New Delhi, July 30
An apex PSU body has opposed the new norm that makes it mandatory for listed companies to have 25 per cent public float, saying that it would not be possible for state-owned companies to offload equity in large quantities.

"PSUs should be kept away from this regulatory norm of 25 per cent mandatory public holding," Standing Conference of Public Enterprises (Scope) Director General UD Choubey said. Scope is an apex body of central public sector firms.

The new norm, formulated by market regulator SEBI, would also hurt the government's disinvestment programme as there would be a flood of fresh equity by companies to meet the requirement, Choubey said.

"The new listing norm maintaining 25 per cent public holding may affect the government policy of encouraging listing of more and more public enterprises on the bourses," Choubey said.

He said that complying with the rule of the Securities Contract Regulation, over two dozen PSEs and public sector banks would have to bring follow on public offers in the market.

As per estimates of Scope, the value of five per cent of the market capital of public sector enterprises and banks would be over Rs 46,000 crore.

Besides, several private players will have to bring FPOs in the market which would create huge over supply of stocks and affect prices.

He pointed out that under this scenario where market is already flooded, the new PSE aspiring to get listed on bourse may not feel encouraged as their stock value would be affected under this situation.

The PSEs would not find the environment conducive for their initial public offers which would be a setback to the government's policy of listing more and more PSEs on bourses, he said.

According to the norm, for new listing, if the post issue capital of the company calculated at offer price is more than Rs 4,000 crore, the company may be allowed to go with 10 per cent public share holding and later divest 5 per cent per annum to meet the threshold.

Of the 56 listed PSUs and state-owned banks, the public holding in about 25 entities is less than 25 per cent. The major PSUs which need to raise public holding to meet the threshold include IndianOil, MMTC, NTPC and SAIL. — PTI

Mumbai, July 30
The Reserve Bank today imposed a penalty of Rs five lakh on private sector lender ICICI Bank for violating Know-Your Customer norms, and the same amount on Standard Chartered Bank for not providing information on time about its foreign currency loan facility.

"The RBI has imposed a penalty of Rs 5 lakh on ICICI Bank Ltd... for violation of the guidelines on Know Your Customer (KYC)/Anti Money Laundering (AML) standards," the central bank said in a statement.

On Standard Chartered Bank, the RBI said the lender did not furnish, within stipulated time, information to the central bank about a foreign currency loan facility it arranged for an offshore special purpose vehicle. — PTI

New Delhi, July 30
The government today approved a compensation package of Rs 4,868 crore to public sector banks for providing loans to farmers at lower interest rates.

An official statement said, “The Cabinet today gave its approval for the release of a sum of Rs 4,868 crore as interest subvention to public sector banks (PSBs), regional rural banks (RRBs) and cooperative banks and to Nabard for refinance to the RRBs and cooperative banks at concessional rates to reimburse the amount of interest subvention”.

National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) is an apex development bank set up to facilitate credit flow to agriculture, small-scale industries and cottage and village industries.

For the year 2010-11, the government has subsidised short-term crop loans to a maximum of Rs 3 lakh to farmers, with a lower seven per cent interest.

The subsidy scheme has been running since 2006-07.

This interest is further brought down to five per cent in cases when loan repayment happens within the schedule. In the previous fiscal, an interest subvention of one per cent was given to farmers who stuck to the payment schedule.

New York, July 30
Apple Computers has emerged as the world's most valuable brand in the 50 top valuable brand list of the Forbes magazine."This (Apple) is a company that has faced setbacks before and bounced back to become the world's most valuable brand - worth $57.4 billion," Forbes said, explaining the company's number 1 position in its Top 50 world's most valuable brands 2010 list.

"Apple shows just how a brand can survive and thrive even when a parent company stumbles. Apple's sales in the late 1990s plummeted 46 per cent over a four-year stretch while the company lost money seven times over eight quarters", said the magazine.

Interestingly, tech brands occupied four of the first five places in the rankings and claimed 30 per cent of the top 50 brands. Financial services and food and beverage firms each captured six spots.

Tech major Apple, which topped the list, was followed by software major Microsoft with a brand value of $56.6 billion.

Beverages firm, Coca Cola was third at $55.4 billion, followed by technology giant IBM, now worth $43 billion.

Search engine Google was fifth in the ranking with $39.7 billion.

