The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

	Punj Lloyd exits Pipavav Offers share at Rs 54, lower than the market price New Delhi, March 29 Punj Lloyd today announced a deal to sell its 19.43 per cent holding in Pipavav Shipyard for Rs 656 crore to co-promoter SKIL Infrastructure at Rs 54 a share, a price significantly lower than about Rs 70 a share prevailing now. After the acquisition, Nikhil Gandhi-led SKIL will have to make an open offer for an additional 20 per cent stake in Pipavav, a move that could cost up to Rs 900 crore at current share price of the company. Shares of Pipavav Shipyard today closed at Rs 70.25 on NSE, up 10.11 per cent from the previous close. Justifying the deal to sell its entire 19.43 per cent stake at the price lower than market rate, for which an agreement was signed late last night, Punj Lloyd director Luv Chhabra said, "We have been talking for two months... You are seeing the current price.. that time the rates were different." Burdened with a liability of over Rs 4,700 crore as on March 31, 2009, the Atul Punj-led company will use the sale proceeds to repay a part of the loan. Chhabra said Punj may also exit from other companies if it gets good valuation on its investments. Coinciding with the announcement, Punj Lloyd shares lost about 4 per cent to close at Rs 178.05, a price which is significantly lower than about Rs 300 in October, 2009, its one-year high level. "It was required to have a single-minded approach to the opportunities available in the market for shipyard business. For that to happen, we decided that instead of having two promoters, there should be one promoter," Chhabra, who heads Corporate Affairs, said. The deal comes within six months of Pipavav entering the market with a Rs 510 crore public issue. Punj had acquired the equity in the company at Rs 350 crore two years ago and its investments at the time of exit exceeded by Rs 300 crore. He said Punj may exit other firms, where it had made equity participation, on good valuation. "Our core business is engineering and construction and that is where we should focus. The proceeds of the stake sale will partly be used for retiring debt, partly for capital investment requirements for the land systems factory (for manufacturing defence equipment) in Gwalior and we will also look at investing in road projects," he said without giving specifics. In a filing to the NSE, Punj Lloyd said it had entered into a share purchase agreement with SKIL Infra and SKIL Shipyard to exit its holding in Pipavav. Pursuant to the closing of the open offer, SKIL Infra will hold around 58 per cent stake in Pipavav Shipyard, up from 18.27 per cent at the end of December 31, 2009. — PTI SKIL’s open offer for Pipavav share SKIL Infra today offered to buy 20 per cent stake in Pipavav Shipyard from open market at Rs 61.50 a share, a day after it clinched a deal to buy out co-promoter Punj Lloyd's holding at Rs 54 a share.
	Package expires on March 31 Small pharma units face closure Ambika Sharma Solan, March 29 With little hope for the Central industrial package being extended, the pharmaceutical industry is slated to suffer the most, leading to the closure of many medium and small-scale enterprises operating on contract manufacturing. The expiry of the package on March 31 will not augur well for these units which are the backbone of this industry. A number of advertisements for sale of such units have already come up. The Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh industrial area, where almost 350 pharmaceutical units had set up their operations, has earned the sobriquet of pharmaceutical hub of Asia. Repeated changes in the original incentive package have caused the maximum damage to this sector. The excise duty had been scaled down from the 16 per cent to 4 per cent in the last two years and all efforts of the industry to enhance it to at least 8 per cent had failed to yield any result in the Budget. With the benefits of income tax being reduced to 30 per cent after expiry of the first five years of the package period, bigger units like Cadila, Cipla, Dr Reddy’s, Nicholoas Piramel, Alchem, Alembic, etc., have already shifted a majority of their products to Sikkim where such incentives are available. Since most of these are now preparing their units for exports, it has reduced the quantum of job work. Earlier, these units got their products manufactured on a contract basis which reduced their input cost by almost 35 per cent and in turn granted work to the smaller units. According to an estimate, there were about 200 loan licensing units which had availed loans to the tune of Rs 5 crore and these are the major sufferers now. At least 30 to 40 of these are on the verge of closure and were ready for sale. RK Arora, chairman, Federation of Pharmaceutical Entrepreneurs, said the constant changes in the incentive had spelt doom for the small players, which found it difficult to cope with the decreased profits and changed revenue structures.
