in the market about foreign parent companies getting set to buy-back shares of their Indian companies at a premium price. Overall, this could augur well for pharma stocks. The Indian markets have always done well when pharma stocks have fared well. Perhaps that might just be the right prescription for a healthy 2003 at the bourses. Happy investing in 2003. |
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