India is confident it can moderate inflation and the aim is to do so without hurting growth, Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said on Monday.
"Government, in conjunction with Reserve Bank of India, has taken and will take fiscal, monetary and supply side measures to moderate inflation," Chidambaram told reporters.
"I recognise the burden of the people, but this burden will ease over the next weeks and months."
Read more at The Financial Express
Brand Bharti Airtel is on a reinvent mode. The northbound and highly diversified subscriber base and rapidly changing technology have prompted the Bharti Airtel management to look into its brand identity for the second time in its 15-year history.
With subscriber diversity growing by the day, the company is looking at increased segmentation of its consumers while delivering a common overarching message that binds all subscribers under one umbrella.
While on the one hand, the company is mulling value-based segmentation of its subscribers, on the other, it plans to segment its consumers both demographically and psychographically. Never mind the size of each segment, Bharti Airtel plans to have one universal message going across to all of them.
Read more at The Economic Times
Dutch asset manager Robeco Groep NV, a part of European banking giant Rabobank Groep, will buy 49 per cent stake in Canara Bank's asset management arm to gain a foothold in the country's robust mutual fund industry.
Robeco, which has assets under management of 139 billion euros worldwide and posted operating profits of 233 million euros in 2005, will pay Rs 115 crore to Canara Bank for its stake in Canbank Investment Management Services Ltd (CIMS).
"The total valuation of our asset management entity is Rs 230 crore and 49 per cent stake sale will bring about Rs 115 crore," Canara Bank Chairman and Managing Director M B N Rao told reporters after signing an MoU with Robeco.
Reat more at The Economic Times
Reserve Bank Governor Y V Reddy today said an imbalance in the growth of financial sector and real economic sectors such as agriculture and industries could lead to bubbles and possibly increase risk in the economy.
"Without the real sector development in terms of physical infrastructure and improvement in supply elasticities, the financial sector can even misallocate resources, potentially generate bubbles and possibly amplify the risks," Reddy said at a conference here.
While financial sector is the money-issuing part of the economy, the real sector, which comprises of agriculture, industries and non-financial services, is the money-holding segment that produces goods and services.
Read more at The Economic Times
Is ESOP (employee stock option plan) a 'fringe benefit' or a perquisite (salary)?
"Answer to this question should have held no terrors before the introduction of Finance Bill, 2007," says Mr V. Ranganathan, a Chennai-based chartered accountant. "Whether tomato is a fruit or a vegetable has been a vexed question, long eluding a botanic ally convincing reply, essentially due to forces of nature that made tomato what it is."
'Is the lawmaker in India invested with such supernatural qualities to cause such confounding that can have only one answer in any other part of the world?' he asks in return, and fumes: "It is a untoward act of distortion that ESOP has been characterise d as a 'fringe benefit'." Here's more that Mr Ranganathan has to say, in a quick interaction with Business Line.
Read more at The Hindu Business Line
The Government on Monday said it will sell its residual 10.27 per cent stake in car maker Maruti next fiscal.
"The Government has decided to do it in the next (financial) year,'' the Finance Minister, Mr P Chidambaram told reporters here. Sources attributed the decision to uncertain stock markets.
"The financial bids for the government's remaining shares in Maruti will be invited next year,'' the sources said. They, however, said the disinvestment process would be completed in the first half of 2007-08 itself.
Read more at The Hindu Business Line
Pharmaceutical firm, Cadila Healthcare on Monday said USFDA has given its nod it for the company's three products, taking the group's total number of approvals to 22.
The company would market all the three drugs -- Azathioprine Tablets, belonging to the immuno-suppressant segment, Divalproex Sodium Extended Release, an anti-convulsant and Venlafaxine Hydrochloride Tablets, an anti-depressant -- through its US subsidia ry Zydus Pharmaceuticals (USA) Inc.
The group received approvals to market Azathioprine Tablets of 50 mg, tentative approvals for Divalproex Sodium Extended Release Tablets of 250 and 500 mg and Venlafaxine Hydrochloride Tablets of 25, 37.5, 50, 75 and 100 mg, Cadila Healthcare informed BSE.
Read more at The Hindu Business Line
Reliance Industries Ltd will invest more than $9 billion in developing a gas field off the east coast of India and building pipelines to sell the fuel to consumers.
The company will spend $5.2 billion in bringing to production Dhirubhai-1 and Dhirubhai-3 fields in block KG-D6 in Krishna Godavari basin by June 2008. It will invest another $4 billion in laying a 1,386-km pipeline from this city in Andhra Pradesh to Bharuch in Gujarat to transport the fuel.
It will begin producing about 40 million standard cubic metres per day in June 2008 and raise it to peak output of 80 mmscmd in next five months, RIL CEO (Oil and Gas) P M S Prasad told reporters here.
| Reliance Industries, the country’s most valued firm, is understood to be in advanced stage of discussions with North American plastics and petrochemicals major Nova Chemicals as part of its bid to spread wings to foreign shores. |
| Reliance Industries (RIL) Group Chairman Mukesh Ambani, who leads India Inc on the world’s list of billionaires with a net worth of over $20 billion, is in the US with his top confidantes to discuss a potential joint venture with Nova Chemicals, sources close to the development said. |
| No official comments could be obtained from executives of RIL, which is also looking for a possible acquisition in the global retail space and is understood to be talking to Carrefour and the likes of Sainsbury and Marks and Spencer. |
| The lure of the much-feared participatory notes, through which hedge funds now invest in the Indian stock markets, may soon wane. |
| The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), the capital markets regulator, has for the first time directly invited hedge funds to register with it and participate in the Indian stock markets without the cover of participatory notes. |
| Participatory notes are often seen as tools for money laundering and there have been numerous calls, including from the Reserve Bank of India, to curtail them. |
| The move will result in Britannia, Wadia BSN being dismantled. |
| The Wadia family of Bombay Dyeing and France-based dairy product giant Groupe Danone, equal partners in biscuit maker Britannia Industries, may soon decide to go separate ways, albeit amicably. |
| The move will result in their two joint ventures in India, Britannia Industries and Wadia BSN, being dismantled and will help them pursue their ambitions separately in the growing Indian food and dairy sector. |
Benchmark Asset Management Company, a Mumbai-based mutual fund house, has listed India's first gold exchange traded fund (GEFT) - Gold BeES - on the National Stock Exchange in Mumbai today.
