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

RBI hikes CRR by 50bps, repo by 25bps

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) today abandoned its monetary policy stance of equal emphasis on price stability and growth, and decided to remain solely focussed on inflation containment. As part of its further monetary tightening, the central bank raised the cash reserve ratio (CRR) for third time since December 2006 by 50 basis points to 6.50% with effect from April 28 and also raised the repo rate by 25 basis points to 7.75%, the rate at which it lends to banks against securities. “The stance of monetary policy has progressively shifted from an equal emphasis on price stability along with growth, to one of reinforcing price stability with immediate monetary measures, and to take recourse to all possible measures promptly in response to evolving circumstances,” RBI said. RBI MOVES AGAINST INFLATION Date Action March 30, 2007 CRR hiked by 50 bps to 6.5%; Repo rate hiked by 25 bps to 7.75% Feb 14, 2007 CRR hiked by 50 bps to 6% Jan 31, 2007 Repo rate hiked by 25 bps to 7.5% Jan 31, 2007 General provisioning on standard commercial real estate loans, personal loans & capital market loans doubled to 2% Dec 11, 2006 CRR hiked by 50 bps to 5.5% Oct 31, 2006 Repo rate raised by 25 bps to 7.25% July 25, 2006 Reverse repo and repo rates hikes 25 bps each to 6% and 7% respectively June 8, 2006 RBI raises reverse repo and repo rates by 25 bps to 5.75% and 6.75%, respectively The central bank’s monetary tightening measures came even as the banking system was reeling under severe liquidity strain, with call rates having in recent days shot up to ridiculously high rates of 70-80% and year-on-year inflation at around 6.5% for the third week in succession up to March 17, 2007. Since the February 13 measures, when CRR was raised by 50 basis points, RBI said data has shown that industrial production increased by 11% during April 2006-January 2007 as against 8% a year earlier and the year-on-year money supply (M3) growth up to March 16, 2007 was 22% as against 16.9% a year ago. At a disaggregated level, prices of primary articles, fuel group and manufactured products registered a year-on-year increase of 12%, 1% and 6.6% as on March 17, 2007 as against 3.7%, 8.9% and 1.7% a year ago. The year-on-year growth in non-food bank credit of scheduled commercial banks (SCBs) was 29.5% as on March 16, 2007 as against 32.7% a year ago. The third increase in CRR in five months will drain Rs 43,000 crore from the banking system. The RBI has also reduced the interest it will pay on CRR balances to 0.50% from 1%. The RBI release issued this evening:

In the recent period, monetary policy has been engaged in managing the transition to a higher growth path while ensuring that pressures on actual inflation and inflation expectations are contained. At this juncture, it is important to reinforce the measures already taken for maintaining price stability and anchoring inflation expectations in order to sustain the growth momentum. The role of monetary policy is to maintain stability and so contribute to growth on an enduring basis.

As indicated in the Third Quarter Review of the Annual Statement on Monetary Policy for the year 2006-07, "the outlook for inflation assumes criticality in terms of policy monitoring and action" (paragraph 76). Furthermore, "a judicious balancing of weights assigned to monetary policy objectives would accord priority to stability in order to support growth on a sustained basis" (paragraph 82). Accordingly, it is necessary to reinforce the emphasis on price stability and well-anchored inflation expectations, as set out in the stance of the Third Quarter Review, with a demonstrated commitment in terms of credible policy monitoring and actions. The conduct of monetary policy should continue to demonstrate that inflation beyond the tolerance threshold of the Reserve Bank is unacceptable and that the resolve to ensure price stability is always backed by timely and appropriate policy responses.

