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Shares as sops for Neyveli Corp employees
Cairn gets $1 b loan for Rajasthan
Rel Communication eyes spectrum for GSM service
Barclays India profit up 95 pc
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Help centres set up for filing IT returns
India invites Spain to invest in infrastructure
Reliance plea to be heard on July 18
PNB to handle HP treasury
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Shares as sops for Neyveli Corp employees
New Delhi, July 3 In response to a request from Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh assured that the government would provide for sufficient allocation of preferential shares to the employees, as desired by them, on a preferential basis so that they have a stake in the future of the corporation. Last month, Mr Karunanidhi had asked Dr Singh to reconsider the decision to disinvest 10 per cent equity in the Neyveli Lignite Corporation. In a fax to Dr Singh, a copy of which was released to the Press, he said: “The views of opposing the disinvestment of 10 per cent share in Neyveli Lignite Corporation cannot be ignored by the Central Government.” It would be construed that any deviation from the accepted Common Minimum Programme, whatever reasons we may give, would amount to diluting the already agreed principles. Therefore, this decision to disinvest should be reconsidered.” The employees of NLC have, however, decided to go ahead with the scheduled indefinite strike from tomorrow against disinvestments. |
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Cairn gets $1 b loan for Rajasthan
London/Jaipur, July 3 Cairn also said the Indian government had given its development plans for the Mangala, Aishwariya, Saraswati and Raageshwari fields the final official nod and that it was still planning to float its Indian arm in Mumbai by early next year. The four fields are located in Block RJ-ON-90/1. Cairn recently estimated there were more than 3.5 billion barrels of oil in place in its key Rajasthan exploration block in northwest India, up from about 2.5 billion previously. “Obtaining government approval ... and securing finance for the first phase of the developments is a significant achievement on the path to first oil,” Cairn Chief Executive Bill Gammell said in a statement. Cairn said in March that it was considering a partial flotation of its core Indian exploration and production business and that it would return any proceeds from the listing to shareholders. Cairn said the IPO of Cairn India was still on track to complete by the end of this year, or by end-March 2007. Cairn said it signed the $1 billion bank facility with the World Bank’s private sector arm, International Finance Corporation, and Britain’s Royal Bank of Scotland, among other banks. Around $850 million is earmarked for Rajasthan. Meanwhile, Rajasthan has asked the central government for a higher share of profits in a 50:50 ratio from sale of oil or gas produced from exploration blocks within the state and operated as joint venture. “I have written a letter in this regard to Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Murli Deora,” said Rajasthan Minister of Mines, Forests and Environment L.N. Dave. “I have requested that the issue of sharing ‘profit petroleum’ should be reviewed for joint venture (JV) blocks equivalent to the new exploration licensing policy (NELP) blocks,” Mr Dave said. The request for equal share in profits has been made “not as part of the recommendation but as a special union government dispensation based on the principle of profit petroleum already established for joint venture and NELP blocks,” he explained. ‘Profit petroleum’ is made when exploration blocks start to pay returns after the investments costs have been recovered.
— Reuters, IANS |
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Rel Communication eyes spectrum for GSM service
New Delhi, July 3 Reliance Communication President (Wireless) S.P. Shukla told reporters that Reliance ‘Hello’ subscribers can call another customer of the company’s landline segment at the rate of Rs 1.20 for three minutes. The pulse rate would be three minutes. He said the new tariff plan is being given to all ‘Hello’ subscribers from midnight and call charges to other telecom operators would depend on the tariff plan subscribed by the customers. In the landline segment, the company has two million subscribers. He said an individual from Delhi could make call to Mumbai, Chennai, Jaipur, Lucknow, Kolkata and many more capital cities at local rates. “It is the death of long distance tariff and is applicable to both post and pre-paid tariff plans,” he said. Meanwhile, the company is going ahead in a war footing to secure the spectrum for starting the GSM service in the country. The defence authorities had recently agreed to vacate 45 MHz quantity of spectrum, a crucial input for further growth of telecom services. If the application of Reliance is considered favourably, the company would immediately get a pair of 5 MHz of spectrum in 1800 MHz (a frequency for GSM operators), a move that could hurt many other aspirants of additional frequency. The development is significant, as the company has been offering CDMA-based mobile services in the country with nearly a subscriber base of 20 million. The company would have the flexibility of offering both technologies or migrating to GSM over a period of time. The Department of Telecom (DoT) sources confirmed the move but said no decision has yet been taken on allocation of spectrum. Reliance Telecom, a subsidiary of Reliance Communication, has been offering GSM-based services in six circles including Kolkata, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Bihar and the North-East while the parent company operates CDMA services in these circles. |
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Barclays India profit up 95 pc
