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Sebi gives conditional nod to RIL buyback scheme
Stock markets nosedive
MFN status fails to boost trade with Pak: Nath
Chandigarh, January 10 The Punjab Government has proposed to float Punjab State Development Loan 2015 worth Rs 503.98 crore at the rate of 7.02 per cent interest for 10 years to finance part of the capital expenditure, plan schemes and other development schemes under execution in the state. |
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Petronet to set up LNG terminal at Kochi
Advisory council meets
ONGC gets nod to bid for Yukos assets
IT round-up
Graphic: Export of Fresh Fruits and Vegetables
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Sebi gives conditional nod to RIL buyback scheme
Mumbai, January 10 “We have directed Reliance Industries to make certain disclosures regarding their buyback programme,” G.N. Bajpai, Chairman, Sebi, told PTI here today. Bajpai’s comments come even as RIL disclosed in newspaper advertisements that four companies — Reliance Polyolefins Pvt Ltd, Reliance Aromatics and Petrochemicals Pvt Ltd, Reliance Energy and Project Development Pvt Ltd and Reliance Chemicals Pvt Ltd — held 4.7 per cent equity share in RIL, headed by Mukesh, the elder of the Ambani brothers, and were listed as Persons Acting in Concert (PAC). “It is, therefore, baseless to allege that there has been any intention of the management of RIL to divert the benefits of these assets to the promoters,” RIL said in its advertisement. The advertisement, aimed at giving a correct picture in the face of a spate of news-reports, on the day the buyback programme kicks off, said: “The economic benefits of RIL shares held by these four companies have always been for the benefit of RIL’s shareholders, and remain so.” Meanwhile, Sebi officials clarified that these companies disclosed as PAC would not be participating in the buyback programme. Sebi officials said the market regulator has also asked the RIL to disclose the position of Nimesh Kampani, a trustee in the Petroleum Trust, holding 7.5 per cent equity capital of RIL besides heading JM Morgan Stanley, the manager of the buyback programme. They, however, clarified that prima facie there was nothing in the regulations prohibiting JM Morgan from handling the buyback programme. Accordingly, RIL said in its advertisement that holding of the trust has been shown a part of “promoters” and that another group company Reliance Industrial Investment and Holding Ltd (RIIHL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of RIL, is a sole beneficiary of the trust. The conditional clearance to Reliance Industries programme for buyback of shares may have been prompted by a letter written by RIL Vice-Chairman Anil Ambani late last month.
— PTI
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Over 6 lakh shares bought
Reliance Industries today kicked off its buyback programme, purchasing over six lakh shares for about Rs 34 crore but could not enthuse the market as the company’s scrip plunged by over Rs 7 to close the day at Rs 533.
The buyback, coming after weeks of public feud between the two Ambani brothers over ownership issues of Reliance empire, was at an average price of Rs 539.62, RIL informed the Bombay Stock exchange at the end of the trading session. RIL, headed by Mukesh Ambani, had decided at the December 27 Board meeting about the nearly year-long buyback programme while approving an outlay of Rs 2,99p crore with a maximum price of Rs 570 for repurchase of company’s shares from the open market.
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Stock markets nosedive
Mumbai, January 10 The Nifty too ended in negative territory at 1,982 points. The major losers today included blue chip companies in metals, cement, automobile, oil, etc. The biggest loser today was Tata Power which was down over 4 per cent. Others like Bharti, Cipla, Maruti, Ranbaxy Labs, Satyam, Wipro and Tata Motors were down over 3 per cent each. Banks, however, closed higher, with HDFC Bank gaining 2.1 per cent while the SBI was up 1 per cent. In the old economy scrips, BHEL was up 1.6 per cent and L&T rose by a single per cent.