In recognition of the cumulative and lagged effects of monetary policy, the Reserve Bank began a graduated withdrawal of accommodation in mid-2004. Since September, 2004 repo/reverse repo rates have been increased by 150 basis points each, the CRR has been raised by 100 basis points, risk weights have been raised in the case of housing loans (from 50 per cent to 75 per cent), commercial real estate (from 100 per cent to 150 per cent) and consumer credit (from 100 per cent to 125 per cent) and general provisioning requirement for standard advances in specific sectors has been raised to 1.0 per cent of standard advances. On February 13, 2007 a further two-stage increase of 25 basis points each in the CRR was announced, effective from the fortnights beginning February 17 and March 3, 2007. Liquidity management was modified on March 2, 2007 to put in place an augmented programme of issuance under the market stabilisation scheme (MSS) with a mix of treasury bills and dated securities in a more flexible manner. In view of the enhanced MSS programme and the need to conduct LAF as a facility for equilibrating very short-term mismatches, daily reverse repo absorptions were limited to a maximum of Rs.3,000 crore, effective March 5, 2007. The stance of monetary policy has progressively shifted from an equal emphasis on price stability along with growth to one of reinforcing price stability with immediate monetary measures and to take recourse to all possible measures promptly in response to evolving circumstances

Since the monetary measures that were announced on February 13, 2007 there have been some notable developments, namely,

(a) The general index of industrial production increased by 11.0 per cent during April 2006 to January 2007 as against 8.0 per cent a year ago, as per the release of the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) of March 12, 2007.

(b) Year-on-year inflation based on the wholesale price index (WPI), has ruled around 6.5 per cent for the third week in succession up to March 17, 2007 as per the data released today. At a disaggregated level, prices of primary articles, fuel group and manufactured products registered a year-on-year increase of 12.0 per cent, 1.0 per cent and 6.6 per cent as on March 17, 2007 as against 3.7 per cent, 8.9 per cent and 1.7 per cent a year ago.

(c) inflation based on the consumer price index for industrial workers (CPI-IW), urban non-manual employees (CPI-UNME), agricultural labourers (CPI-AL) and rural labourers (CPI-RL) showed year-on-year increase to 7.6 per cent, 7.8 per cent, 9.8 per cent and 9.5 per cent in February 2007, respectively, from 5.0 per cent, 4.8 per cent and 5.0 per cent and 4.7 per cent, a year ago.

(d) The year-on-year growth in non-food bank credit of scheduled commercial banks (SCBs) was 29.5 per cent as on March 16, 2007 as against 32.7 per cent a year ago.

(e) The year-on-year growth in aggregate deposits of SCBs was 24.8 per cent as on March 16, 2007, over and above 18.0 per cent a year ago.

(f) The year-on-year money supply (M3) growth up to March 16, 2007 was 22.0 per cent as against 16.9 per cent a year ago.

(g) Continuation of accelerated external inflows has resulted in accretion of US $ 18.6 billion to the foreign exchange reserves, taking their level from US $ 179.1 billion at the end of January, 2007 to US $ 197.7 billion on March 23, 2007.

(h) Additional liquidity amounting to Rs.23,894 crore was absorbed under the market stabilisation scheme (MSS) during February 1 - March 30, 2007.

(i) Globally, the process of withdrawal of accommodation in monetary policy is being vigorously pursued. Since mid-February, 2007 among the leading central banks, the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan have raised key policy rates by 25 basis points each, while the People’s Bank of China raised one year lending rates by 27 basis points and the reserve requirements by 50 basis points. There has been no change in the policy rates of the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, the Bank of Canada, the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand all of which had undertaken prior policy action.

In the light of the current macroeconomic, monetary and anticipated liquidity conditions, and with a view to containing inflation expectations, it is critical to take demonstrable and determined action on an urgent basis. Accordingly, the following monetary measures are being taken consistent with the stance of the monetary policy:

i) It has been decided to increase the fixed repo rate under the LAF by 25 basis points from 7.50 per cent to 7.75 per cent with immediate effect.

ii) The other arrangements regarding the operations of LAF announced on March 2, 2007 will continue until further notice.

iii) The policy of withdrawal of semi-durable and durable elements of liquidity through treasury bills and dated securities under MSS will continue. Accordingly, the Reserve Bank would, subject to variations in liquidity conditions, announce auctions of MSS covering issuances of treasury bills and dated securities on a weekly basis. The auction for Treasury bills under MSS would continue to take place by notifying the amounts under MSS every week along with the regular auction calendar as has been the existing practice. The Reserve Bank would retain the flexibility of reviewing the schedule of auctions under the MSS from time to time, in response to evolving circumstances.