McDonald's, General Electric, Marlboro, Intel and Finnish handset maker Nokia featured in the top 10 list.

"The brands on our list fared a little better, with sales on average flat in 2009. Some brands were hit hard by the economic downturn as well as their own missteps," the Forbes noted.

Toyota, Vodafone, Pepsi, Nescafe, Frito-Lay, ESPN and Gucci were the other brands in the top 50 list. — PTI 

Chandigarh, July 30
The National Agriculture Insurance Scheme (NAIS) has failed to find favour with the farmers in Haryana. Because of the high premium charged and taking of a block as a unit to assess damage and provide claims, the farmers in the state are not enthused by the scheme.

These observations were made by various bankers at the State Level Bankers Committee meeting for Haryana held here today. The bankers lamented that though all loans disbursed by them for the crops (for which insurance is provided) are to be compulsorily covered under the NAIS, farmers were unhappy with the scheme.

“Not only are the farmers forced to pay a high premium of 6-7 per cent, but since the crop damage is assessed by taking a block as a unit, rather than a village, many farmers don’t get the insurance claim as crop yield is affected only in a particular village or a small group of villages, and not in the entire block,” said RK Makkar, a banker from Sirsa.

While on the one side farmers were not ready to get the insurance cover under the NAIS because of these anomalies, banks were forced to compulsorily provide cover to all the farmers who avail crop loan from them. Under the scheme, in case banks are not providing cover, they can be hauled up and would have to make good all losses. This year, Haryana has notified four crops - bajra, cotton, arhar and maize - for implementation of the NAIS. As a result, very few farmers who grow these crops can actually avail the benefits of this crop insurance.

Since the scheme is a cover against loss of crop yield, it does not cover major crops and only those crops where the yields can be affected by the vagaries of nature. “The crop for which insurance is allowed is based on yield estimates taken over a decade after 16 crop cuttings per crop per season. It is thus that the scheme takes a block of villages as a unit to assess crop yield damage. Though NAIS entails that a panchayat can be taken as a unit to assess yield output, the state government and state agriculture department have to have the machinery in place (manpower) to assess crop yield and then take village as a unit. It is then that the scheme will be truly effective for farmers,” conceded an official of Agriculture Insurance Company of India .

New Delhi, July 30
US-based mobile chip maker Qualcomm, which was one of the major bidders in the recent Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) spectrum auction, today sold 26 per cent stake in broadband unit in India to Tulip Telecom and Global Holdings for about Rs 268 crore ($57.72 million).

Qualcomm had acquired BWA spectrum in four circles in the auction held last month and as per the rules to get a telecom licence to operate in the country, it has to induct an Indian partner with at least 26 per cent equity.

The company has sold 26 per cent stake - divided equally between telecom networking firm Tulip Telecom and Global Holdings, owners of telecom infrastructure firms GTL Ltd and GTL Infra, Qualcomm said.

Qualcomm’s India and South-Asia president Kanwalinder Singh said, "The enterprise value is $1.11 billion, the equity portion is $222 million and $888 million debt. Tulip and Global Holdings have (jointly) taken 26 per cent stake for $28.86 million each".

Qualcomm had recently formed its India unit after its $1-billion purchase of BWA spectrum. The company is looking at offering high-speed Internet services to boost sales of smart phones and the chips that power them.

Beijing, July 30
The Indo-Chinese trade is on course to touch the record $60-billion target set for this year as bilateral trade volumes crossed $30.37 billion in the first half of this year with Indian exports registering a healthy 81 per cent growth so far.

According to the January-June trade data released by the Chinese customs yesterday, bilateral trade volume touched $30.37 billion, posting a 54 per cent jump in H1 compared over the same period last year.

Last year, trade declined to about $44 billion due to the global economic downturn. In 2008, the bilateral trade touched a record $52 billion, prompting both sides to set an ambitious $60 billion target for 2010.

Indian exports to China touched $11.9 billion, a rise of 81 per cent. Commodities continue to be the main stay of Indian exports with iron ore topping the list with $7.7 billion as an energy-hungry China stepped up ore imports.

Indian ore exports meet about 17 per cent of Chinese needs.

India's cotton, yarn and fabric exports to the worlds' fastest growing large economy together touched $1.1 billion.

Exports of copper, copper articles, organic chemicals and precious stones netted $350 million each.

