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Oil slip: New low for black gold
Exporters seek settlement of derivative losses
Ratan Tata honoured
SEBI to review IPO grading concept
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Tata Tele network least congested: TRAI
Interest rate futures soon
Tata Motors fix rights issue pricing
Melting crude propels Sensex above 15K
Dual Technology Row
RBI cautions against fictitious offers for cheap funds
Maruti not to launch ultra small car
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Oil slip: New low for black gold
New Delhi, September 2
It is a news to cheer for India as high oil prices have being playing havoc in the past few months. The upward move that had started in late 2004 had gathered momentum in the past eight months as oil prices touched newer highs every day. It meant uncertainty for the exchequer. It also meant halting all economic programmes at a time when election is near and most importantly, sending the domestic oil companies and consumers in a spin, said an economist. Increased supplies from Saudi Arabia have already come in the market from July 2008 and the softening in the past two months is a result of the same, say oil traders. Saudi Arabia had announced a production hike of 7,00,000 barrels a day from July. An upturn in the dollar, plus fall in oil demand in the United States and China, the world's top two energy consumers, look set to exert further pressure on the market. The weak dollar contributed to oil's surge this year as investors turned to oil as a hedge. The US currency has shown signs of bottoming out and hit a 17-month peak against a basket of currencies on Tuesday. The partially convertible rupee closed at 44.38/44.39 per dollar, half a per cent down from Monday's close of 44.17/18. Heavy dollar buying by oil refiners pushed the rupee down. According to traders, the local unit could hit 45 per dollar in the next couple of days. While the US and European economies are facing a slowdown, high oil prices are also beginning to bring in demand destruction in those economies where rising prices are passed on to the consumers. Demand is also moderating in developing economies like China, India and Thailand because of lower subsidies and moderation in economic activities. For the Indian economy, there is a hope of recovery if the downward slide continues. Domestic companies were coming under stress because of high prices of industrial fuel oils and diesel used for power plants and engineering industry.
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Exporters seek settlement of derivative losses
New Delhi, September 2 "The minister is aware of the problem and has promised to forward the memorandum to the Reserve Bank of India to look into the grievances of the exporters," president of the Forex Derivative Consumers' Forum Raja M Shanmugam said after meeting Chidambaram. Many exporters, who tried to hedge their currency risk by executing forex derivatives contracts with banks, suffered huge losses on fluctuation in the value of rupee and now want that the issue to be settled with banks amicably. "Members of the forum are prepared to refund the profit earned, if any, from these exotic derivative products and the banks are requested not to claim the losses incurred", said the memorandum submitted to the minister. Chidambaram, who gave a patient hearing to exporters, reportedly told them as the matter involves private and foreign banks, government cannot interfere directly but will refer the matter to the central bank. Exporters claim that they were lured into entering derivatives contracts to hedge foreign currency losses by banks and were not informed that "these contracts are purely speculative and ...has the inherent potential to result in enormous loss." Exporters, the memorandum further said, are faced with hundreds of crores in losses which could result in shutting down of several units. — PTI |
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Ratan Tata honoured
London, September 2 S Anwar Hasan, managing director of Tata Limited, received the award on behalf of Tata from British high commissioner to India, Sir Richard Stagg, at a gala dinner organised to celebrate the first anniversary of the UK India Business Council here last night. — PTI |
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SEBI to review IPO grading concept
Kolkata, September 2 "Now, we have some experience. The primary market committee will take up the matter whether it is proper to continue," SEBI chairman C.B. Bhave said here today at an interactive session with Merchants Chamber of Commerce. Since April 2007, SEBI has made it mandatory for all IPOs to be graded by rating agencies. The grade varies between one and five where five is the best and one is poor in fundamentals. — PTI |
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Tata Tele network least congested: TRAI
New Delhi, September 2 “Tata Teleservices network has recorded the least congested point of interconnection (POI) of only five, compared to 56 POI of Airtel, 22 POI of Reliance and 19 POI of Vodafone,” TRAI report on congestion for the month of April, May and June 2008 stated. The operator said the earlier TRAI report on congestion for January, February and March, 2008, had also ranked TTSL the best, with the least congested Point of Interconnection (POI) of only 10 as compared to 83 POI of Airtel, 41 POI of Reliance and 43 POI of Vodafone. “Today mobile customers are very discerning and they look for quality of service rather than just cost advantage. From clear voice quality and minimal call drops our customers experience the advantages of being on Tata Indicom’s network,” Tata Teleservices chief technology officer A.G. Rao said. |
