Mumbai, April 26
EID Parry today made an open offer to acquire 20 per cent stake in GMR Industries at Rs 110.69 per share. EID Parry has agreed to acquire 39.92 lakh shares, representing 20 per cent holding in the company, at Rs 110.69 per share, aggregating to Rs 44.19 crore, GMR Industries said.

Yesterday, EID Parry had entered into a definite agreement with GMR Holdings Pvt Ltd to acquire a minimum 65 per cent equity in GMR Industries.

As per the December quarter shareholding pattern available on the BSE, GMR Holdings held 1.49 crore shares or 74.84 per cent shareholding in GMR Industries.

Post the open offer, the GMR Group would become a minority shareholder in the company.

EID Parry, which is part of Chennai-based Murugappa Group, is a dominant player in the sugar industry and also has interests in bio-pesticides and nutraceuticals.

GMR Industries owns and operates three fully integrated sugar complexes in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

The deal will mark EID Parry's entry into Andhra Pradesh and also consolidate its position as a leading sugar manufacturer in cane rich areas of north Karnataka.

EID Parry chairman A Vellayan said the acquisition would strengthen its position as one of the leading sugar companies in India and increases the number of integrated complexes. — PTI 

New Delhi, April 26
Riding high on its highest sales and exports, Maruti Suzuki India today said its fourth quarter net profit more than doubled and its net profits jumped more than 40 per cent for the financial year 2009-10.

However, it missed the forecast due to tough competition in the booming market and as rising raw material costs cut hit margins.

The company, which announced its financial results for 2009-10, here said its net profit of Rs 656 crore for its fiscal fourth quarter ended March was up 170 per cent from Rs 243 crore during the same period a year earlier.

The total income during the fourth quarter of the last fiscal increased by 30.06 per cent to 8,503.52 crore from Rs 6,538.34 crore in the same period previous fiscal, it added.

For the entire 2009-10 financial year, Maruti's consolidated net profit soared by over two-fold at Rs 2,624.64 crore, as against Rs 1,227.45 crore in FY'09.

The company's board also recommended a final dividend of Rs 6 per share (nominal value of Rs 5 per share) for 2009-10 that aggregated to Rs 173.35 crore.

Experts pointed out that car sales in the country had been robust with a revival in the economy bumping up demand, while availability of credit had brought back customer confidence.

Mumbai, April 26
The economy is expected to grow by a healthy 8.1 per cent in the current fiscal driven by anticipated 4 per cent expansion in the farm sector and good showing by the industry and services, the leading economic think-tank NCAER said here today.

"We project an 8.1 per cent GDP growth this fiscal. The one big change is in agriculture production which is likely to see a positive growth of around 4 per cent this year," National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) senior research counsellor Shashanka Bhide said.

For the past fiscal, the agency had projected a negative growth of 1.5 per cent for the agriculture sector, Bhide said, adding that "For this year, we are projecting an agriculture growth at around 4 per cent. And that will be a big contribution to the change in the overall growth numbers." The think-tank pegged inflation at around 6.6 per cent during the fiscal which may start receding from the second half of the fiscal. Bhide said he expected the average rate of inflation to be in the range of 6.6 per cent for the full year.

"We project an average rate of inflation for the year at 6.6 per cent for WPI. We are of the view that the inflation rate will decline in the second half of this fiscal, primarily because of the monsoon effect. Primary article prices will start coming down. I think growth will also be there because of more stable price scenario."

The industry and services sectors are also to contribute healthily to this fiscal, he said, adding that, "We expect both to grow 8.5-9 per cent," Bhide said. — PTI 

New Delhi, April 26
Mutual fund houses have come under scanner of Sebi for allegedly lavishing their agents and distributors with incentives like cash payouts and foreign junkets in return for higher sales.

Instances of distributors of various fund houses being showered with cash incentives as also trips to exotic locations in India and abroad have come to light, especially since the scrapping of entry-load charges from investors putting their money in mutual funds, a top SEBI official said.

Besides finding such practices as unethical, Sebi is also examining whether these incentives are being funded by investors' money in the name of fund expenses, the official noted.

Strong remedial actions were said to be being contemplated for such practices and the regulator might come out soon with appropriate guidelines in consultation with the industry body, Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI), to tackle these issues, an industry official said.

A senior official at a leading fund house, however, defended the incentives, saying such practices are prevalent across the various industries like pharmaceuticals and consumer goods where distributors were treated with much more expensive gifts and more frequent foreign trips.

