Wal-Mart, Bharti to hold news conference

MUMBAI: Bharti Enterprises and Wal-Mart Stores Inc will hold a media conference in New Delhi at 3:30 pm on Monday, a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart said.

A senior official from Wal-Mart and the head of Bharti Retail Ltd, Rajan Mittal, will be present at the conference, she said.

NDTV Profit television said Bharti Enterprises chief Sunil Mittal said 8 joint stores had been finalised, with the first store formats to be cash-and-carry.

Earlier this year, Bharti and Wal-Mart agreed to form a joint venture for cash-and-carry stores and back-end operations in India.

KEC approves merger of RPG with self

MUMBAI: Power transmission equipment maker KEC International Ltd said on Monday its board had approved merger of group firms RPG Transmission Ltd and National Information Technologies Ltd, with itself.

KEC will issue four of its shares for every 9 shares held in RPG Transmission, and two shares for every 15 held in National Information Technologies, it said in a statement.

Everest Kanto plans $50 mln capex

MUMBAI: Everest Kanto Cylinder Ltd said on Monday it plans to spend about $50 million on expansion and modernisation.

The company would set up a unit to make compressed natural gas cylinders and expand its industrial and large cylinder facility, it said in a statement.

Credit woes hammer US stocks again; ADRs not spared

MUMBAI: US stocks ended sharply lower Friday, as credit worries resurfaced and jobless data dampened sentiment. According to government reports, Non-farm payrolls grew by a lower than expected 92,000 in July, the lowest level since February. The jobless rate was expected to remain at 4.5%. The unemployment rate rose to 4.6%, the highest since January, economists were expecting payroll growth of about 133,000, according to a survey conducted.

Credit fears were reignited as CEO of Bear Stearns said the bond market turmoil may be a worse predicament than the bursting of the Internet bubble in 2000. Shares of Bear Stearns plunged over 6%, dragging down other stocks in the financial and brokerage sectors aswell. Citigroup, the biggest US bank, lost 2.7%, Wells Fargo & Co, the second-largest US home lender, also declined.

Wachovia Corp, the fourth-largest US bank, dropped 4% after announcing one of its units was temporarily pulling the plug on home loans falling between prime and subprime quality, until market conditions improve. Worries about credit also hit credit card companies on the theory that consumers struggling with mortgage payments would also fall behind on credit card debt. American Express shares fell 5.6%, while MasterCard dropped 8%.

Read more in The Economic Times

Govt to fuel SBI's growth plans

NEW DELHI/MUMBAI: The government, which is now the dominant shareholder of the State Bank of India, is planning to provide capital to the bank. Capital infusion by the government to the country’s largest bank may well be called for considering the business needs of SBI over the next couple of years. The move will also give SBI more leeway in raising funds which is capped due to the law that prevents the owner (now the government) from diluting its stake below 55%.

Government officials said the Centre would provide assistance to the bank to ensure that its business growth is not hampered. Assuming that the government infuses Rs 10,000 crore and if this is leveraged to build a portfolio by an additional Rs 1,00,000 crore, the resulting dividends and the tax on increased profits will make up for the government’s capital costs. Even at a 1% return on assets, the government could recover a significant amount from the bank, sources said.

Read more in The Economic Times

Key indices make slight recovery

MUMBAI: Key indices were weak but off early low as selling pressure eased a bit. The market started the week sharply lower as weakness in stocks overseas weighed. Realty, capital goods stocks were worst hit.

“The undercurrent is weak. Sensex has support at 14700 and Nifty at 4280. If these levels are violated, the fall could be sharper,” said Suresh Kumar Iyer, technical analyst at Asit C Mehta Investment Interrmediates.

Iyer advises traders to go short and exit longs and warns longer-term investors to stay away from the market, as he expects further correction.

At 11:10 AM, National Stock Exchange's Nifty was down 92 points or 2.4% at 4309.25, recovering from a low of 4267.15.

Bombay Stock Exchange's Sensex was at 14836.69, lower by 301 points or 1.9%from the previous close, but off the low of 14705.58 made earlier.

Read more in The Economic Times

Intermediate correction to continue

The current chart projections suggest that the Nifty could drop till 4075-4100 points.

Another massive sell-off in mid-week meant that the broad market lost more ground but there was a partial recovery on Friday. The Sensex was down a nominal 0.65 per cent closing at 15,138 points while the Nifty lost about 0.98 per cent to close at 4,401 points.

The Defty lost 0.68 as the rupee gained again, after the RBI’s latest monetary policy was released. The Nifty Junior was down 0.61 per cent.

The market breadth remained negative while volumes dipped through the week. The broad BSE 500 was down 0.44 per cent. The Bank Nifty was however, a gainer to the tune of 2.3 per cent on the basis of a relatively benign RBI policy.