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Interest rate futures soon
Kolkata, September 2 "We think we can launch interest rate futures in lesser time than it took for introducing currency future," SEBI chairman C.B. Bhave said here today while interacting with the members of the Merchant Chamber of Commerce. He said the same RBI-SEBI technical committee that worked for currency future has began working on the new product. SEBI introduced currency futures in August-end after the technical committee began working since March. Taking a cue from Bhave's comment, Indian capital market can expect to get rupee interest rate futures by December-January. "Currency future was the first cross regulatory product and now we hope to launch new products quicker," he said. Cross regulatory products are those which involves two regulators. In this case, Reserve Bank of India and SEBI are the two regulators. Bhave, however, did not give any timeframe by when the technical committee will submit their report to SEBI board. Interest rate future is a standarised derivative product traded on an exchange to buy and sell and underlying asset (Rupee interest rate in this case) at a future date. Asked about allowing FIIs and introducing 'Options' in the currency futures, Bhave said there was a lot of demand but the regulator would like to gain experience before examining the possibility. Bhave said there was a need for quicker launch of cross-regulatory products to provide benefit to the small companies and investors to get a hedge against risks. Giving rationale for introducing derivative products like currency futures and interest rate futures, Bhave said now investors are getting impacted with the global events and there is need for tools to hedge the risks associated to global events. "Now knowing or unknowingly Indian investors are impacted with global events and in the next 10 years it will be more and if do not introduce products then people will take opportunity from other global markets," Bhave said. — PTI |
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Bata shoe mogul dead
Toronto, September 2 A spokesman for the Toronto-based global shoe giant said Bata died at the city's Sunnybrook Hospital, without giving any cause of death. Bata guided the 114-year-old company's global operations from the 1940s to the late 1980s. Currently, his son Thomas George Bata heads the company which has more than 5,000 retail stores in more than 50 countries. It claims to serve one million customers globally each day. The company says it employs over 40,000 people at its 40 production facilities in more than two dozen countries. Bata's cobbler father, Tomas Bata, started his shoe-making operations under the Bata name in the city of Zlin in then Czechoslovakia in 1894. A ninth-generation cobbler, Tomas successfully turned his small shoe company into a giant he named Bata Shoe Organization before he died in an air crash in 1932. Thomas Bata, who took over the company, had to abandon his business and flee to Canada in 1938 under the Nazi onslaught. When he returned to his native country after its liberation in 1945, the communists took over and seized the Bata Shoe Company as it symbolized capitalism for them. Thomas Bata returned to Canada to recommence his shoe operations, and make Bata a global name. When communism fell in Czechoslovakia and Vaclav Havel took over in 1989, he was invited back to his native country, but he refused. He visited his birthplace in 1991 and was given the top Czech award, the Tomas Garrigue Masaryk Order, by Vaclav. Bata is survived by his wife Sonja, a son and three daughters. Sonja has been instrumental in setting up the monumental Bata Shoe Museum here. It traces the 4,500-year-old history of shoe wearing. The Bata museum features some breathtaking items such as the diamond-studded slippers of Nizam of Hyderabad, worth $140,000, and pony-skin boots of Picasso. — IANS |
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Tata Motors fix rights issue pricing
Mumbai, September 2 Tata Motors would go for two but unlinked rights issue in the ratio of 1:6, that is one ordinary share for every six shares held in the firm. The rights issue is slated to open by the end of this month. The shares have a face value of Rs 10 each, it said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange. The company would issue ordinary shares at a price of Rs 340 per share aggregating Rs 2,186 crore. Further, it would allot 'A' ordinary shares at a price of Rs 305 per piece, amounting Rs 1,961 crore. "The proposed issue, subject to the necessary regulatory approvals/process, is slated to open around September end, 2008. The proceeds of the issue would be used to prepay part of the Short Term Bridge Loan availed by its subsidiary for financing the acquisition of Jaguar Land Rover from Ford which was completed on June 2, 2008," the filing said. The 'A' ordinary shares would have differential rights as to voting and dividend. An 'A' ordinary shareholder would be entitled to one vote for every ten 'A' ordinary shares held in the company. Further, they would be entitled to receive dividend at five percentage points more than the rate of dividend declared on the ordinary shares. — PTI |
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Melting crude propels Sensex above 15K
Mumbai, September 2 Among the major gainers today were realty and banking sectors that saw buying interest amidst hopes of rate cuts by the RBI in the wake of falling oil prices. Among sectoral indices, the realty and banking indices gained nearly 7 per cent on the BSE. The other major sectoral gainers were capital goods, oil & gas, and IT. Among the major gainers today were SBI, which closed 7.4 per cent higher at Rs 1,521. ICICI Bank was another gainer, up 7.3 per cent to close at Rs 713. |