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MFN status fails to boost trade with Pak: Nath
New Delhi, January 10 The biggest challenge for both countries was generating employment opportunities for which economic activity needed to be given a boost, Mr Nath said while addressing a meeting with a joint delegation from the PHDCCI, Lahore, Karachi and Rawalpindi Chambers of Commerce and Industry. Mr Kamal Nath said the meeting of Indo-Pak Joint Study Group slated for January 25 would help in moving forward in this direction. He said the members of trade and industry from both the sides should come forward to put forth their views during the deliberations. On the issue of opening the land route for trade between the two countries, the Minister said whereas India was committed to improving trade relations with its neighbours, the Pakistan business community should also force its government to open the land route. “We are willing to do so, but Pakistan should also equally respond”, Mr Kamal Nath said. Mr Nath said there was a lot of potential for increasing trade between India and Pakistan. The business community should push for greater cooperation, he said. The minister said though India had given the MFN status to Pakistan, trade between the two countries had not increased. The business community should come out with specific problems so that they can be sorted out on a case-to-case basis. This would help increase trade on a sectoral basis, he added.
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Punjab to float Rs 503-cr loan for development
Chandigarh, January 10 A spokesman of the government said the consent of the Central Government had been obtained for this loan floated under tap system. The tap would be open tomorrow and if the intended amount is not received, it could be extended for one day more. The tenure of this loan would commence from January 13 and the interest would be paid half yearly ie July 13 and January 13.
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Petronet to set up LNG terminal at Kochi
New Delhi, January 10 The Dahej terminal, which at present has 2.5 million tonnes capacity, would be expanded to 5 million tonnes by April. The company plans to invest Rs 1,000 crore
to upgrade the capacity to 10 million tonnes by June 2008, said Petronet LNG Managing Director Suresh Mathur here today. “We will complete the 2.5 million tonnes LNG terminal in Kochi by 2008,”he said. He said the new terminal at Kochi with an initial capacity of 2.5 million tonnes would cost Rs 2000 crore and the capacity could be, scaled up to five million tonnes per annum later. Mr Mathur said the optimum
capacity of the Dahej terminal post expansion would be 13 million tonnes. He said the signing of agreement with Iran for supply of liquefied natural gas (LNG) beginning from 2009 would strengthen the energy security of the country. The gas supplies would double once LNG imports start from Iran and Qatar, he said. At present, India is getting 65 million metric standard cubic metres of gas per day (mmscmd) and “once we start sourcing it from Iran, plus the Qatar gas, it will go up by an additional 60 mmscmd (15 million tonnes),” said Mr Mathur. India recently entered into an agreement with Iran to import 7.5 million tonnes per annum of LNG, starting 2009, over a period of 25 years. It already has an agreement with RasGas of Qatar for a similar quantity. Mr Mathur said the contract with Qatar has a provision to review the prices after five years, and the same is due in 2009. He said Petronet would consider Iran gas prices as a benchmark for negotiating the price with RasGas in 2009. “Qatar is committed to giving us LNG at a lower price in case some other country or company is offering us 2.5 million tonnes gas at reduced prices than what we are paying to Rasgas,” he said.
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Advisory council meets
New Delhi, January 10 Both Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P. Chidambaram have indicated that this year’s Budget will carry out comprehensive tax reforms to increase the low tax-GDP ratio. These include widening of the tax base. This being the first meeting of the newly constituted council, the discussions were of a general nature. “The council discussed wide ranging issues, including the price situation, taxation, Employment Guarantee Scheme and developments in the external sector,” Economic Advisory Council Chairman C. Rangarajan told reporters after the meeting here. Apart from tax reforms, the issue of implementing Vat from April 1, 2005 came up during the talks. Mr Rangarajan said ways to make the Employment Guarantee Scheme effective also figured at the meeting. He said the panel would come up with a monthly report to be submitted to the Prime Minister. The council was constituted on December 29, 2004, to advise the Prime Minister on economic developments and to monitor trends. Its mandate includes suggesting policy measures to improve the performance of the economy.