The mutual fund distributors are said to have been in a disarray ever since the fund houses were barred by Sebi from charging any entry-load from investors. This is said to have driven the potential investors towards now-controversial ULIPs of the insurance industry where agents get hefty commissions for selling policies.

However, now when investors' responses are said to have turned lukewarm towards ULIPs, because of a soon-to-reach turf war between SEBI and IRDA over the issue of jurisdiction of such products, fund houses have started devising ways to lure back the investors.

With the aim of winning over the investors at a time when the industry was facing high rate of redemptions despite positive sentiments in the stock market, the fund houses were doling out lavish gifts to their distributors to encourage them bring in more business, a senior official at a leading fund house said.

As a result, a leading fund house recently took some of its high-yielding distributors to Kashmir, while one of its smaller rivals opted for backwaters of Kerala.

Not to be left behind, some other fund houses have either promised to take or have already taken to foreign junkets to places like Italy, Turkey, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Dubai their distributors who meet a certain target. — PTI

New Delhi, April 26
Facing problems due to lack of a system in place, adequate infrastructure and technology, the government has lowered its target for building highways to 12 to 13 km a day from 20 km in the current fiscal.

“We have lowered the achievable target for building highways from 20 km per day to 12 to 13 km. This (20 km per day of highway construction) is not possible. For that (20 km target per day) we have to develop a system which will require adequate infrastructure and technology,” Road and Transport Minister Kamal Nath said here today.

He was speaking at a function organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci).

The government last year had set a target of building 20 km of highways everyday as a part of its plans to improve infrastructure, crucial to the country’s economic growth. It has allowed 100 per cent foreign direct investment in the sector.

But so far, it has been able to build less than 10 km a day due to problems in acquiring land and awarding contracts.

Speaking to the reporters on the sidelines of the function, Nath said, the government will award contracts to build 15,000 km of highways by March 2011, of which 6,000 km is the backlog.

Mumbai, April 26
Sterlite Industries today reported a jump of over two-folds in its consolidated net profit (after tax attributable to consolidated group after exceptional items) of Rs 1,380.90 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2010.

The total income increased to Rs 7,776.40 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2010, from Rs 4,800 crore in the same period previous fiscal, Sterlite Industries said. For the year ended March 31, 2010, the company has posted a consolidated net profit of Rs 3,743.7 crore, up 5.75 per cent from Rs 3,539.9 crore in the same period previous year.

BRIEFLY

Tara Health Foods IPO at Rs 180-190
Mumbai: Punjab-based Tara Health Foods has fixed the price band of its IPO that opens on April 28 at Rs 180-190 per share. The issue closes on April 30, a press note issued here today said. The company, among India's leading organised players in cattle nutrition and healthy edible oil industry, is eyeing up to Rs 190 crore through its IPO.The company intends to utilise the proceeds from the issue to set up a new edible oil refining plant and expansion of its cattle feed plant at Malerkotla. — PTI

Educomp to set up schools
Mumbai: Educomp Solutions today said it had signed an agrement with Lavasa Corporation to set up independent trusts, which will build four educational institutes in Lavasa, Maharashtra. The joint venture will set up one international residential school in partnership with independent non-profit organisations, which will begin operations this year and develop two pre-primary schools and a residential day school in the next three years, Educomp said. — PTI

Punjab & Sind Bank IPO
New Delhi: Punjab & Sind Bank on Monday said it would come out with IPO during June-July this year. "We are expecting government approval (for IPO)... The IPO could hit the market in June-July," Punjab & Sind Bank chairman and managing director G S Vedi told reporters here. For the year, ended March 2010, the bank has posted a net profit of Rs 508.8 crore compared to Rs 431 crore, a year ago. — PTI

Dr Reddy’s drug in US
Mumbai: Dr Reddy’s Lab on Monday said it had begun the sale of Amlodipine Benazepril capsules, used for the treatment of hypertension, in the US. The company launched the capsules, which are a bio-equivalent generic version of Lotrel capsules, in the US market on April 23, Dr Reddys Laboratories said. — PTI

SAIL equity for Posco
NEW DELHI: SAIL’s board may in its upcoming meet approve granting up to 74 per cent equity to Posco in the proposed Rs 11,000-crore plant that will be built jointly in Jharkhand. A sub-committee of SAIL's board had last month cleared the JV proposal, for setting up the plant on a piece of land at Bokaro Steel Plant (BSP), and forwarded it for approval. — PTI

L&T wins Rs 212-cr order
Mumbai: Larsen & Toubro has said the company had bagged orders worth Rs 212 crore from the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company (MSEDCL). It is likely to be completed within 18 months. — PTI