iv) The cash reserve ratio (CRR) of scheduled commercial banks (SCBs), regional rural banks (RRBs), scheduled co-operative banks and scheduled primary (urban) co-operative banks is being increased by one-half of one percentage point of their net demand and time liabilities (NDTL) in two stages, effective from the fortnights indicated below:

Effective Date (i.e., the fortnight beginning from) CRR on net demand and time liabilities (per cent)

April 14, 2007 6.25%

April 28, 2007 6.50%

As a result of the above increase in the CRR, an amount of Rs.15,500 crore of resources of banks would be absorbed.

v) The interest rate applicable on eligible CRR balances (i.e., the amount of reserves between the statutory minimum CRR and the CRR prescribed by the RBI) shall be reduced to 0.5 per cent per annum from the present 1.0 per cent per annum with effect from the fortnight beginning April 14, 2007.

Active monitoring of macroeconomic, overall monetary and liquidity conditions will continue and all monetary policy actions would be considered in response to the evolving situation.

India 4th largest market for Oracle in APAC

India is the fourth largest market for Oracle in the APAC (excluding Japan) region, according to its third-quarter results for the region, while China is the first followed by South Korea and Australia.

Oracle equates the market size in tandem with the nation's economy. So while Oracle has been in China for just about 17 years and in India for 19 years, China has been growing at approximately 9% per year. However, within two years, India has jumped to fourth position from fifth, while 5-6 years back it was in the 10th position.

Though the company denied giving any exact numbers, it registered 89% growth from its new license revenues in Asia Pacific & Japan whereas the database and middleware new license revenues went up 26% in Q3FY07.

In the past few years, Oracle has made 30 acquisitions in view with its focus on vertical markets. "Acquisitions in APAC region in the financial services, retail, telecom and utilities is not off-limits for Oracle," said Brian Mitchell, senior vice president, Asia Pacific while announcing Oracle’s third quarter results for APAC (Q3FY07).

On the Indian operations side, the company has 19,000 employees, a majority of which are in its development centre. This quarter also saw Oracle completing its first phase of expansion into 17 cities of India, which brought the total number to 23. Apart from the focus on education, healthcare, construction and real estate verticals the company increased its focus on small and medium enterprises (SME).

With 4,500 customers already in the SME segment, it increased its momentum by launching Oracle Accelerate Programme. To tap into the growing SME segment Oracle recently rolled out its CRM (customer relationship management) on-demand platform. According to Krishan Dhawan, managing director, Oracle India, though the software-as-a-services concept is yet to catch up with the Indian organisation CRM is one application that is easy to deploy and manage.

While speaking on its Q3FY07 performance Dhawan pointed out that the company has continued its momentum in acquiring customers and entered some new industry areas including cement, paints, construction, real estate, retail, education and healthcare. Some of the wins of the company are-- Godfrey Philips, LG Electronics, Gujarat Electricity Board, ICICI Prudential life Insurance Company, Shree Cement, and Tube Investments of India among the others.

Apart from this, Oracle is also planning to tap into the growing utilities segment and the media sector. "The Indian media sector has not been technology intensive and hence is a virgin territory for Oracle. Similarly with the SPL acquisition we are now in a better position to offer solution to the utilities segment," remarked Dhawan. Other than Malyalam Manorama and Amar Bazaar Patrika Oracle recently had a win in the media segment with Amar Ujala Publications.

With the Indian retail segment hotting up, Dhawan felt that the coming years will see an increase uptake of IT in this segment. Oracle plans to focus on the retail segment through its recently acquired company Retek. It has already set up a centre of excellence (COE) at Bangalore. The centre with 300 people will help retailers who want to increase their profitability through IT deployment.

Carriers` equity capital bar raised

The move is set to discourage new entrants.

In a move to keep small players at bay and discourage new entrants to an overcrowded market, the civil aviation ministry has raised the minimum equity capital requirement for carriers to start or continue operations.

