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Arcelor rejects Mittal’s takeover bid
Haryana, Reliance to ink SEZ pact on June 19
Rel Comm dips 6 pc on debut
IOC plans Rs 190-crore pipeline investment
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FM does not see rate hike in July monetary policy review
Northern states lag in job creation
Apollo Hospitals to pay 45 pc dividend
TCS, Essar, Infosys get nod for SEZs
Hyundai chief confesses
Plan to upgrade
Amausi airport
CORPORATE NEWS
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Arcelor rejects Mittal’s takeover bid
London/Luxembourg, June 12 The Arcelor Board “unanimously” rejected the offer, saying it is “inadequate as it continues to undervalue Arcelor” and recommended “shareholders support the proposed merger with the Russian steel group Severstal and set the price per share of the self-tender at Euro 44 — Euro 6 more than offered by Mittal,” Arcelor said in an official statement. Luxembourg-based steel giant decided not to commence “such self-tender offer until after the publication of Mittal Steel’s offer results while mandating the Group Management Board to meet with Mittal Steel in order to review its proposal to further improve its offer. Although there was no formal word from the Mittals, there were indications that NRI steel tycoon L.N. Mittal might submit a revised offer. Pitching for the deal with the Russian Steel group, the Arcelor Board, which met in Luxembourg yesterday, also asked its shareholders to support the Severstal transactions at the general body meeting on June 30. Stating that Severstal transactions were more “attractive alternative from a strategic, financial and social point of view,” Arcelor took a dig at Mittal Steel, saying that “the revisions of Mittal Steel’s offer announced on May 19, 2006, demonstrates that its initial offer undervalued Arcelor. “Notwithstanding the increase in the consideration offered by Mittal Steel, the Arcelor Board of Directors believes that this offer is still inadequate as it continues to undervalue Arcelor,” the statement added. Dwelling on the reasons leading to the rejection of Mittal Steel’s offer, Arcelor said its 34 per cent increase offer was required to realign with the bid initially offered by the company due to its under-performing share price vis-à-vis Arcelor’s share price. Moreover, Mittal Steel’s offer does not take into proper account Arcelor’s operating and financial results for 2005, which exceeded market expectations. Mittal’s offer closes on July 5 to Arcelor’s shareholders in Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Spain and the United States. Rebel votes
Rebel shareholders in steelmaker Arcelor secured a special vote on Monday, which could jeopardise the firm’s plans to merge with Russia’s Severstal and boost a rival takeover bid by Mittal Steel. Arcelor will allow its management to meet with Mittal about its bid, which it may raise, the Luxembourg-based firm said after its Board of Directors met on Sunday and formally rejected Mittal’s current bid. If rebel shareholders do not drum up the support of 50 per cent of Arcelor’s capital to vote against the Severstal deal on June 30, they will be asked to vote on a resolution that calls for a special shareholders meeting which will not take place before mid August. If that resolution is passed, two-thirds of the represented Arcelor shareholders will need to vote in favour of the tie-up for the deal to go through. Arcelor’s Board said it was concerned that this resolution, if passed, would give Mittal a decisive advantage due to timetable technicalities. Mittal’s offer is due to close on July 5 and it is yet unclear whether billionaire Lakshmi Mittal would keep a minority stake in Arcelor if he fails to get over 50 per cent. If Mittal did keep a minority stake, he could use it to vote at a special shareholders meeting, making it likely that the Russian white knight deal would be killed, Arcelor said. Goldman Sachs, the investment bank advising Mittal Steel, has helped shareholders with about 30 percent of Arcelor’s capital to call for this special meeting to change the voting requirements of the Severstal deal.
— PTI, Reuters |
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Soon after rejection of its Euro 25 billion bid to acquire rival steel giant Arcelor, Mittal Steel today said it had not made any improved offer nor has any intention to do so. “Mittal Steel has not made any proposal to improve the financial terms of its offer and has no intention to do so. We have made a very compelling offer to shareholders offering a 70 per cent premium to the pre-offer all-time high share price of Arcelor,” a statement from Mittal, the world’s largest steel maker, said. The statement follows one issued by Arcelor, after its Board rejected the unsolicited takeover bid, that Mittal had indicated that it was prepared to improve its offer. Raising doubts over Arcelor’s statement that the transaction for Russian steel group Severstal valued Arcelor at Euro 44 per share, Mittal Steel said that this was without market substantiation. “Mittal Steel would like to reaffirm that its proposal to further improve the offer in the context of a recommended transaction relates only to certain corporate governance initiatives designed to preserve and promote the Arcelor model,” the statement said.
