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BSNL likely to float new tender soon
Figo to cost Rs 3.5 lakh
Ford India MD Michael Boneham and vice-president Joe Hinrichs (R) pose with new model of Figo car at its launch in New Delhi on Tuesday. — PTI |
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First international cargo airline soon
Sebi bans BoR promoters
S Tel services suspended
Inflation with new base year from May 14
Sensex mobile streamer launched
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BSNL likely to float new tender soon
New Delhi, March 9 The move is likely to come despite the state-run operator facing another controversy over maintaining unused lines to inflate its subscriber base. The allegations for inflating of the subscriber base have come from J.S. Deepak, the government nominee on its the board. He has reportedly informed the Department of Telecom that 28.73 per cent of the PSU's mobile network capacity was lying unutilised as the company was maintaining non-existing mobile subscribers to artificially inflate its user base. He has, in fact, added a new dimension to the expansion controversy by saying that the BSNL has required new capacity of only about 10 million lines and that the 93-million-line project will have been wasteful expenditure. According to him, cancelling the 93-million-line tender will have no impact on the PSU's roll out. The statement from Deepak, who is also a joint secretary with the ministry, is contrary to a view within the BSNL that it required buying new network equipment on grounds that the company was facing capacity crunch. Meanwhile, reports also said the BSNL may soon come out with another new tender to augment its capacity. The tender could be for the lines in the range of 40 to 50 million. In order to remain in touch with the other operators in the market, this time around the BSNL aims to complete the new procurement process within a 60-day period from the date of issuing the tender, and plans to do away with several controversial clauses that plagued its earlier tenders. Last week, the BSNL’s board has decided to scrap its tender for 93 million GSM lines after dilly dallying for over 20 months and invite fresh bids. The BSNL board took the decision after a committee led by Sam Pitroda, adviser to the Prime Minister on public information, infrastructure and innovation, had endorsed the Central Vigilance Commission’s (CVC) report to scrap the tender. The committee has HDFC chairman Deepak Parekh and telecom department secretary PJ Thomas as its other members. Delays have already dented BSNL’s financials, for the fiscal year to end-March, 2009. Its profit had come down to a measly Rs 575 crore on revenues of Rs 35,811.92 crore and even this profit was possible only because of the interest income it had from its cash reserves of about Rs 3,900 crore. Reports point out that BSNL’s profits had nosedived 81 per cent and revenues fell 6 per cent to a year ago. This is the second successive year that the BSNL witnessed a massive fall in profits despite being one of the largest players in the world’s fastest-growing telecom market. |
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Figo to cost Rs 3.5 lakh
New Delhi, March 9 The company has priced the car between Rs 3.5 lakh to Rs 4.48 lakh and would be looking to get a hold back into the Indian market through this launch after losing out on other car manufacturers over the past few years. Ford also said it would be exporting the car from India to various markets across the globe, with South Africa being the initial target. “We are preparing for export and South Africa will be the first market where Figo will go out of India. We will be adding more markets to Figo’s list later,” Ford India’s managing director Michael Boneham said. Ford India executive director (Marketing, Sales and Service) Nigel Wark said, “For years, we have been seen as offering only premium priced products in India that has kept us as a small player operating in only 20 per cent of the market. With Figo, customers will see a premium product offered to the mainstream market at an affordable price.” The car would be available with a 1.2 litre petrol and a 1.4 litre diesel engines. While the base model of the petrol variant will come at Rs 3.5 lakh, the diesel one is priced at Rs 4.48 lakh. The company claimed that the car would give a mileage of 15.6 kilometre and 20 kilometre in every litre in the petrol and diesel versions, respectively. The company is also looking at making India an export hub for the small car. The Figo would be produced at Ford India’s Chennai plant which has an annual capacity of two lakh units. “Other variants of the petrol engine are slated to be produced at the plant for eventual use in the global markets,” Ford India said. |
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Citigroup buys .97 pc of Daimler stake in Tata Motors
Mumbai, March 9 The German car and truck maker Daimler today ended its over half-a-decade-long association with the Tatas by selling its 5.34 per cent residual stake in Tata Motors for Rs 1,924.01 crore. The German auto firm offered a discount of five to seven per cent over yesterday’s closing price of Tata Motors shares. Citigroup Global Markets Mauritius has purchased 46.53 lakh shares of Tata Motors at Rs 752.41 per share from Daimler aggregating to Rs 350.13 crore, according to the bulk deal available with the Bombay Stock Exchange. The Tata Motors promoters, Tata Sons also purchased 40 lakh shares or 0.833 per cent stake from Dailmer at Rs 750 a piece, aggregating to Rs 300 crore, according to the BSE bulk deal data. As per the December quarter, the shareholding pattern available on the BSE Tata Sons held 27.13 per cent stake in Tata Motors. Earlier in the day, German auto major said the deal would have a positive effect on its pre-tax earnings at about 265 million euros. Explaining the reasons for the stake sell in Tata Motors, Daimler said it was in an “excellent position” to capitalise on the potential of Indian passenger and commercial vehicles market and continues to intensify its own activities there. Shares of Tata Motors today settled at Rs 770.90 on the BSE, down 3.24 per cent from previous close. Daimler exits
Tata Motors
NEW DELHI: Daimler today said it had exited Tata Motors by selling its residual stake of 5.34 per cent in the Indian firm for about 300 million euros (over Rs 1,855 crore). The shares were sold to various groups of investors, including Tata Sons and Citigroup through the capital market. “Tata Motors’ share price has risen significantly especially last year, so Daimler will receive a substantial cash inflow of approximately 300 million euros from the sale of its shares,” Daimler said in a statement. However, according to the information available on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), Daimler sold 2.56 crore shares of Tata Motors at a price of Rs 751.67 a piece fetching Rs 1,924.01 crore.