A notification from the ministry has raised the minimum equity capital requirement for a five-fleet carrier that wants to fly Airbuses and Boeings (or aircraft above 40,000 kg weight) from Rs 30 crore to Rs 50 crore. There is also an equity requirement of Rs 20 crore for addition of every five aircraft to the fleet.

For carriers operating smaller aircraft like the Dornier (less than 40,000 kg), the government has doubled the minimum equity capital requirement from Rs 10 crore to Rs 20 crore (for a fleet of five aircraft). For addition of every five aircraft, these airlines will have to infuse equity capital of Rs 10 crore. Existing carriers have been given a year to abide by the new rules.

Carriers could earlier expand their fleet without any limit once they put in Rs 30 crore (Rs 10 crore for smaller aircaft) as equity capital.

At the same time, the ministry has put an overall limit of Rs 100 crore as total equity capital. Beyond this, the expansion of fleet by carriers will not be linked to a commensurate increase in its equity capital.

The move will affect over half a dozen carriers which have applied for fresh licences to operate scheduled airlines -- like Easy Air, Air One, Yamuna Airways, amongst others. Most of these carriers have proposals in which their equity capital is much lower than the stipulated Rs 50 crore.

Says Ajay Singh, director of Spicejet: “We have an equity capital of Rs 200 crore and feel that this move will bring in some sanity to this sector, which has many fly-by-night operators seeking entry.”

Adds Koutav M Dhar, president (commercial & special projects) of MDLR Airlines, a regional airline that will start operations from next week, “We are a serious player and we welcome the new requirements that will throw out non-serious players.”

Welcoming the new conditions, GoAir Managing Director Jeh Wadia says, “This will ensure the financial strength of the existing airlines in the market. It may affect new entrants.”

At the same time, The new regulations, however, also give some leeway it will allow a scheduled airline operator to start airline operations with one aircraft against three required currently. However, the requirement for augmenting the fleet size to five aircraft within one year of issuing the scheduled operator permit would continue.

The government has also withdrawn the concession available to scheduled airline operators to have only 10 per cent of the paid-up capital when the initial Non Objection Certificate (NOC) is issued - another step to get small operators keep away from the business.

Rupee sees biggest fall in 11 years

The rupee had its biggest single-day fall in 11 years against the dollar on Thursday, amid buying of dollars by importers following the greenback’s sharp falls over the last few days and also on suspected intervention by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

The rupee fell 1.7 per cent to Rs 43.76 a dollar at close. The decline was the biggest since March 1996.

Dealers said it made sense for importers, particularly oil companies, to buy dollars after the recent sharp fall versus the rupee. The rupee has gained about 7.5 per cent since July 2006. The Indian currency touched an 8-year high of 43.05 yesterday.

The rupee had strengthened against the dollar because of the liquidity squeeze. Banks were selling dollars to replenish rupee liquidity excessively drained after tax outflows around March 15.

A dealer said the RBI was buying dollars at around Rs 43.50 and this, combined with importer demand, led to the rupee dropping the sharpest in 11 years.

The buying of dollars by the RBI and to some extent government spending infused rupee liquidity into the banking system, causing the call rates to close at 10 per cent on Thursday. The call rate closed at 10 per cent on Thursday.

The average weighted call rate yesterday was over 25 per cent.

Flag Tele listing on LSE soon

ADAG is expecting to recover ten times the value paid for buying the company in 2002.

Flag Telecom, a 100 per cent subsidiary of Reliance Communication (RComm), has mandated Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank as lead managers for the maiden initial public offering (IPO) on the London Stock Exchange.

Top sources say the bankers have valued the company at $2 billion. The IPO will be completed in the next three months. The company will divest 10-15 per cent of its equity through the IPO.

Through the IPO, the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG), will be able to recover virtually ten times the value it paid for the company in 2002. It had paid $211 million to buy Flag.

Flag, which runs an international fibre bandwidth all across the globe, has announced an investment of Rs 7,000 crore to set up a new generation network which will provide high speed transmission. The cash from the IPO will be used to partly finance the ambitious project which is expected to be up and running by 2009. The new network will link to the Mediterranean to Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, Malta, Libya and Lebanon, Trans-Pacific to the US and Japan, Far East and Africa.