	Ranbaxy, US firm to develop biosimilars New Delhi, March 29 Ranbaxy today said it had entered into a pact with US Pfenex Inc for developing biosimilars — drugs made with the use of biotechnology. "Under the terms of the agreement, Pfenex is eligible to receive maintenance fees, milestone payments as well as royalty payments on any product sales derived from the agreement," Ranbaxy Laboratories said in a statement. Ranbaxy and Pfenex scientists will collaborate to develop production strains and commercial making of biosimilar product. They will also join hands in development of process that will be used to produce the products. The agreement is for biosimilar products to be developed on “Pfenex Expression TechnologyT” platform, a technology that uses recombinant protein expression of bacteria, pseudomonas. According to information, Pfenex currently has three biosimilar molecules at an advanced stage of process development and the company was looking for partners for commercially developing these molecules. — PTI
	Corporate News IOC reactor deal for L&T Mumbai, March 29 Larsen & Toubro today said it had bagged an order worth Rs 1,400 crore from the IndianOil Corporation (IOC) to develop reactor for fuel refinery at Orissa. The order is bagged by the hydrocarbon mid and downstream business group of the company's engineering and construction division, Larsen & Toubro said. Rs 971 cr order for Nagarjuna Nagarjuna Construction Company today said it had secured projects worth Rs 971 crore from various vendors. The company had bagged two orders worth Rs 492 crore from the Defence Ministry for the construction of dwelling units at Cooch Behar and Visakhapatnam, which would be completed over a period of 25 months, the company said. The firm had further secured a contract worth Rs 249 crore from Nagarjuna Oil Corporation for various civil and structural works at Caddalore, it said. The project is to be completed in 24 months. IVRCL Infra bags contract IVRCL Infrastructures & Projects today said its water division had bagged orders worth Rs 867.57 crore from various vendors. The company has bagged a contract worth Rs 322.91 crore from Water Resources Department, Birpur (Bihar) for various civil works. The company has bagged another project worth Rs 235.67 crore from Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board for water works that includes setting up of raw water pumping stations and treatment plants, it said. — PTI
	End of Financial Year Banks ready for taxpayers’ rush Ruchika M. Khanna Tribune News Service Chandigarh, March 29 As the financial year draws to a close, banks in the region are all geared up to deal with the rush in accounting of all government transactions for the current fiscal and meet the rush of taxpayers. Banks have extended their working hours for two days (March 30 and 31) as these expect transactions worth Rs 2,500 crore-Rs 2,700 crore to be effected in this region. Sources in the banking sector informed TNS that an average of 1.46 lakh financial instruments worth Rs 1,135 crore were cleared in the region (at Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Amritsar and Jammu) daily. However, the number of transactions would go up by almost 20-25 per cent during the last two days of the fiscal. On March 30 and 31 last year, transactions worth Rs 2,700 crore were effected in this region through 2.64 lakh instruments (cheques). The maximum number of transactions in the region are effected from Chandigarh, which is the seat of three governments - Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh. Since high government transactions take place at this time, the amount of transactions almost doubles in these two days as all treasury bills are cleared. On an average, transactions worth Rs 550 crore are effected in Chandigarh daily. Ludhiana, being the financial capital of the region because of its trade and industry, comes a close second with average daily transactions worth Rs 300 crore through an average of 47,000 cheques daily. Since most of the industrialists have to deposit their advance corporate tax, income tax and service tax, the amount of transactions is expected to go up by over two times. It is learnt that in Jalandhar, Amritsar and Jammu, too, the amount of transactions goes up by over 20 per cent on the last two days of the fiscal. While an average of 20,000 instruments worth Rs 120 crore are effected in Jalandhar daily, in Amritsar, an average of 18,000 cheques worth Rs 120 crore are cleared daily. In Jammu, just 10,000 instruments worth Rs 65-70 crore are cleared daily. Since a huge rush is expected over the next two days, especially with people depositing their advance income tax and central excise taxes, the RBI has asked the clearing houses in the region to hold special clearing sessions over the next two days, so that the clearing instruments are realized and credited to the government account before March 31.
	Merger with State Bank of Indore SBI settles share swap ratio Mumbai, March 29 The SBI has set in motion the process of merging associate bank State Bank of Indore with itself by agreeing to give 34 shares of the parent company to minority shareholders for every 100 shares of the subsidiary bank. For this purpose, the SBI will issue up to over 1.16 lakh shares of face value of Rs 10 each to minority shareholders of State Bank of Indore, SBI informed the Bombay Stock Exchange today. "The central board of the bank, at its meeting held on March 26, has approved the issuance of maximum 1,16,052 shares of face value of Rs 10 each to the minority shareholders of the State Bank of Indore as on record date at the agreed swap ratio (34 shares of the SBI for every 100 shares of the State Bank of Indore)," the SBI said. It further said the issued capital of the SBI would increase from Rs 634.96 crore up to the maximum Rs 635.08 crore, subject to the approval of the scheme of acquisition of the State Bank of Indore by the government. Last week, SBI chairman O P Bhatt had said the merger of its associate State Bank of Indore with itself could take place in the first quarter of the next fiscal. "The proposal for the merger of the State Bank of Indore with the SBI is on track. The bank is waiting for the government approval," Bhatt had said, adding that it may happen in the first quarter of the next fiscal and that the bank was looking into the procedural issue. — PTI
	FDI proposals worth Rs 2,300 cr get approval New Delhi, March 29 The government today approved 23 foreign direct investment (FDI) proposals worth over Rs 2,325.21 crore, including that of broadband services provider Tikona Digital Network and auto components maker Bharat Forge. The highest FDI of Rs 1,142.21 crore is likely to come into Tikona Digital Network from convertible debenture and share sale followed by Kalyani group company Bharat Forge's proposal to raise Rs 576 crore by issuing warrants to overseas investors and medical device maker Opto Circuits' Rs 376.27- crore proposal. Also, the government has deferred eight proposals, including Essar Capital Holding, Verizon Communications and Etisalat DB Telecom, besides rejecting six FDI proposals. However, Star India Holding has withdrawn its Rs 324.59- crore proposal, the statement said. — PTI
	Bharti-Zain deal today: Report Dubai/New Delhi, March 29 Bharti Airtel is expected to ink a $10.7 billion deal with Kuwait- based Zain tomorrow to acquire its African telecom operations, says a media report. Once the deal is complete, Bharti Airtel will become the seventh largest telecom player in the world. Kuwait's Al-Watan daily today reported that the deal signing ceremony would take place at the headquarters of Zain Africa, which is located in Amsterdam, on Tuesday. According to the report, Zain's chairman Asaad Al-Banwan, CEO Nabil bin Salama, Bharti's Sunil Mittal and other senior officials will be attending the ceremony. A Bharti Airtel spokesperson said the company "has nothing to comment beyond what we have already announced". — PTI