As expected, China had the lion’s share with $18.4 billion exports to India, posting a 42 per cent increase compared to last year. Machinery and electrical machinery topped the list for China with $4.5 billion and $4.3 billion respectively, backed by $1.9 billion of organic chemicals, and $1.4 billion of iron and steel products.

Surprisingly Chinese telecom equipment, too, has done well in the first half despite the reported ban on it in New Delhi as Chinese telecom companies exported machinery worth about $1.65 billion to India compared to $1.9 billion in the same period last year. — PTI

New Delhi, July 30
In an unprecedented move to defend market share, the country's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India will launch five cars in CNG version in a single day in the second week of next month.

The company, whose market share has come down below 50 per cent in the quarter ended June for the first time in its history, will unleash factory-fitted CNG options of its best-selling Alto, compact cars Estilo and WagonR, multi-purpose vehicle Eeco and mid-sized sedan SX4.

"The CNG models will be very important in our portfolio. We are the first company to come out with factory-fitted CNG cars and we will have the first mover's advantage in the market," MSI chief general manager (marketing) Shashank Srivastava told reporters here.

In the April-June quarter, MSI's market share fell to 47.59 per cent from earlier over 55 per cent in the 15 lakh units per year domestic car segment. It had sold 2,06,377 units during the quarter in a total market of 4,33,641 units.

The company has decided to launch all the five versions on a single day in the second week of August because there is no particular segment for CNG cars unlike other models, which can be specified into different strata, Srivastava said.

Besides, MSI will launch a two new versions of its small car Alto on August 4 with a 1.0 litre K-series engine. — PTI

New Delhi, July 30
The Centre's fiscal deficit fell by 68 per cent to Rs 40,196 crore during the April-June period year-on-year, on increased revenue receipts from the auction of 3G spectrum.

The fiscal deficit, which represents excess government expenditure over its revenue, for the first quarter of the previous year was Rs 1,24,302 crore.

The major fall in fiscal deficit comes from a significant hike in revenue receipt of the Union Government, which saw a rise of 178 per cent to Rs 1,99,810 crore in the quarter.

The additional Rs 1,27,815 crore that the government collected this quarter, as compared to the year-ago period, comes mainly from non-tax revenue - at Rs 1,15,816 crore.

Towards the end of the quarter, the government had collected a sum of over Rs 1.06 lakh crore through the sale of spectrum for both 3G and Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) against the budget target of Rs 35,000 crore.

The first quarter fiscal deficit represents a mere 10.5 per cent of the budget estimate of Rs 3,81,408 crore for 2010-11, whereas the deficit in the year-ago period accounted for 31 per cent of the year's estimate of Rs 4,00,996 crore.

The larger-than-expected amount gained from spectrum auction also narrowed revenue deficit during the quarter ending June to Rs 10,577 crore, 3.8 per cent of the fiscal target of Rs 2,76,512 crore.

Last fiscal, the first quarter accounted for 38.1 per cent of the yearly estimate. — PTI

BRIEFLY

BPCL posts Rs 1,718 cr loss
New Delhi: Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) on Friday reported a net loss of Rs 1,718 crore for the first quarter ended June 30. The company had a net profit of Rs 614 crore in the same quarter previous year. Total income rose to Rs 34,553.4 crore in the April-June quarter from Rs 26,195.6 crore in the same period last fiscal.— PTI

Vikram Bansal, who has been nominated as a director of Canara HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce Life Insurance Company

Axis Bank branch
Chandigarh: Axis Bank on Friday opened its second branch in Panchkula at Sector 20. It was inaugurated by the bank's vice-president and circle head, Shrikant Gupta. — TNS

NTPC unit
New Delhi: State-run NTPC on Friday commissioned a 490-MW unit at its Dadri thermal power plant for the upcoming Commonwealth Games. Power generated from the Dadri Stage-II would be supplied to Delhi (90 per cent) and Uttar Pradesh (10 per cent).— PTI

Reliance Mediaworks’ plan
Mumbai: Reliance Mediaworks on Friday said it has earmarked a capex of Rs 100 crore for the current fiscal to fuel its expansion plans. The Anil Ambani-led film and entertainment service arm plans to scale up its multiplex chain in India to 323 this fiscal and to set up sound stages, the official said.— PTI