— UNI
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ONGC gets nod to bid for Yukos assets
New Delhi, January 10 “We have received the government approval to bid for some assets of Yukos,” he told reporters here. Mr Raha said ONGC is “in touch with the Russian entities concerned on Yukos’ assets”. He said ONGC is still in the race for acquiring
Canadian firm EnCana’s stake in a cluster of oilfields in Ecuador. The Ecuador field is a discovered field with large reserves, he added. The ONGC’s overseas arm ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL) is reportedly bidding to buy a 15 per cent stake for two billion dollars in Yuganskneftegaz (Yugansk), the main production unit of the embattled Yukos oil company. If it worked out, it would be the largest overseas acquisition by an Indian company. Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar had recently confirmed the news that ONGC was interested in buying a stake in Yugansk and said, “It would make great sense for us to build on that”.
— UNI
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IT round-up
New Delhi, January 10 “British economy gains £ 16 billion in 2004 because of offshoring and more British companies will outsource work to India for skills that are in short supply in UK,” Digby Jones, the Director General of Confederation of British Industries, told newspersons here. For cheap manufacturing British companies would go to China while for high-end manufacturing and services India would be their destination, he said. “If in 21st century the relationship between India and UK can mean anything, it is ICT (information and communication technology),” Jones said. He said the British economy was in favour of outsourcing as it frees up people in the UK, who can then concentrate on high-end work. So far 480 Indian companies have invested in the UK and about 350 of them were IT companies, Mr Jones said. “The Indian companies that have invested in UK have seen stupendous growth.” The Director-General said trade between India and UK was expanding fast and would get a massive boost with the successful completion of Doha Round of negotiations at World Trade Organisation in December this year.
Orange in India
Britain’s largest mobile phone operator Orange plans to outsource 1,500 jobs to India as part of a drive by its parent firm France Telecom to cut costs. The mobile company will soon begin trials with Convergys and Vertex in Delhi. During the trials, 215 call centre workers will answer customer service inquiries during peak periods and Orange will move work to India if the trials are successful, UK’s Telegraph newspaper reported today. “A final figure on the number of roles we intend to outsource will not be decided until these trials are complete. The steps we are taking will not lead to site closures and redundancies,” an Orange spokesman was quoted by the paper as saying. “Customer service is a priority for Orange and this outsourcing is intended to help Orange Customer Services cope with high demand and ensure the company continues to offer customer the high level of service they have come to expect over the last 10 years,” he said.
Services to Japan
India’s IT services exports to Japan could increase 300 per cent to £ 1.5 billion from the present level of £ 500 million if the double taxation avoidance between the two countries was renegotiated, according to Assocham. The chamber said India’s exports of software and IT services to Japan was around 4 to 5 per cent of the total exports in the sector and called for renegotiating the Indo-Japan double taxation avoidance agreement to facilitate Indian IT companies to set up operations in Japan to tap the world’s second largest market. Assocham President M.K. Sanghi said Japanese authorities classify offshore income as royalty and withhold tax in Japan under Article 12 of the tax treaty.
Domestic software
Nasscom today said the hitherto tardy domestic software market has now gained momentum and will grow at an all-time high of 25 per cent this fiscal while exports are on course to meet the target of 30 to 32 per cent in 2004-05. “A very positive development has been increased demand in the domestic market this fiscal. The projection for domestic software market is 20 to 25 per cent and we should be on the upper band of this target,” Nasscom President Kiran Karnik told newspersons here. It was a good ramp up over 15 per cent domestic software growth registered last fiscal, he said while announcing Nasscom Global Leadership awards. The sector is also on track to meet the export growth target of 30 to 32 per cent in 2004-05. “The first six month results of public companies have been good and we hope to maintain the rate,” he added. Nasscom 2005 India Leadership Forum 2005, which gets underway in Mumbai on February 8, will focus on “Innovation for Globalisation” as Indian companies look offshore for acquisitions and develop niche products that find applicability across various geographies. The three-day event, which will see participation from over 1,200 delegates and have over 100 speakers, will be inaugurated by President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.
— Agencies
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