Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Royal Bank of Scotland eyes India licence

NEW DELHI: The 280-year old British banking giant Royal Bank of Scotland is learnt to be considering applying for a banking licence in India.

Sources in the industry say that the $71 billion financial powerhouse, which is among the top 10 financial services groups in the world, is keen to roll out its retail and corporate banking operations in India.

“The group is looking to apply for a banking license in India. India is on its radar for its banking operations,” said a source close to the development. Besides a 1,000-people IT development centre in India, the group, is yet to have a presence in India. The group currently provides retail banking, wealth management, consumer finance and insurance to its customers.

“I can confirm that we are recruiting to spearhead our strategy of organic growth in India. This recognises the growing importance of this region to our corporate, institutional and wealth management customers. RBS has not applied for a banking licence from the RBI at this time and we don’t speculate on the future,” a Royal Bank of Scotland spokesperson said.

Read more at Economic Times

Hershey leaves Amul with a bitter taste

NEW DELHI/MUMBAI: Chocolate maker Hershey has left a sour taste in Amul’s mouth. It seems that the US choco maker was wooing India’s premier milk co-operative for a possible distribution alliance even as it was seeking government permission to strike a joint venture with Godrej Beverages and Foods.

What has outraged a section in Amul is the fact that when its senior officials met the Hershey team as late as February 28 (the day ET reported details of Hershey’s application dated February 19 to the Foreign Investment Promotion Board seeking permission for the JV with Godrej) and asked if the report was true, Hershey officials rubbished it saying “don’t trust media reports”.

This prompted Amul to consider Hershey’s proposal for a possible distribution alliance so seriously that a team of senior executives had even planned a visit to Hershey’s manufacturing facility in the US sometime in May.

Read more at Economic Times

Honda hikes car prices by up to Rs 5,000

NEW DELHI: With the central sales-tax holiday enjoyed by Honda Siel Car India in Uttar Pradesh coming to an end, it has hiked the price across different models by up to Rs 5,000.

Post the price hike, the company's popular mid-sized sedan "City" will be costlier by Rs 2,000 while the other model "Civic" will be dearer by Rs 3,000.

The company's premium luxury car "Accord" will see the highest hike of Rs 5,000, a company official said.

The company had been given a 4 per cent central sales tax exemption since its inception at its plant in Greater Noida.

The company has absorbed most of the increase in the prices of vehicles, following the expiry of the tax holiday.

Read more at Economic Times

Arcelor-Mittal, Birlas in final leg of Sesa takeover

MUMBAI: The race for Mitsui Corp’s 51% stake in iron ore major Sesa Goa has reached the home run with Aditya Birla group and LN Mittal’s Arcelor-Mittal as the top contenders. According to people in know, the two companies lead the group of possible final bidders that also includes Vedanta Resources and Brazilian mining major CVRD. Sesa Goa is India’s largest private exporter of iron ore.

The bids by the two leading contenders are believed to be near Rs 2,000 per share. This is much below the range of Rs 2,500 per share that prevailed in second round of the bidding. “The Budget proposal to levy a duty of Rs 300 per tonne on iron ore exports has had an impact,” said sources. “In fact, Rio Tinto, which was earlier a front runner for the stake, backed out after the announcement,” they added.

Read more at Economic Times

Indian Hotels in $60m buyout overseas

MUMBAI: Indian Hotels, a Tata group company, has informed the BSE that it has approved the proposal to acquire, through its 100% subsidiary company, San Francisco based Hotel Campton Place for $60 million (including estimated transaction costs).
The hotel is intended to be acquired in partnership with financial investors, company officials said. While the sale-purchase agreement has been signed on April 2, 2007, the transaction closure is scheduled for April 30, 2007. The share price of Indian Hotels closed marginally lower by 0.7% on BSE on Tuesday.
West coast based Hotel Campton Place is a 14 storey, 110 room luxury boutique hotel situated in Union Square in San Francisco. Renamed Campton Place Hotel in 1983, the hotel occupies two historic and picturesque buildings dating back to the early 1900s.

Read more at Economic Times

Chandra does a Packer with India Cricket League

Sets up body with Rs 100 crore corpus to rival BCCI.
In a daring move reminiscent of Australian media giant Kerry Packer, the Subhash Chandra-promoted Essel Group today announced the launch of India Cricket League (ICL), a body parallel to the Board for Control of Cricket in India (BCCI), to promote cricketing talent in the country.
The Essel Group had lost out on the rights for all cricket matches, one-dayers as well as Tests, organised by BCCI in India up to 2011. Today’s move will help it develop cricketing content for its fledgling sports channel, Zee Sports.
The venture will initially have a corpus of Rs 100 crore and will have six teams, each comprising four international cricketers, two Indian cricketers and eight young talents. The number of teams will grow to 16 within three years. ICL will also set up nation-wide residential cricket academies that will nurture young talent.

Read more at Business Standard

M&M-Renault Logan @ Rs 4.28 lakh - Video

The much awaited product from the Rs 700 crore joint venture of utility vehicle maker Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M) and Europe's leading car brand Renault today launched the Logan sedan into the domestic market.

The car will be built at the company's Nasik facility which will have a annual production capacity of 50,000 cars a year. By July, the JV intends to bring the production under optimal utilisation, depending on the market response. The company, however, could even hike the figure.

Renault will initially import the engines for the Logan from Romania and Spain, but the company has already started its work to localise it here in India.

The car, targetted at the existing customers of the B segment and the first time buyers of the entry level C segment, is available in the price band of Rs 4.28 lakh to 6.51 lakh. It will be available in three variants; the 1.4 litre and the 1.6 litre petrol priced between Rs 4.28 lakh to Rs 5.69 lakh. The 1.5 litre diesel variant will be available between Rs 4.35 lakh to Rs 5.76 lakh. Rajesh Jejurikar, MD of the Logan project has however cautioned that the current price is just the launch price and the company may be forced to hike it if there is change in input prices.

Read more at Business Standard

Import duties on portland cement abolished

n the latest attempt to contain inflation, the government today made cement imports duty-free. It also indicated its willingness to remove the dual excise duty structure on cement announced in the recent budget.

The government has also abolished with immediate effect the countervailing duty of 16% on 65% of the import price and 4 % additional customs duty on the remaining 35% of portland cement, which is widely used in construction. The countervailing duty has been removed to make cement imports cheaper so as to contain domestic prices.

At the moment, cement imports are insignificant. The duty cut is expected to increase cheaper imports, thereby increasing supplies.

Meanwhile, the government has kept an open mind on rolling back the dual excise duty structure, said Hema Ambika Priya, spokesperson, Central Board of Excise and Customs.

Read more at Business Standard