Listed at Rs 950 per gram BeES soon gained momentum with the price surging to Rs 1104 but due to profit booking slumped to Rs 947 within an hour of the launch. Allotment price, however, remained at Rs 945.7 per gram.
The trading unit for BeES has been fixed at one gram with a tick size of one paise. This instrument offers only trading in and holding of gold in DEMAT account and not the physical delivery of gold.
Read more at Business Standard
The Lok Sabha today passed the bill to cut Central Sales Tax (CST) by one percentage point annually starting from April 1 this year.
The CST rate will be reduced to 3% from 4% in 2007-08 and will be phased out by March 31, 2009.
The government aims to merge the goods and services levies into a single goods and services tax (GST) by 2010.
Read more at Business Standard
In a move to keep more of the raw material at home, the Indian steel industry today demanded that the government place a quantitative restriction on iron ore export at 90 million tonnes for the current year.
"Iron ore export needs to be limited because there is a shortage in the supply of iron ore to the domestic steel industry," Moosa Raza, president, Indian Steel Alliance, today said at a press conference organised by industry body Assocham.
The industry has also asked for a 15% reduction in the cap on iron ore export every year until the exports are brought down to zero per cent. India currently exports 90-100 million tonnes of iron ore, mostly to China.
Read more at Business Standard
Dutch banking giant ABN Amro, the target of intense takeover speculation, would give the winner enhanced presence in a range of financial sectors such as retail banking, mutual funds and brokerage services in India, the world's second fastest growing economy.
Even as UK's third largest bank Barclays Plc said in a statement it will make an announcement tomorrow on reports about its interest in ABN Amro, industry observers say that India could be one of the key reasons behind a possible bid.
Barclays CEO John Varley said at an analysts conference last month he was looking for "aggressive" growth and would consider acquisitions to enter the emerging markets.
Read more at Business Standard
The Sensex opened wtih a positive gap of 55 points at 12,485. Lacklustre movement in early trades saw the index slip a wee bit to 12,427, before bouncing back to higher levels.
Fresh buying in select stocks like BHEL, ONGC and Reliance Communications saw the index surge to a high of 12,655. The index finally settled with a gain of 215 points at 12,645.
Read more at Business Standard
Bharti Enterprises on Friday announced a new apex-level organisational structure effective from April 1, 2007, under which it will only play a supervisory role and be the strategic architect of all businesses of the group.
“Bharti Enterprises will now be responsible for evaluating new business opportunities, mergers and acquisitions and strategic alliances for the group,” its chairman and CEO Sunil Mittal told ET.
The group, best known for its cellular services under the Airtel brand, also has interests in diversified business areas including retail, communication and media devices, insurance and financial services, agri, BPO and software.
Read more at The Economic Times
South Korean media reports about the world’s largest steel maker Arcelor Mittal eyeing a hostile takeover bid for Posco, the third largest steel company in the world, have been denied by both companies. A top Arcelor Mittal executive told ET that there was no truth in these reports.
Posco, too, has has denied a Korean newspaper report that a senior Arcelor Mittal executive expressed interest in Posco’s M&A strategy when he visited South Korea last month. “The Arcelor Mittal executive and Posco CEO talked about the consolidation in the global steel industry at that time but the executive did not mention Poscos’s M&A strategy,” a Posco official told news agencies.
The Korea Economic Daily on Friday reported that Arcelor Mittal could be interested in making a hostile takeover of South Korean steel maker. Citing an unnamed Posco executive, the local paper reported that Arcelor Mittal’s interest in the Korean major’s M&A strategy means the firm has put Posco on its M&A target list. Roland Junck, a member of Arcelor Mittal’s management board, had met Posco chief executive Lee Ku-taek last month.
Read more at The Economic Times
Top Dutch financial conglomerate, Rabobank International, is betting big on the Indian telecom and media segments which it says are on the threshold of an explosive growth over the next two-three year period.
"We are very bullish on Indian telecom," Rabobank International's Global Head for Telecom, Media and Internet Group, Ed Smith, told PTI here.
Given the kind of growth anticipated in telecom over the next few years, "we could be scaling up our exposure to the sector in the next three years. In fact, our exposure could more than double during this period," Smith said.
Read more at The Economic Times
Global financial services major Merrill Lynch is planning to double its private banking business in the country, with an aim to provide financial services for the growing wealthy population.
Merrill Lynch, which provides wealth management advisory service to High Networth Individuals (HNI), is aggressively building the private client business in India with an aim to double the number of its financial advisers this year and is also planning to expand into tier-II cities.
"Merrill Lynch is aggressively building the private client business in India and will invest in people, technology and infrastructure to support expansion plans. We plan to double the number of financial advisers this year, which already doubled from the year before," Merrill Lynch head of India Global Private Client Rahul Malhotra said.
Read more at The Economic Times