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Haryana, Reliance to ink SEZ pact on June 19
Chandigarh, June 12 The HSIDC and the RIL were slated to ink the deal today to kick off the SEZ project in Gurgaon. A press conference was also called for announcing the agreement. However, the programme was cancelled abruptly leading to speculations about the proposed SEZ running into problems due to opposition to the project by the Congress faction headed by the HPCC chief, Mr Bhajan Lal’s MP son, Mr Kuldeep Bishnoi. Talking to media persons here today, Mr Hooda said the RIL boss, Mr Mukesh Ambani had telephoned him yesterday and requested him to hold the agreement signing ceremony on some other day. “The agreement would be signed on June 19,” the Chief Minister, said. Mr Hooda said Mr Ambani had returned from the USA yesterday only. He probably wanted first to settle down and then fly to Chandigarh to sign the deal, the Chief Minister said, adding that if the government insisted Mr Ambani probably would have agreed to keep his date in Chandigarh. “In any case, seven days’ delay would not make much difference to the project,” Mr Hooda said. The Chief Minister said there was no question of the Congress president, Ms Sonia Gandhi, holding a meeting with him regarding the SEZ deal last evening and expressing her reservations about the project. “I was in Safidon till late in the evening in connection with a public meeting. How could I meet Ms Gandhi yesterday?” he said.
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Rel Comm dips 6 pc on debut
Mumbai, June 12 The company replaced Tata Power in the 30-share benchmark index today, becoming the second ADAG entity after Reliance Energy to be included among the country’s 30 biggest blue-chip stocks. Reliance Communications’ share price closed 6.38 per cent down at Rs 206.80 in a weak market, after hitting an intra-day low of Rs
205. Sensex closed 334.31 points or 3.41 per cent lower at 9,476.15 today, as the market sentiments once again turned bearish after a brief recovery on Friday last week. The stock witnessed huge selling pressure throughout the trading session, while shrugging off the company’s plans to start
GSM-based telecom services in the country. The company is a leading provider of
CDMA-based telecom services in the country. — PTI |
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IOC plans Rs 190-crore pipeline investment
New Delhi, June 12 “The 275-km pipeline is being built at a cost of Rs 186.72 crore with foreign exchange component of Rs 60.3 crore,” a company official said. IOC has LPG bottling plants at Karnal (Kohand) and Gurgaon in Haryana, Jalandhar and Nabha in Punjab, Una and Baddi in Himachal Pradesh and at Jammu and Leh in Jammu and Kashmir. The LPG requirement of these bottling plants is presently met from Panipat refinery as well as from Loni tap off point, which receives LPG through GAIL’s Jamanagar-Loni LPG pipeline. The LPG to all above plants, except Karnal plant, is presently transported by road. Karnal LPG bottling plant, which is about 7 km from Panipat Refinery at Kohand, receives LPG from Panipat refinery through a pipeline. Considering the projected volumes, it would be advantageous to move this LPG requirement through a pipeline due to inherent disadvantages in road and rail transportation like high cost of transportation, safety and pollution risks, high energy consumption and low dependability, the official said. At present, LPG from Panipat Refinery is being transferred through a 7-km pipeline to IOC’s Kohand bottling plant. After meeting its requirement, the balance LPG is dispatched to other bottling plants in Nabha, Jalandhar and Jammu by road tankers. The official said IOC Board has already approved a detailed feasibility report (DFR) on further capacity expansion to 15 million tonnes per annum by March 2008. — PTI
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FM does not see rate hike in July monetary policy review
Brussels, June 12 “I think what the bank did in June should hold and I don’t see any major change being made in the next quarterly meet,” he told Bloomberg in an interview. The RBI raised the reverse repo rate by 0.25 per cent to 5.75 per cent on June 8 in line with hikes in Europe and Asia to curb inflation. This move triggered an interest rate hike, including home loan rates, by commercial banks. “It was necessary for the bank to be ahead of the curve,” he said, referring to the wave of interest rate increases by central banks around the world last week. He said the repo rate hike was a “small correction” that was necessary to stop inflation from rising. “I think it is a precautionary move, and I think it was necessary.” Justifying the hike, RBI Governor Y.. Reddy had said interest rates were hardening globally and India could not be “out of sync” with the monetary developments in the world. FDI in insurance
The Finance Minister said the government planned to bring a bill to amend the Insurance Act, which among other things, provided for increasing the FDI cap in the sector from 26 per cent to 49 per cent. The insurance sector of the country was opened to private players in 2000, ending the state monopoly of the LIC and the GIC, after much dilly-dallying in the 1990s that also saw the then UF Government dropping a bill for opening up just health insurance. This led to the setting up of several joint ventures between domestic and foreign companies in both life and general insurance sectors, including ICICI Prudential, Bajaj Allianz, and HDFC Standard. However, the FDI has been capped at 26 per cent. |
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Northern states lag in job creation
New Delhi, June 12 The Economic Census, 2005, released today said southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu was top in terms of states with the highest number of industrial units -4.45 million while Maharashtra was the largest employer with 118 million jobs. “We have collected data from the largest number of enterprises and contacted 21.1 crore households,” Minister of State for Statistics and Program Implementation G.K Vasan said releasing the census document. Interestingly, the census acknowledges the economic growth in private sector during the previous National Democratic Alliance regime. The census, the biggest-ever employment survey conducted in India, reveals that more than a 100 million enterprises were set up during the six years of NDA rule (1998-2004 ) thereby repudiating claims of NDA’s mismanagement made by the UPA government. Enterprises have grown at the rate of 4.8 per cent per year during 1998-2004 against 2.36 percent during the previous Economic Census. The annual growth of employment was also higher compared to the previous years registering at 2.5 percent per annum as against 1.7 per cent. Gujarat, supposed to be an economically advanced state, is conspicuously missing from the list of toppers in the census. As per the provisional results he said, there are 42.12 million enterprises engaged in different economic activities other than crop production and plantation. Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal together account for 50 percent of the total enterprises in the country. Interestingly, the terror-ravaged Jammu and Kashmir registered a growth of 6.82 per cent in total employment growth followed by Sikkim (5.52 per cent), Kerala (5.39 per cent), Haryana (5.12 percent) and Tripura (5.07 per cent). While Tamil Nadu topped with highest number of units, Mizoram clocked the highest growth in enterprises at 9.60 per cent followed by Kerala, Tripura, Tamil Nadu and Assam. Among the Union Territories, Delhi tops the list in both the number of enterprises, 753,000 (1.79 per cent) and in total employment, 408,000 (4.12 per cent), followed by Chandigarh and Pondicherry.
