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No tax on pension contribution of
Firms can raise $500 m without govt nod In a bid to woo more foreign funds in infrastructure, the Government today eased external commercial borrowing norms by raising the upper limit five times to $ 500 million under the automatic route with certain restrictions.
Essar Oil gets SC nod for refinery In a boost to the Essar group, the Supreme Court today allowed it to go ahead with its Rs 10,000 crore oil refinery at Jamnagar in Gujarat, hanging fire for almost a decade due to controversy over its pipelines passing through a marine national park and sanctuary at Vadinar.
Reliance may bag Lankan oil deal Reliance submitted the lowest offer into a tender by Sri Lanka to buy gas oil and gasoline for combined delivery to Colombo on February 20-21, said a source from state-owned Ceylon Petroleum Corp (Ceypetco).
The Daily Telegraph sold to Barclays The Daily Telegraph has been bought by the reclusive Barclay brothers for £260 million. The brothers have bought the group that publishes the newspaper, Hollinger Inc, which was hitherto owned by Conrad Black.
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Power Trading Corporation will enter the capital market next month with its initial public offer to enhance capital by Rs 58.5 crore. The draft prospectus for the issue was filed last week with market regulator SEBI. Mumbai, January 19 Patni Computer Systems has assigned a price range of Rs200-230 per share for its initial public offering of 18.72 million shares. The issue, through the book-building route, will open on January 27 and close on February 5.
Duty-free shops at 6 airports soon International class duty-free shops may soon hit six international airports in the country with the Airports Authority of India having selected Dubai-based Flamingo International for these. Chandigarh, January 19 A new sugarcane sowing technique of pit plantation was introduced at Hasanpur village, near Morindra, today. Mr Kulbir Singh Sidhu and Sukhjinder Raj Singh Gill, Managing Director and Additional Managing Director, Sugarfed, supervised the first sowing.
Union Bank profit rises 4.5 per cent Union Bank has posted a 4.49 per cent rise in the net profit at Rs 150.04 crore for third quarter ended December 31, 2003, compared to Rs 143.58 crore reported in same period in the previous fiscal.
Indian Rayon and Industries has reported 28.7 per cent drop in its net profit of Rs 28.5 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, 2003, as against Rs 40.08 crore in the same period last fiscal.
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No tax on pension contribution of new staff
New Delhi, January 19 “The Revenue Department is working on the details and a separate Income Tax Directive will be issued shortly,” Joint Secretary (Capital markets) U.K. Sinha told a public accounts officers conference here today. He said the government had decided to follow the “EET” method — exempting the pension wealth at the contribution and accumulation stages and taxing it at the withdrawal stage. The tax rate on pension income will be at the prevailing rate when the withdrawal is made after retirement. Since the new scheme, which became effective from January, was a “defined contribution scheme” it will exclude the family pension system in the event of the death of the employee as prevalent now. Asserting that the GPF will not be applicable to the new recruits, Sinha said “instead of paying afterwards, the government is paying upfront.” The new pension system envisages 10 per cent contribution from employees and a matching contribution from the government. The government launched the new pension scheme in the wake of rising pension liability, now at Rs 23,000 crore per annum from Rs 4,500 crore in 1993-94.
“The burden on Exchequer is rising because of the changing demographic profile. For every 100 employees, there is about 85 pensioners. It is going to increase further,” Sinha said, pointing to the central and state governments’ difficulty in footing the pension bill.
— PTI
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Firms can raise $500 m without govt nod
New Delhi, January 19 Corporates borrowing up to $ 500 million for over five years and at an interest rate up to Libor plus 3.5 per cent will not now need the RBI’s or the government’s permission. Till now, corporates raising ECBs over $ 100 million required the government permission. However, the government will continue to discourage short-term borrowing through ECBs as corporates would require the RBI permission for raising over $ 20 million for 3-5 years and that too at an interest rate of less than Libor plus 2 per cent. “All cases, which fall outside the purview of the auto-route in the new liberalised ECB policy, will be decided by an Empowered Committee of the RBI,” an official release said. The move has been taken to check flight of capital while encouraging long-term borrowings for infrastucture funding. Similar liberalisation is being made in the case of Foreign Currency Convertible Bonds as well.
— PTI
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Essar Oil gets SC nod for refinery
New Delhi, January 19 A Bench comprising Justice Ruma Pal and Justice B.N. Srikrishna, while allowing an appeal filed by Essar Oil Limited (EOL), said the company was “entitled to proceed with the project”. The Bench directed the Gujarat Government “to provide within a fortnight” all permission required for the purpose of laying the pipeline in the marine national park and sanctuary for the purpose of carrying crude oil to the refinery. Essar, which has already invested Rs 5,300 crore in the refinery project and completed 64 per cent of the project, had moved the Supreme Court challenging the Gujarat High Court decision on a PIL stalling permission for laying of pipelines through the national park and sanctuary at Vadinar. Essar Oil showed to the court the clearances it had got from almost all authorities. It also had brought to the notice of the court the report of experts saying the scientific laying of pipelines would cause little harm to the marine wildlife.