Mumbai, July 3 Announcing this, the bank said with strong growth in key business segments, including investment banking and risk management, its revenues surged 82 per cent to Rs 270 crore. Barclays had doubled its investment in India by infusing $150 million earlier this year to support the growth of the investment banking business. This was the group’s third capital infusion in India since 2002. In addition, Barclays has earmarked $70 million for the corporate banking business, part of the Barclays Bank PLC’s International Retail & Commercial Banking (IRCB) business, which announced its expansion plans earlier this year. BEL profit up
Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) has posted an increase of 30.62 per cent in net profit at Rs 583.01 crore for the year ended March 31, as compared to Rs 446.32 crore a year ago. The total income of the company grew by 9.44 per cent to Rs 3,649.43 crore for the financial year 2005-06 from Rs 3,334.37 crore in FY 2004-05, the company informed the BSE. The Board recommended a final dividend of (106 per cent) Rs 10.60 on equity shares of Rs 10 each in addition to the interim dividend of 40 per cent paid in November 2005. Hinduja TMT
Hinduja TMT Ltd has posted a net profit of Rs 6.56 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2006, as compared to Rs 7.35 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2005. It has posted a net profit of Rs 40.27 crore for the year ended March 31 (FY 05-06) as compared to Rs 70.05 crore for the year ended March 31 (FY 04-05). The Board has recommended a dividend of Rs 7.50 per share (75 per cent) for the financial year 2005-2006. — Agencies |
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GM to spark auto segment next year
Chandigarh, July 3 This was stated by Vice-President (Marketing, Sales and After Sales) Ankush Arora during a visit to the city today. He was in town to launch the premium sports back, Chevrolet SRV. “The small car will be competing with Maruti Suzuki’s Wagon R and Hyundai’s Santro. Though the exact date has not been decided for the launch of Spark, it will be launched before June 2007,” he said. Mr Arora said the company was in an expansion mode and had achieved a year over year growth of 36 per cent last year (though the growth in the car market was just 7.5 per cent). “As of now, we have 86 sales outlets and 90 service outlets. By the end of this year, General Motors proposed to have 110 sales outlets and service outlets each across the country. As on May 2006, we had achieved a growth of 36 per cent and we have set a target to sell 45,000- 50,000 units during this year,” he said. In terms of sales of Tavera, Punjab was the biggest market. “Both Tavera and Optra have been doing well in Punjab. On an average, we sell about 275-300 units a month in Punjab alone. Other than our existing sales and service outlets in Jalandhar, Amritsar, Ludhiana and Patiala, we will open new outlets in Bathinda, Ferozepur and Gurdaspur. In Haryana, other than the outlets in Karnal, Panipat and Ambala, two new outlets at Hisar and Yamunanagar will be opened by the end of this year,” he said. |
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Isuzu inks pact with Swaraj Mazda
New Delhi, July 3 Isuzu Motors said, under the agreement it would enter the Indian market through the local assembly and sales collaboration contract for medium duty buses with Swaraj Mazda. “The buses will be assembled by Swaraj and sold in India under the Isuzu brand through about 130 exclusive dealers of Swaraj,” the company said. Isuzu said the delivery of medium duty bus completely knocked down (CKD) kits to Swaraj would start from 2007. The company said it planned to sell about 100 units in 2007, which is expected to expand to 1,000 units in 2009. Informing about the deal to the Bombay Stock Exchange, Swaraj Mazda (SM) said it had signed the agreement in June 30. The Sumitomo Corporation is the largest shareholder in SM with 41 per cent stake, while Punjab Tractor holds 14 per cent. Maruti sales up
Car market leader Maruti Udyog Ltd has reported a 17.5 per cent increase in domestic sales at 44,626 units during June as compared to 37,995 units in the same month last year. The total sales grew 17 per cent to 48,425 units during the month as against 41,390 units in June last year. Exports stood at 3,799 units in June this year, up 11.9 per cent from 3,395 units exported in the same month during 2005, a company statement said. The sale of Maruti 800 (A1 segment) stood at 7,796 units in June, up 22.1 per cent from 6,387 units in the same month last year. Sales in the domestic A2 segment (comprising Alto, WagonR, Zen and Swift) grew 10.2 per cent to 27,228 units as compared to 24,703 units in June 2005, while sales in the A3 segment (Baleno and Esteem) rose by 22.3 per cent to 2,680 units as against 2,191 units sold last year in June. Meanwhile, MUL also announced the launch of this unique programme, Dil Se (or, “straight from the heart”) whereby the NRIs can place an order online to gift a Maruti car to a friend or relative. They can log on to a special website
www.marutinri.com to place their orders. M&M tractors
Auto major Mahindra and Mahindra (MM) has became the first Indian company to sell 10,000 tractors in a single month as the company posted a 32 per cent increase in sales for the month of June. The company has sold a total of 10,410 units domestic and international market in last month. “This is the highest sale ever achieved by an Indian company,” the company said here. Maharashtra-based M&M registers net sale of 5,917 in domestic and exported 893 as it sold a cumulative of 27,367 tractors in April-June quarters. The company has sold a total of 7,879 tractor units last year in the month of June posting a 32 per cent growth and sold a cumulative of 21,200 in the corresponding quarter last year marking a 29 per cent growth, the press note said. GM India
General Motor India has reported a 53 per cent increase in domestic sales at 3,346 units in June this year as against 2,183 units in the same month last year. The company sold 1,961 units of multi-utility vehicle Chevrolet Tavera, 379 units of sedan Chevrolet Optra and 1,006 units of the mid-size Chevrolet Aveo during the month, General Motors said in a press note. “The Chevrolet brand of vehicles are recording sales in line with our expectations,” GM India Vice-President P Balendran said, adding the brand recorded an year-on-year growth of 79 per cent.