The 65,000 km cable network connects 40 countries across four continents and has over 200 international telcos and Internet service providers (ISPs) as its clients.

Flag has also recently completed Falcon, a $400 million fibre project which links West Asia to the rest of the world.

Flag Telecom is the second company of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group after Reliance Energy which is being listed on the London Stock Exchange. Over 25 Indian companies are already listed on LSE which include ACC, Amtek Auto, Crompton Greaves, GAIL just to name a few.

A Reliance Communications spokesperson, however, declined to comment on the issue.

49% FDI cap for credit bureaus likely

The government is likely to cap foreign direct investment (FDI) in credit information bureaus at 49 per cent, as it prepares guidelines for entry of foreign companies in this sector.The sector has become attractive due to the booming retail financial services market.

The government has been considering either 49 per cent or 74 per cent cap, but is more inclined to go ahead with a lower cap to begin with, banking sources said.Credit information bureaus collect borrower data from banks and financial institutions, both positive and negative, for use by financial institutions subscribing to it.

Experian, which claims to be the only global credit information solutions company, is seeking to launch its subsidiary in India, with several banks including ICICI Bank having subscribed to its analytics and other services.

India already has credit bureau called Credit Information Bureau India Ltd (CIBIL), in which 62.5 per cent is owned by Indian lenders including State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC) with 10 per cent stake each. The foreign shareholders in CIBIL include Citicorp Finance, Dun & Bradstreet and GE Strategic Investments.

CIBIL is a pure credit information bureau, whereas Experian is a provider of a range of services based on the core credit data. Experian earns only 10 per cent of its revenues globally from credit information with the balance coming from its various value-added services.

Retail credit has been growing at over 40 per cent since 2004-05 increasing its share in total advances to 25.5 per cent at the end of March 2006 from 22 per cent in March 2004. The phenomenal growth in the last three years has thrown up opportunities for companies that provide credit information and related services.

“We are waiting for the FDI rules to be framed so that we can apply for the launch of our joint venture,” said Richard Fiddis, Managing Director-Emerging Markets Development at Experian.

Experian has been waiting for the last two years to enter India as their customer in various markets wanting them to set up shop in India. “We will want more number of partners with lower shareholdings in the Indian joint venture. We will have about six to 10 banks and may be a telecom company as our partners,” Fiddis said.

Apart from borrower date from banks, Experian plans to use public sources like electoral rolls and court data for building its core database.

Corp bonds to trade on bourses from July 1

The much-awaited trading in corporate bonds will start on the National and the Bombay Stock Exchanges from July 1. This is expected to energise the moribund debt market.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) will ask the two stock exchanges to start trading in corporate bonds shortly, sources close to the developments said.

To begin with, trading would be through order matching as recommended by the R H Patil Committee. The committee had suggested various measures to activate the corporate bond market. The anonymous order matching would come into place only at a later stage, when the exchanges were ready, the sources added.

Banks and institutions will be allowed to trade through either the stock exchanges or via the OTC (over-the -counter). If they wanted to go through the stock exchanges, they could conduct the trading through the stock broking members, the sources added.

In order-matching system, the best buy order is matched with the best sell order. Experts said an efficient corporate debt market required a proper order-matching and guaranteed settlement systems.

Earlier this month, the capital market regulator extended the corporate bond reporting platform to the National Stock Exchange (NSE). From January 2, Sebi had asked the players to report the deals in the corporate bond market on the BSE’s reporting platform.

All transactions in corporate bonds of the value of Rs 1 lakh or above are required to be reported to the corporate bond platform. As the platform is purely for reporting purposes, the stock exchanges had no role or liability for settlement of these trades. The intermediaries and contracting parties were asked to settle the trades bilaterally.

The move to allow both the NSE and the BSE to start a trading platform is, however, at variance with the Patil Committee’s recommendation of a unified exchange for the corporate bond market.

