Mumbai, September 13
Shares of the State Bank of India today zoomed over 6 per cent to hit a life-time high of Rs 3,175 on the BSE, taking the lender's market valuation to touch a record Rs 2 lakh crore-mark.

In line with the broader market, shares of the country's top lender opened on a strong note and never looked back.

In the intra-day trade, the SBI scrip zoomed 6.45 per cent to touch a high of Rs 3,175 -- its highest ever level on the BSE.

The market capitalisation of the SBI soared to a record-level of Rs 2,01,420-crore at its intra-day high level.

However, SBI finally ended at Rs 3,147.25 up 5.52 per cent, with a market valuation of Rs 1,99,849 crore at end of trade today.

State Bank of India's investors got a windfall of about Rs 10,500 crore in just one day of trade as its market capitalisation had been around Rs 1,89,354 crore at the end of trade on Thursday last week.

Besides, the SBI, its private sector rivals ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank and other banks also gained considerably.

Marketmen said the unabated inflows of overseas funds is helping the banks and other counters to hit a record high.

"It seems, banking stocks are the top picks by the FIIs. With the hopes of faster revival in the world economy, there are expectations that credit demand will grow as a faster pace than present," Network Stock Brokings Head of Institutional Sales & Strategy Prakash Diwan said.

SBI is the third most-valued firm in the country, after Reliance Industries and ONGC with market caps of Rs 3,24,625 crore and Rs 2,94,287 crore, respectively.

HDFC zoomed 5.32 per cent, ICICI Bank zoomed 4.43 per cent, while HDFC Bank settled up 1.86 per cent on the Bombay Stock Exchange. The BSE Bankex index was the top gainer among the various sectoral indices and settled with a gain of 3.62 per cent at 13,454.56 today. — PTI

Mumbai, September 13
ONGC today rallied over 2 per cent to hit an all-time high on the BSE, fuelled by the company's plans to make a joint bid with PetroVietnam for British Petroleum's (BP) Vietnam assets.

Shares of the oil and gas major settled at Rs 1,375.90, up 1.5 per cent on the Bombay Stock Exchange. During the day, the scrip had gained 2.39 per cent to touch a new high of Rs 1,388.

The scrip witnessed a similar move on the National Stock Exchange and zoomed 1.99 per cent to close at Rs 1,383.

The company is finalising the valuation for a potential takeover of troubled-energy giant British Petroleum's stake, in a Vietnamese gas project after which a bid will be made in conjunction with PetroVietnam.

Marketmen feel that the movement in the stock is powered by the oil major's expansion plans. Besides, the counter rose on heavy buying amid the buoyant investor sentiment and the firm broader market. The proposed deal involves buying out BP's 35 per cent stake in $1.3-billion Nam Con Son gas project in Vietnam, which has two offshore gas fields, a pipeline and a power project.

Most of the stocks in the oil and gas pack also ended the day in green. Among the other gainers were----Reliance Industries (3.58 per cent), GAIL India (1.96 per cent), IOC (2.06 per cent), HPCL (0.16 per cent)and BPCL (0.16 per cent). — PTI

Mumbai, September 13
Reliance Industries today zoomed nearly 4 per cent on the BSE making its investors wealthier by over Rs 11,000 crore after the company said it had completed acquisition of the US-based Marcellus Shale gas assets.

Shares of RIL settled at Rs 992.20, a gain of 3.58 per cent. During the day, the stock climbed to an intra-day high of Rs 994.80, up 3.84 per cent.

The company witnessed an upsurge of a whopping Rs 11,135.79 crore in its market valuation to Rs 3,24,555 crore today. RIL's m-cap stood at Rs 3,13,491.21 crore in the last trading session.

Yesterday, RIL had announced the completion of its deal to acquire a 60 per cent stake in the Marcellus Shale gas asset in the United States for $ 392 million.

"The stock was on an uproar boosted by the deal completion with Marcellus, also the overall market sentiment lifted the momentum of the stock. The counter saw a lot of value-buying today," Ashika Brokers Research Head Paras Bothra said.

On a similar note, the Mumbai-based firm closed at Rs 992.40, up 3.53 per cent on the National Stock Exchange.

In terms of volume, over 74 lakh shares of the country's most valued firm changed hands on the two bourses.

On August 5, Reliance had announced that it would buy its third shale gas asset in the United States. Its subsidiary, Reliance Marcellus II Llc, had signed a definitive transaction agreement to enter into a joint venture with US-based Carrizo Oil and Gas for development of the Marcellus Shale asset.

In a statement issued on Saturday, Carrizo said it has "closed its previously announced joint venture transaction in the Marcellus Shale with a subsidiary of Reliance Industries". — PTI 

New Delhi, September 13
The Tatas today said they would apologise before the Supreme Court for the "unfortunate error" in filing documents that were referred to have been placed on record in the Delhi High Court.

"Our lawyers are filing an application to tender an unconditional apology to the honourable court," the Tatas said in a statement within hours of their lawyer, after being questioned by the government counsel, offered to withdraw the documents.