— Agencies, TNS |
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Jazeera begins flights from Delhi, Mumbai
New Delhi, July 3 Announcing the launch of the flight, airline’s Chairman and CEO Marwan Boodai said Jazeera would fly three times a week from Delhi to Kuwait city - on Monday, Tuesday and Friday - and on all days except Tuesday from Mumbai. “India is a strategic market for Jazeera,” he said while pointing out that it was one of the world’s fastest growing aviation markets, offering high potential to the airline to offer value-for-money travel to larger section of Indian travellers. Giving details of the operations, he said Jazeera had placed orders for 10 new Airbus A320s with options for six more. By this year-end, it will have five of them. There are 500,000 Indians settled in the oil-rich kingdom. Only last week India conceded to the Kuwait Government’s request to increase the weekly capacity of airlines operating between Kuwait and Indian cities by 1,300 seats. While Kuwait Airways will maintain its current schedule and capacity of 5,200 seats every week, Jazeera has got additional 1,300 seats per week. Over six million Indians travelled abroad last year. “Middle East is the largest market for outbound Indians. Nearly 34 per cent of passengers travel to this area,” said Mr Boodai. Jazeera is a Kuwaiti public shareholding company with a capital of 10 million dinars raised through an initial public offering (IPO) that was oversubscribed 12 times. |
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Help centres set up for filing IT returns New Delhi, July 3 Announcing this, Central Board of Direct Taxes Chairperson M. H. Kherawala told reporters that the centres would charge no fee from the tax payers for filing returns. There would be at least one help centre under every Direct Tax Commissionerate and the centres are set up outside the offices of Income Tax Departments, chambers of commerce and chartered accountants. “All information will be provided free of cost and no fee will be charged by the centres for helping in filing tax returns,” she said. These centres have stared functioning from June 15. The facility will be available till August 15. The centres were started last year. The last date for filing return is July 31.
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India invites Spain to invest in infrastructure
New Delhi, July 3 “Spain and India should come together to face the global challenges. In next few years, India will witness an explosion of Spanish presence in the country. This will begin next year when we hope to establish an institute of languages in New Delhi”, Spanish President Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said. Spanish industry has now gained enough experience to venture into geographies like India that it has never entered before, Zapatero said adding that India has become a lucrative market and is expected to become the third largest economy by 2020. India on its part invited Spain to invest in infrastructure.
— PTI |
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Reliance plea to be heard on July 18 New Delhi, July 3 A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Y.K. Sabharwal fixed the date after the parties agreed to it. Reliance counsel Manali Singhal requested the court for an early hearing as the rival consortia were already proceeding with the construction work at the airports. — PTI
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PNB to handle HP treasury
Shimla/New Delhi, July 3 Mr K.I. Singh, Zonal Manager, informed that the state had allotted the business under the Capital Treasury on proportionate basis. The business of 106 departments out of 147 departments would be handled by the bank, which was opening its branch in the secretariat premises shortly. Meanwhile, the bank has increased the rates of interest on FCNR (B) deposits scheme for USD, GBP, Euro, AUD and CAD deposits with effect from July 1, 2006. The rate of interest on USD deposits has been revised to 5.69 per cent for maturity of 1 year to less than 2 years on first maturity and 5.69 per cent for 2 years to less than 3 years, 5.68 per cent for 3 years to less 4 years and 5.70 per cent for 4 years to less than 5 years and 5.72 per cent for 5 years only. |
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Welspun acquires Christy of UK
Mumbai, July 3 The overall enterprise value of Christy is Rs 132 crore and Welspun will be paying Rs 100 crore initially. The Bank of India, which is funding the deal will pay Rs 60 crore while the remaining Rs 40 crore will be funded through Welspun’s internal accruals. With this acquisition, the Welspun group will gain access to the premium, high-end Christy brand as also to the UK and European markets, the group’s Vice-Chairman and Managing Director B.K. Goenka said. Stake in NIIT arm
NIIT Ltd today said ICICI Bank Ltd has agreed to acquire 19 per cent stake in the NIIT Institute of Finance Banking and Insurance Training Ltd for Rs 0.95 crore. The company is a newly incorporated entity formed for rendering training in the areas of finance, banking and insurance. The company also announced that it is getting into technology based learning services, by establishing centres for advanced learning in the area of technology and management. Nutreco’s purchase
Nutreco Holding, a Dutch animal-feed maker, said it acquired a 51 per cent stake in Indian feed company Nutrikraft India Pvt Ltd. The Bangalore-based company has annual sales of $24 million, Nutreco said today. The Netherlands-based company did not disclose a takeover price.
— Agencies |
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