The exchanges have also been asked by Sebi to provide details such as the issuer name, maturity date, current coupon, last price and amount traded, yield and weighted average yield.

The number of trades in the corporate bonds that took place today were 12 and the average traded value was Rs 100 crore. Presently, no trading takes place in the bonds’ segment of the BSE.

The Sebi move comes after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s call, during the inauguration of the Sebi headquarters last year, to activate the debt market.

The Prime Minister had said that the debt markets in India have failed to rise to the expectations. There was a need to make efforts to understand why the debt market has not taken off and to take appropriate policy measures to make it deeper, broader and more liquid, he had said.

A deeper and active debt market would help generate the necessary long-term funds required for the infrastructure sector.

Allianz takes new route for banking foray

The Allianz group, the German financial services major, is leaving no stone unturned to secure a banking license from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) through its subsidiary, Dresdner Bank.

The move follows the RBI’s rejection of the group’s proposal to let Dresdner Bank predominantly use the Allianz brand in India.

The RBI had declined to issue a banking licence to Dresdner Bank, which was seeking to operate under a joint brand called Allianz Group Dresdner Bank.

The group’s intention was to focus on the name Allianz and not Dresdner, and capitalise on the Allianz brand awareness in India because of its insurance ventures – Bajaj Allianz General Insurance and Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance Company.

The RBI had objected to such cobranding and asked Allianz to focus on the name Dresdner Bank. Allianz had earlier proposed to have Allianz group in bigger and bolder fonts and the latter part, Dresdner Bank, in smaller fonts. Allianz has now drafted an alternative proposal.

Sam Ghosh, country manager of Allianz and CEO of Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance, said, “RBI has asked us to come back with several (alternative) options. We are changing the wordings around and redesigning the logo and using different fonts. We will be suggesting to be allowed to use “part of Allianz group” in brackets along with the name Dresdner Bank. We will be forwarding various logos and RBI will then decide on which one to approve.”

Allianz is upbeat on starting retail banking business in India after signing its third joint venture with Bajaj group earlier this month, a distribution company to sell financial products such as mutual funds, credit cards and home loans.

Dresdner Bank, which the group acquired in 2001, was operating through the branch banking route in the country earlier. Dresdner Bank surrendered its branch licence after withdrawing from the Indian market and now has only a representative office. In its new avatar, it is planning to enter retail banking.

This is not the first time a foreign group is planning to enter the Indian banking space through its banking subsidiary. Prior to Allianz, GE Money, earlier known as GE Countrywide, did the same.

Indians on top at Leeds MBA programme

Leeds University Business School, one of the top B-schools in the world, enjoys a unique record - possibly unmatched by any other educational institutions abroad.

Its MBA programme for practising managers from across the world has the highest number of Indian students in one class.

“That's a huge achievement for Indian students considering that the admission is extraordinarily tough as the university draws response from students from as many as 40 countries,” says professor Andew Lock, Dean of the University.

There are 12 Indians in a class of 43, for which entrants must have three years work experience and have the "equivalent of a First Class First degree," he says. MBA STUDENTS AT LEEDS India 12 UK 11 China 1 East Asia 6 Africa 8 West Asia 3 Others 2

Lock was speaking to a visiting group of Indian mediapersons at the Leeds campus. The rewards are also fast in coming. The average annual salary for MBA passouts is $100,000 and over half of the students join the financial sector.

Leeds was also among the first universities abroad to set up a business center to conduct quality research on Indian business. Called the James E Lynch India & South Asia Business Centre, it recently launched `Watching India', a series of market research briefings on the country.

Focusing on the economy as a whole and key industries such as manufacturing, pharma, telecom, retail, IT, BPO/KPO, the series is aimed at helping UK firms keep informed with a fast changing environment in one of the world's fastest growing economies.

Apart from its ongoing collaborations with the IIMs and the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Leeds has forged alliances with NIFT Amity and the BITS in areas like biotechnology and engineering.

34 Indian firms in Forbes' list

Oil and Natural Gas Corporation leads the pack of 34 Indian companies, a chunk of them from the banking sector, which have found place on the elite Forbes' list of 2000 corporate giants across the world.