— PTI
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Reliance may bag Lankan oil deal
Singapore, January 19 He said Reliance offered 0.25 per cent gas oil at $1.50 a barrel over Singapore spot gas oil quotes and 90-octane and 95-octane gasoline at $2.40 a barrel over Singapore benchmark gasoline prices. The other sellers, Vitol, Petroplus and BB Energy, offered gas oil at premiums of $1.195 to $4.73 a barrel and gasoline at premiums of $3.80 to $6.43 a barrel, the source said. The tender is expected to be awarded later on Friday, the source said. Since the tender was issued, Ceypetco has changed the break down of the volumes in the tender although the overall volume remains 3,00,000 barrels, the source said. It has raised the requested volume of 90-octane gasoline to 80,000 barrels from 40,000 barrels and has cut its 0.25 per cent sulphur gas oil requirement to 180,000 barrels from 220,000 barrels. It has maintained its demand for 95-octane gasoline at 40,000 barrels, he said. “The country is short of 90-octane gasoline,” said the source. An 11.6 metre (38 feet) sea depth at the Colombo port generally restricts cargo sizes to 300,000 barrels. Vitol was awarded the most recent gas oil/gasoline tender, in which Ceypetco bought 220,000 barrels of 0.25 per cent gas oil and 80,000 barrels of 90-octane gasoline for delivery into Colombo on January 25-27. The gas oil was priced at $1.75 a barrel over spot quotes and the gasoline at $2.45 a barrel over Singapore benchmark gasoline prices, both on a cost-and-freight basis.
— Reuters
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The Daily Telegraph sold to Barclays London, January 19 The brothers have bought the group that publishes the newspaper, Hollinger Inc, which was hitherto owned by Conrad Black. The billionaire brothers, whose interests range from the Ritz Hotel in London to Littlewoods stores, said they had reached an "irrevocable agreement" to take over Hollinger Inc, giving them control of the world's third largest group of titles, including The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph and The Spectator magazine. The agreement by Black to sell — signed at midnight Saturday in New York — came just hours after his fortunes took a further dive for the worse with the announcement he was being sued by his own company, Hollinger International, for a catalogue of alleged unauthorised payments worth more than $200 million. Black, 59, was also summarily sacked as the company's non-executive chairman. Under the complex structure of Black's newspaper empire, Hollinger Inc, based in Toronto, had been used by the peer to control Hollinger International, a separate holding company that oversees the newspaper group. The deal, which gives the Barclay brothers 73 per cent of the voting rights in Hollinger International, is still dependent on the agreement of other shareholders and will be closely scrutinised by the powerful financial watchdog, the Securities and Exchange Commission, overseeing a separate inquiry into the alleged scandal. David Barclay, who, along with his twin Frederick, has built a business empire with annual revenue of £3.9 billion, said he was confident that the deal — which makes the pair second only to Rupert Murdoch in their share of the national newspaper market — would end months of damaging publicity surrounding the media group.
— IANS
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New Delhi, January 19 The draft prospectus for the issue was filed last week with market
regulator SEBI. PTC has appointed SBI Caps and Enam Financial Consultants as the book-running lead managers and KJMC Global Market as co-book running lead manager for the IPO, T.N. Thakur, CMD of PTC, told reporters here. At present PTC has paid up capital of Rs 91.5 crore, which would go up to Rs 150 crore after the IPO. The authorised capital of PTC is Rs 750 crore. PTC registered a turnover of Rs 998 crore in the first six months of current fiscal as against Rs 900 crore in the last full financial year. Asked about the premium on the IPO, Thakur said the lead managers have yet to do the pre-market survey, but emphasised that PTC would be “investor friendly”. PTC is promoted by four central power PSUs — PGCIL, NTPC, NHPC and PFC — which own eight per cent stake each in the trading company along with financial institutions like IDBI, IDFC, IFCI, LIC and GIC holding combined stake of Rs 18.5 crore. Tata Power and Damodar Valley Corporation also have a stake of Rs 15 crore and Rs 10 crore, respectively, in the company.
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Patni IPO on January 27
Mumbai, January 19 The issue, through the book-building route, will open on January 27 and close on February 5. The public offer consists of an issue of 13.4 million shares with a face value of Rs 2 each and an offer for sale of 5.32 million shares of Rs 2 each, which makes up for 15 per cent of its fully diluted post issue paid up capital. After the IPO, the promoter’s holding will come down to 51.3 per cent from the current 60.8 per cent after the offer.
— UNI
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Duty-free shops at 6 airports soon New Delhi, January 19 Officials said final details were being worked out and the space would be allotted to Flemingo soon. The company will set up shops at Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Calicut, Goa and Ahmedabad. The financial bids for the outlets were opened here last week and Flamingo was the only eligible bidder. The AAI rejected bids by King Power Duty Free of Hong Kong and Truebell Marketing of Abu Dhabi on technical grounds, an official said. Several other companies had taken tender forms for opening duty-free shops at airports in Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Kozhikode, Goa and Tiruchirapalli. They included SUTL Services and DFS of Singapore, Alpha Retail of Britain and Nuance Group of Australia.
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New technique for sugarcane Chandigarh, January 19 Mr Jagdish Singh, Chief Cane Development Officer of Morinda Sugar Mills told the cane growers they can get more yield by adopting this technique. It will increase their income manifold. If they earned Rs 8,000 with traditional methods, now they will earn Rs 25000 with the new technique of pit plantation. This new method also increases the recovery percentage of sugar from 0.5 per cent to 1 per cent. Mr S.R.S. Gill told the farmers that all cooperative sugar mills in the state have fabricated 10 diggers each at mills level which will be provided to the cane growers free of cost for digging pits in their fields. The mills are also providing technical staff for planting cane by this new technique. This new technique helps the farmers to get more benefit with lesser labour and using small quantity of fertilisers. This experiment has been conducted at mills farm as well as in the fields of progressive farmers. The data shows that with this new technique the average per acre yield increased from 600 to 800 quintals.
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Union Bank profit rises 4.5 per cent
Mumbai, January 19 The board has approved a 20 per cent (Rs 2) interim dividend for the fiscal 2003-04 subject to nod from the RBI, the bank informed the BSE today. The total income rose to Rs 1,344.01 crore in the quarter ended December 31, 2003, from Rs 1,281.33 crore in the corresponding period the previous fiscal, it added.
— PTI
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