Earlier in the day, the government had put a question mark on the documents filed by Tata Power, saying that contrary to the claims of the company the papers were dated much later than the dismissal of its petition in the Delhi High Court.

At the same time, the Tatas criticised the Centre, saying, "The government and R-Infra respondents instead of arguing the case sought to stand on an unfortunate error which had crept into the application filed by lawyers for putting record a few additional documents which inadvertently refereed to documents placed on record in high court".

Tata Power had earlier challenged a decision by an empowered group of ministers to allow Reliance Power, and not R-Infra as referred in the Tatas' statement, to use coal from the captive mines for Sasan project in Madhya Pradesh for other projects. — PTI 

New Delhi, September 13
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) move to take another look at the portability issue in the Direct-to-Home (DTH) television signal service has sharply divided the industry.

TRAI has already issued orders for number portability in the mobile phone sector from November and has been rooting for portability in the DTH sector also as a result of number of operators in this industry.

However, attempts by the regulator has original DTH service provider like Dish TV going in favour of the portability, newer ones such as Reliance Big TV are opposed to the move.

DTH portability will allow consumers to receive signals from more than one operator on the same set-top box.

Dish TV is of the view that portability should be implemented as it is mandated by law and the other operators are violating the existing interoperability norms.

DTH interoperability has been ignored by most players so far as they were busy capturing as much of the virgin market. Subscriber numbers in the DTH sector has shot up to 30 million from around five million in less than three years and the number of service providers has also increased.

Experts point out DTH interoperability is possible by inserting a module, known as conditional access module or CAM, into the set-top box of any operator.

Customers can subscribe to channels from two separate DTH operators at the same time, without the need for a separate set-top box by just inserting another operators CAM into their set top box.

For example, a Reliance customer can add the channels provided by a rival, such as Airtel Digital, by purchasing the latter’s CAM and inserting it into the Reliance box.

Incidentally, while looking to bring about the portability in the sector, currently only Dish TV has active plans to sell its CAMs to customers.

Reliance BigTV, in its response to the telecom regulator’s proposal on whether or not portability and interoperability between DTH operators should be strengthened, has said it is a highly insecure method, especially from the content piracy point of view.

Besides, it has also said the CAMs of newer operators will not work on the equipments of the older operators.

Newer operators such as BigTV, Airtel, Videocon and Sun Direct use the later version of encoding technology, while Dish TV and Tata Sky use the earlier versions. As a result, the four new players can only aspire to snatch customers away from each other, while the older players can target subscribers of any network for selling their CAMs.

Interestingly, TataSky, a joint venture between the Tata Group and Rupert Murdoch’s Sky Broadcasting of the UK , also supported BigTV’s position against mandating CAM-based interoperability.

It is of the view that operators using older equipments, including TataSky, will be forced to upgrade their equipments to support the CAMs of newer operators, which will cost billions of dollars.

It also pointed out that consumers have the option of simply installing a new dish and set-top box to receive the channels of a competitor.

Chandigarh, September 13
Using innovation, Maruti Suzuki has been able to abide by the stringent Offset Impact Regulations that are now required for retailing cars across Europe. By increasing the strength of steel used to make the chassis of A Star, which the company exports to Europe, it has not only reduced the weight of the car, but also the carbon emissions.

The use of this steel has helped reduce the weight of A Star by almost 110 kg, and brought down the carbon emissions from 150 milligrams per kilometre to 109 milligrams per kilometre. With this A Star becomes one of the most environment friendly in its category.

This move is expected to remove one of the last glitches that could hamper the growth potential of A Star in the European market. The success of this innovation in A Star has also prompted the company management to take a decision to now use this high-strength steel in its majority variants by 2012, when the Offset Impact Regulations come in force in India.

Talking to TNS on the sidelines of Steel Mart, organised by CII here yesterday, S K Gupta, DGM (Supply Chain), Maruti Suzuki, said the high-strength steel with less thickness than normal steel, will also lead to less fuel consumption. Gupta said so far the high strength steel was being imported from their vendors in Korea and Japan.

Chandigarh, September 13
A centre to showcase new innovations in clean technologies, made by scientists in Finland, will be set up in New Delhi next year. The innovation centre will showcase technologies in water purification, waste management and energy efficiency and will aim at boosting bilateral trade between both countries.

“It will bring in new technologies developed by Finnish companies, which will provide impetus to the trade between both Finland and India,” said Finland Counsellor (Economic and Commercial) Juha Pyykko on the sidelines of an interactive session organised by the PHD Chanber here today. He added that this centre would primarily exhibit clean technologies in energy, construction, waste management and water purification.

The Finland government will support these innovations as India is a great market for Finnish companies. This centre will be third such centre to be set up by the government of Finland after opening two - one in China and second at California.

He said India was the fourth biggest trading partner in Asia for Finland after China, Japan and South Korea. With balance of trade in its favour, Finland exports to India were 450 million Euros in 2009 while import from India was 200 million Euros in the same year.