In the ranking based on sales, profits, assets and stock market value, there are five oil and gas companies, four software giants, three each dealing in materials and capital goods, two utilities, and one each food, consumer durable, and telecommunications majors.

At the top of the Indian list is ONGC that finds 239 spot in the overall rankings and is followed by Reliance Industries (258), State Bank of India (326) and Indian Oil (399).

Tata Consultancy finds 1047 spot in the overall list but tops Indian companies ranking of software and service outfits. Following it in the category are Infosys Technologies (1130), Wipro (1233) and Satyam Computer Services (1874).

Bharti Airtel is the only Indian telecommunications company to find spot among 2000 giants with a rank of 1149.

State Bank of India Group finds top spot among the Indian banks and is ranked at 326 in the overall list. It is followed by ICICI bank (536), HDFC-Housing Development (1197), Punjab National Bank (1308), Canara Bank (1360), HDFC Bank (1376), Bank of Baroda (1585), Bank of India (1691), Indl Dev Bank of India (1767), Union Bank of India (1772). UCO Bank (1931), Syndicate Bank (1943), Indian Overseas Bank (1946) and

Oriental Bank of Commerce (1974).

In the materials category, Steel Authority of India, Tata Steel and Hindustan Zinc find slots in the coveted list. ITC is the only Indian company to make the list in food, drink and tobacco category. NPTC, TATA Motors, Gail India, Bharat Heavy Electricals, Bharat Petroleum, Larsen and Toubro, Hindustan Petroleum and Bajaj Auto are among other Indian companies that find spot among 2000 top companies.

The first seven top spots go the American companies. Two firms from Netherland and one from Switzerland are among the first ten companies.

The top spot goes to Citigroup and following it are Bank of America, HSBC Holdings, General Electric, JP Morgan Chase, American Intl Group, ExxonMobil (all American), Royal Dutch Shell (Netherlands), UBS (Switzerland) and ING Group (Netherlands).

Forbes says this year's comprehensive list of global super stars values the world's largest public companies, including the hottest companies and best performers across 27 industries.

The 2007 rankings indicate that globalization is the essential element for business to prosper, the magazine says.

China brings 16 new companies to the Global 2000 and the United States has 34 fewer in the list. Among the giants, 116 are oil and gas which pulled down more revenue than any other industry but banks lead in profits.

A highlight of the analysis is that total revenues of the companies headquartered in Switzerland exceed that nation's gross domestic product.

The US companies included on this year's list have a combined market capitalization of 13.9 trillion dollars.

Argentina is represented on the Global 2000 for the first time ever.

Inflation continues at 6.46%

India's wholesale price index rose 6.46 per cent in the 12 months to March 17, matching the previous week's increase, data showed on Friday.

The figure was slightly below a forecast of 6.50 per cent in a Reuters poll of analysts.

The annual inflation rate was 3.69 per cent during the corresponding week of the previous year.

The wholesale price index is more closely watched than the consumer price index, which is published monthly, because it covers a higher number of products and is published weekly.

France warns India against 'tricks'

France warned India the proposal to replace additional customs duty on wines and spirits with countervailing excise duty at the state level will weaken New Delhi's position in the dispute with European Union at the World Trade Organisation.

"Any trick to replace the national duties with state levies that would not result in overall duty reduction would complicate matters (at WTO)," French Trade Minister Christine Lagarde said.

The EU has dragged India before the dispute settlement panel of the WTO, alleging that high import duty on wines and spirits violates multilateral agreements.

The Indian proposal to bring a legislation to cut additional customs duty and allow states to levy equivalent of excise has not pleased the members of EU. The country imposes a duty ranging from 250-550 per cent on wines and spirits.

Lagarde also took up this issue with Commerce Minister Kamal Nath.

She also wanted India to increase FDI limit in single brand retail from 51 per cent, contending that the move would encourage premium French brands to set up shop in India.

While leading French brands like Chanel and Louis Vuitton have set up retail operations in India, their overall presence still remains small.