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Apollo Hospitals to pay 45 pc dividend
Mumbai, June 12 The total income increased 24.42 per cent to Rs 195.1 crore for the fourth quarter in 2005-06 from Rs 156.8 crore in the year-ago period, the company said. The Board has recommended a dividend of Rs 4.50 on equity shares of Rs 10 each (45 per cent). For 2005-06 the net profit stood at Rs 60.2 crore as compared to Rs 49.2 crore in 2004-05. The total income for 2005-06 was Rs 719 crore as against Rs 595.6 crore a year ago.
— PTI |
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TCS, Essar, Infosys get nod for SEZs
New Delhi, June 12 Besides, the government gave a final go ahead to five other companies for establishing SEZs for textiles, IT, leather and food processing, official sources said. Of the SEZs given final approval today, two are for setting apparel parks by Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation spread over 141 acres and 95 acres. The animation SEZ proposed by Kerala spread over an area of 23 acres also got the final nod.
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PTI
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Hyundai chief confesses
Seoul, June 12 “I admit to my guilt, to a certain extent,” Chung Mong-koo said in his second appearance at his embezzlement trial, when asked about his role in setting up slush funds within Hyundai that are alleged to have been used to offer cash for political favours. Chung is officially charged with breach of trust and embezzling almost $110 million in company funds, and with incurring losses at group companies by forcing them to support weaker affiliates.
— Reuters |
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Plan to upgrade
Amausi airport
Lucknow, June 12 The minister said his ministry had started work on a decentralisation plan that had chosen Lucknow as one of the top 10 airports out of 35 non-metro land fields for modernisation on a priority basis. Work at Amausi airport would commence in 2007 that would enable direct flights from many domestic and international destinations connecting directly to Lucknow in the next two years. Till now, Amausi is technically an international airport has via Delhi flights to Jeddah and Sharjah. According to the minister, another Rs 200 crore has been earmarked for the upgradation of Varanasi airport. Plans for the modernisation of Agra and Kanpur airports were also on the cards. |
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Scandent buys US-based co
Mumbai, June 12 Strides Arcolab
Strides Arcolab Ltd has said it would forge a 50:50 joint venture company with Turkey’s leading pharma company Abdi Ibrahim for introducing a range of specialty pharmaceutical products in the Turkish and neighbouring markets. The jv, Abdi Strides, would help in leveraging the product pipeline and manufacturing capabilities of Strides Arcolab and the sales and marketing leadership of Abdi Ibrahim. “Abdi Strides is another key milestone in our value partnership model. We are confident that this joint venture agreement will deliver outstanding results for stakeholders of both Abdi Ibrahim and Strides,” Strides Arcolab Vice-Chairman and Group CEO Arun Kumar said. Reliance Capital
Reliance Capital Ltd has declared a dividend of Rs 3.20 per equity share of Rs 10 each, following its impressive performance during the financial year 2005-2006. The dividend (32 per cent), which had earlier been approved by the Board of Directors, was given the nod by the shareholders at the AGM held on June 9, the company said. Asian Paints
Asian Paints Ltd has said its subsidiary Berger International Ltd (BIL) had decided to sell its entire 30 per cent stake in Philippines-based Dutch Boy Philippines
Inc. Berger International, the Singapore-based subsidiary of Asian Paints, has executed a conditional stock purchase agreement for selling 4.27 lakh shares of Dutch Boy Philippines, representing the 30 per cent stake held by it, the company said. Asian Paints had acquired a 50.1 per cent stake in Berger International, which owns the Berger brand in over 70 countries other than India, in September, 2002. Larsen & Toubro
Larsen & Toubro Ltd (L&T) has secured a Rs 481.6- crore turnkey order for setting up a water supply system for the Bisalpur water supply project from the Rajasthan Urban Infrastructure Development Project. The company said this project, aided by the Asian Development Bank, would be executed by the company’s ECC division. Deccan Aviation
Deccan Aviation, a domestic carrier, has made a flat debut on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) at Rs 148.05, as against its offer price of Rs 148. However, the stock failed to gain momentum and tumbled in line with a broad-based sell-off in the market to Rs 98, a drop of 34 per cent to its debut price, according to a release issued here.
— Agencies |
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