— PTI |
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First international cargo airline soon
Chandigarh, March 9 The company, which is a subsidiary of Aryan Express Holding, has already started its non-scheduled operations. The company is now awaiting its two new aircrafts (Airbus 310) next month so that it can start its scheduled operations. Initially, the company intends to be a non-integrated carrier of goods providing airport-to-airport freight transportation services and has been granted bilateral rights of India with Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong, Thailand, UAE, Kenya, Italy, Belgium and UK to operate Scheduled Air Cargo services. Talking to TNS here today, Capt Mukut Pathak, director of the company said the company would be taking two other aircrafts (MB 11) by August this year, which would allow them to formulate a strategic international route plan with connectivity extending to 150 countries worldwide through a network of online, offline general service agents and special prorate agreements with other carriers. “We are already in talks with Quantas Airways (for access to Australia and New Zealand), Air Kenya (for access to African countries), Air Asia (for access to West Asia and North Africa) and Air Brussels (for access to trans Atlantic and European countries). With these tie-ups, we will be reaching out to 150 countries,” he said. Capt Pathak said in the first year, the company was looking at a topline of Rs 1,100 crore, which would scale up to Rs 2,500 crore by the third year of operations. “Since we are leasing all aircrafts, we have started with an investment of Rs 100 crore, of which Rs 25 crore is the seed money. The remaining capital has been raised through debts,” he said. The company has created three main hubs in Delhi, Sharjah and Bangkok to maximise cargo uplift and extend its global reach. The company will offer only Express service for cargo like “ACE Lightening” and “ACE Flash” which will provide time definite delivery service of less than 36 hours within its own network and less than 48 hours within its extended network. |
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Sebi bans BoR promoters
Mumbai, March 9 “Though the promoters of the BoR.... reported certain reduction in their stake in the BoR as mandated by the RBI in its guidelines dated February 28, 2005 on Ownership and Governance in Private Sector Banks..... it appeared that they had increased their stake in the bank simultaneously through surrogate acquisition,” Sebi said in its orders. The market regulator said the family continued to control 55 per cent of the voting stock in the bank via various proxies. Apart from individual members of the family like PK Tayal, Navin Kumar Tayal, Saurabh Kumar Tayal and other entities with contact addresses similar to those above Sebi has also been banned from accessing the stock markets. Listed entities of the Tayal group, including Jaybharat Textile & Real Estate Limited (JTREL), Eskay Knit India Limited, KSL & Industries Limited (KSLIL), Krishna Lifestyle Technologies Limited and Asahi Fibers Limited also come within the ambit of the Sebi order. Later in the day, head of the family Pravin Kumar Tayal who is also promoter of Bank of Rajasthan said they were still to study the Sebi order. He said the family only had a 28 per cent stake in the bank. Meanwhile in a statement, Bank of Rajasthan said the Tayals were not the promoters of the bank. “The bank does not consider the Tayals as promoters. They are just dominant share-holders of the bank,” CEO of
the bank G Padmanabhan said. Padmanabhan, senior State Bank of India official was appointed by the RBI amidst allegations that the promoters of the BoR had flouted corporate governance norms to favour the Lucknow-based Sahara group.
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S Tel services suspended
New Delhi, March 9 Sources in the Home Ministry said the company, which operated mobile phone services in Bihar, Orissa and Himachal Pradesh, had not installed a mechanism for interception of calls which was used to keep a check on anti-national elements. The company, which has a user base of eight lakh customers, was directed by the government to stop its services immediately last week due to national security concerns. However, a spokesman of the company issued a statement, claiming that it had the “lawful interception certificate” issued by the Department of Telecom. “We do have approved lawful interception certificates from DoT through letter dated December 11 and December 12 of last year which conveyed the clean approval to commence voice and sms service in HP, Orissa and Bihar,” it said.
— PTI
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Inflation with new base year from May 14
New Delhi, March 9 "As per the calendar, April data will be released on May 14 with the new base year," a senior official said. The new series will have about 680-685 items that include mobile phones, LCD TV among others, the official said, adding that close to 25 items would be knocked off from the new inflation series.
— PTI |
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Sensex mobile streamer launched
Mumbai, March 9 The software is easily downloadable on GPRS-activated SIM cards and Java-enabled handsets. "The BSE is making available the critical information to investors on their mobile phones free of cost. We look forward to adding more features and functionality improvements over the coming months," BSE CEO Madhu Kannan said.
— PTI |
NMDC at 25 pc discount ABB bags HVPN orders Marico clinics for S. Arabia NHPC in BSE-200 ICICI Bank sells property
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