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Dual Technology Row
New Delhi, September 2 As the case regarding the government allowing CDMA operators to also offer services in the GSM mode comes up before the telecom tribunal TDSAT on Thursday, the GSM operators feel that having lost out in the high court they now stand no chance in the tribunal hearing. The GSM operators body, Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), had filed a petition in TDSAT, questioning the events of October 18 and 19, 2007, in which they said that the Department of Telecom had shown undue haste in which an in-principle approval was given to Reliance Communications for offering GSM services under the same unified licence. They had filed a similar plea in the Delhi High Court, which rejected it last month. They had also questioned the process under which the government had cleared RCom's application which would be the only beneficiary of this decision as it is ready to launch its GSM services. RCom has already made a soft launch in Delhi of its GSM services by providing its employees with the connections and would be looking at a formal launch soon. Incidentally, on the same plea that RCom was ready to launch its services which would effect their business, the GSM operators in the last hearing in the tribunal had pleaded with the judicial commission members to start hearing at the earliest on their petition challenging government's decision to allow dual technology. The tribunal rejected the plea of an early hearing while directing the association to file a reply to Department of Telecom's (DoT) affidavit by August 22 and further directing the department to file a rejoinder by September 1. The GSM operators now are also expressing apprehension that the delay in hearing the case would allow RCom to launch its GSM operations after which it would be very difficult to reverse the process. Besides, they are also questioning the composition of the TDSAT Bench. One of its newly appointed members had earlier written to the telecom regulator supporting the decision to allow dual technology, they pointed out.
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RBI cautions against fictitious offers for cheap funds
Chandigarh, September 2 People are being lured by some fictitious offers for release of cheap funds. Foreign entities or their local representatives are making offers through letters/emails of huge money in foreign currency to gullible people, on the pretext of helping them in their business/ventures in India. Once the contact is established, the offer is followed by a request seeking details of bank account of the individual, so that an initial deposit can be remitted. With the bank account details being supplied to them, huge sums are being siphoned off from their accounts. Sources also informed TNS that people are also being lured to participate in lotteries abroad. The people here are told that they have won a lottery abroad and are asked to remit foreign currency towards commission/fees for receiving the prizes. Once they have deposited the commission, they never get the prize money. RBI officials say that they are now flooded with requests seeking approvals for affecting remittances as commissions. “Remittance in any form towards participation in lottery schemes is prohibited under Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA). But people are lured by these foreign companies and keep on urging us to allow them remittances,” said the RBI official. He added that these restrictions were also applicable to remittances for participation in money circulation schemes or remittances for securing prize money. RBI officials said that of late they have also learnt about some overseas companies misguiding individuals, companies and trusts regarding parking of foreign funds with RBI. “These organisations have been duping people by telling them that they have an account with the RBI for disbursal of loans in India, wherein they have parked huge amount of money. To substantiate their claims, they even send fake copies of certificate or deposit receipts, which they claim have been issued by RBI,” he said, adding that RBI does not maintain any account in the name of an individual or company which holds funds for disbursal. |
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Maruti not to launch ultra small car
New Delhi, September 2 Addressing company shareholders here today, Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) chairman R.C. Bhargava said SMC chairman Osamu Suzuki has told the board of MSI to strengthen R&D of small engines of up to 1,200 cc. "Engines below 1,200 cc get excise benefit from the Government of India and currently 60-70 per cent of R&D for these engines takes place in Japan. Now Osamu Suzuki wants 90 per cent of the R&D to be done in India," Bhargava said. Competition incidentally, is set to increase for MSIL with Tata Motors scheduled to soon launch the Nano, billed as the world's cheapest car with a price tag of about $2,500, and a clutch of others, including Honda eyeing the small car market. General Motors said last week it planned to launch a global small car, which would have design inputs from India, in the second half of 2009. However, in its annual report, Maruti said it would stay out of the ultra-low-cost car segment as it expected rising incomes and changing lifestyles to increase demand for well-designed and feature-rich compacts in India. He said MSI was working on vehicles which would use cheaper alternative fuels like CNG. |
SBBJ ups deposit rates HCL net dips 5 pc Allahabad Bank branch HDFC Standard Life foray PNB to organise kisan melas BMW plan NMDC to invest 12k cr Markets closed
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