The CNX IT dropped a disproportionate 4 per cent. Institutional attitude showed a divergence with domestic funds being net buyers while FIIs sold. Read more in Business Standard

Down but not out

India Inc has slowed down in the June 2007 quarter. A sectoral analysis of Q1 FY08 results and what to expect.

After running at a breakneck speed for several quarters, India Inc’s financials have taken a breather. In the June 2007 quarter, our universe of 942 companies, excluding banks, financial services, oil and gas companies, and with a turnover of more than Rs 25 crore have shown the slowest growth in terms of almost all parameters like net sales, operating profit and net profit.

Net sales and operating profit (excluding other income) have grown at 19.5 per cent and 18.8 per cent year-on-year respectively-the slowest since last four quarters starting June 2006 quarter (Click here to see table: Stocks in Focus).

As a result, operating profit margins declined marginally by 11 basis points year on year, thanks to a small rise in total expenditure. However, a growth of 32 per cent in net profit has been maintained on a year-on-year basis, thanks to higher other income, declining interest cost and lower increase in depreciation costs.

Read more in Business Standard

Ambani brothers ride Mumbai`s makeover

Today, if you travel by road from the central suburb of Ghatkopar to the western suburb of Versova, it could take you an hour if you are not caught in a bad traffic jam. Come 2009 and you could cover the same distance by the Mumbai metro in 21 minutes and, since the metro will have air-conditioned coaches, you can hope to arrive in good shape. Besides, the maximum fare of Rs 10 will not pinch most pockets.

Similarly, if you are a businessman or a senior executive tired of coping with the city’s crumbling infrastructure, you could think of buying an apartment in the Navi Mumbai special economic zone (SEZ), which promises to offer living conditions on a par with the world’s most sophisticated cities. The city will come up next to the Navi Mumbai airport from where you could catch a flight to anywhere in the world.

And in case you are worrying about visiting Mumbai, a new 22.5 km, six-lane highway across the harbour will get you to central Mumbai in just 30 minutes.

Sounds too good? Well, that’s a glimpse of the future of Mumbai. And what’s common in these dream infrastructure projects is that the Ambani brothers, Mukesh and Anil, are either involved or pitching for them. Read more in Business Standard

Oracle not to delist i-flex for 5 more yrs

To consider open offer if price falls below Rs 2,100 a share.

Stung by the lukewarm response to its earlier open offer to buy i-flex shares, US-based Oracle has maintained it has no plans to come out with additional open offers for i-flex shareholders for at least the next five years. In a recent filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, however, it added a rider stating it may think of an open offer if the share price is below Rs 2,100 per share — its offer price of December 7, 2006.

Oracle holds 83 per cent of i-flex’s shares and has been consistently trying to acquire the rest in a bid to delist i-flex from the Indian bourses. It would require a little over 90 per cent of shares to do so. The move will help it to integrate i-flex with its business worldwide.

Under current norms, if the minority shareholders do not surrender shares willingly to the new promoter, the Securities and Exchange Board of India’s (Sebi’s) takeover code requires the new promoter to come out with a proposal to buy back the rest of the shares from the minority shareholders under a proposal to delist the company.

Read more in Business Standard

Novartis loses Glivec patent case

The Madras High Court today dismissed the Novartis petition against the Indian patent law.

The case related to Glivec's patent protection issue.

GMR Infra plans SEZ in Tamil Nadu

Bangalore-based GMR Infrastructure has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO) for the development of a multi-product special economic zone (SEZ) in Krishnagiri district.

According to a release issued by GMR to the BSE today, the SEZ would be developed through a special purpose vehicle (SPV) to be set up through a joint venture in partnership with TIDCO.

The multi-product SEZ will be spread around 3,300 acres, and the cost for developing the basic infrastructure is estimated around Rs 2,300 crore. The total development cost, including industrial and social infrastructure, would be around Rs 11,000 crore.

The SEZ would be operational by 2009, and the entire development would be completed by 2014, the release added.

Global cues drag Sensex down 360 pts

MUMBAI: The market opened sharply lower Monday following global weakness. Realty, capital goods stocks were worst hit.

At 10:10 am, National Stock Exchange's Nifty was down 105 points or 2.4% at 4295.70. The 50-share had slipped to a low of 4267.15.

Bombay Stock Exchange's Sensex was at 14,797.04, lower by 341 points or 2.25%. The benchmark index had sunk to a low of 14705 earlier.

HDFC Bank, down 3.67%, was the biggest Sensex loser as the market turned weak. Hindalco (down 3.6%), ACC (3.57%), ICICI Bank (3.33%), Reliance Energy (3.25%) and Reliance Communications (3.21%) were the other losers.

None of the stocks in the 30-share index made it to the list of gainers due to the severity of the fall.

Market breadth showed 836 declines and 91 advances on NSE, while BSE saw 1254 losers and 392 gainers.