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Corporation bank has NEW DELHI, Oct 27: The Mangalore- based corporation bank has no plans for coming out with an Initial Public Offering(IPO) ......more BHEL commissions 159 Mw power project in Iraq NEW DELHI, Oct 27: Engineering major Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) has synchronised a 159 megawatt....more Bank
of Baroda plans LONDON, Oct 27: After earning a net profit of Rs 1000 crore in the year 2002-2003, Bank of Baroda now plans to focus on .....more Pakistan oil company IPO set for November 10-14 ISLAMABAD, Oct 27: Pakistan said on Monday up to five percent of its biggest state oil....more |
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Leayan launches new Excelsior Correspondent New Delhi, Oct 27: Leayan Overseas Private Ltd has introduced its Red Chief Range, .......more Mobile Cos to lose more than Rs 18,000 cr, seek compensation NEW DELHI, Oct 27: With the crucial meeting of Group of Ministers (GoM) on telecom ......more Matsushita to introduce merit based pay system in China TOKYO, Oct 27: Japan’s Matsushita Electric Industrial Co said today that the company....more TRAI
recommends NEW DELHI, Oct 27: Telecom Regulator TRAI today recommended a single ...more |
Corporation bank has no plans for capital infusion,inorganisic growth NEW DELHI, Oct 27: The Mangalore- based corporation bank has no plans for coming out with an Initial Public Offering(IPO) nor acquiring a bank in the near future in view of its comfortable 21 per cent Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) as against the stipulated 9 per cent. We have no plans for fresh infusion of capital. Our CRR is as high as 21 per cent, the highest in the banking industry, corporation bank CMD K Cherian Vargheese told UNI. Mr Varghese said the bank was doing well on various parametres, including recovery of NPAs and growth in business, and certain schemes like the sale of high quality gold by the bank and insurance linked housing loan schemes. The bank’s total business was of the order of Rs 33,000 crore till September. The advances were of the order of Rs 10, 500 crores and deposits touched the Rs 22,000 mark. The public sector bank has branches spread throughout the country. Mr Varghese said the bank has stepped up NPA recovery and NPAs were 1.59 per cent of the total advances in June 2003. He said the corporation bank was taking advantage of the Securitisation Act to dispose of assets of defaulting borrowers. Mr Varghese said notices have been issued to 300 defaulters. Fortunately, even before we take over assets, people are coming forward to settle. He said with economic revival underway, thanks to the good monsoon, the credit offtake was picking up both as regards food and non-food sector. The bank is getting proposals for capacity expansion from companies. Agriculture credit is likely to be stepped up in view of the good rabi crop expected. Priority sector lending, including agriculture, is 42 per cent of total advances. The Government’s stipulation is for 40 per cent of the advances. The CMD said the housing loan segment of the bank was growing very fast and recently touched the Rs 1,800 crore figure. He said his bank will not enter into a interest rate war just because Abn Amro has introduced a six per cent interest rate for the first year and 6.5 per cent for the second year to be followed by floating rate thereafter. Mr Varghese said the corporation bank has a loyal Clientele, a wide netweork and the interest rates offered were competitive. On a five year loan in this segment the interest rate charged was 7.5 per cent, for ten years the interest rate applicable was 8.5 per cent and for 25 year loan the interest charged was nine per cent. A reason why the housing loan protolfio of the bank is so popular is that it has packed the power of insurance into its housing loan schemes. Our customers do not just get the security of home, but also the security of life, he said. Corporation bank in association with the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) offers a unique group Life Insurance Scheme-‘Jeevan Griha Raksha.’ the scheme offers decreasing life cover. In the event of a death of a borrower, the claim amount is equal to the loan outstanding. Mr Varghese said the Corp Mahila Gold’ scheme of the bank was growing by leaps and bounds. The bank has capitalised on the lust of Indian women for gold by selling pure imported yellow metal in 100 gramme bards. The trust in the case of gold sold by a public sector bank is more, he said. The scheme was a bigger hit in the south because the demand is more in these states. Another scheme which was doing well was the ‘Gold Deposit Scheme’. Under this scheme loan is given to jewellers against deposit of gold. Mr Varghese said with its accent on technology, the bank is planning to widen its ATM network in the country. The bank has adopted an agressive startegy for opening new accounts. Two lakh new accounts have been opened in the last two months. For every account opened the bank gives Rs five to helpage India. Under another scheme Rs five is contrubuted to ‘cry’, another NGO working for the welfare of children. This brings home the social consciousness of the corporate sector, Mr Varghese said. (UNI) |
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BHEL commissions 159 Mw power project in Iraq NEW DELHI, Oct 27: Engineering major Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) has synchronised a 159 megawatt gas turbine project in Iraq, making it the first power generating unit to be commissioned in the post-war scenario. The unit is located at Baiji power plant, about 250 Km north of capital Baghdad. BHEL had commissioned a similar unit at the same plant before war broke out. It is currently installing two more units of similar rating at Baiji. The engineering company had secured the Rs 900 crore order from Iraq under the oil for food programme. (UNI) |
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Bank of Baroda plans expansion of international operations LONDON, Oct 27: After earning a net profit of Rs 1000 crore in the year 2002-2003, Bank of Baroda now plans to focus on expansion of its international operations in a big way, its Chairman and Managing Director P S Shenoy has said. "The global vision of Bank of Baroda encompasses transformation into a customer centric organisation of international standards through technological up-gradations and physical presence across the globe," Shenoy told PTI in an interview here last night. He said the bank, with a staff strength of 40,000, already has operations in 61 places outside India. "We are now planning to expand our presence with representative offices in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Tanzania," he said. The new office in China, to be opened in 2004, would be located in Guangzhow. "There is rising trade between China and India and we would like to cash in on that opportunity." The representative office in Malaysia would be in Kuala Lumpur. Calling Africa "the continent of tomorrow", Shenoy said the bank has a very strong presence there and already has offices in south Africa, Botswana, Kenya, Uganda and Zambia where it has joint ventures with the Central Bank of India and the Bank of India. In the US, where it has an office in New York, the bank plans to open offices in Texas and California. Representative offices in New Zealand and Australia are also on the anvil, he said. Shenoy, who will preside over the formal opening of the bank’s newly acquired seven-storey building in London on Wednesday, said, "nearly 15 per cent of our total balance-sheet comes from our international operations and 25 per cent of our net profit as of now comes from international operations." The new building situated on the posh city road near Moorgate station, purchased at a cost of 6.05 million pounds would be named ‘Baroda House’, shenoy said. (PTI) |
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Pakistan oil company IPO set for November 10-14 ISLAMABAD, Oct 27: Pakistan said on Monday up to five percent of its biggest state oil exploration firm, Oil and Gas Development Company Ltd (OGDCL), would be sold next month in an initial public offering. The Government’s privatisation commission said in a statement 2.5 percent of shares in the company would be offered on November 10-14, with an oversubscription option for another 2.5 percent of shares. The IPO was initially set for October but was delayed until after the heavily oversubscribed sale this month of state shares in the national bank of Pakistan, to allow unsuccessful buyers in that IPO to bid for OGDCL shares. Pakistan hopes to raise 6.8 billion rupees ( 118 million) at a price of 32 rupees per share for 215 million shares, or five percent of the Government-owned OGDCI. Analysts said the offer price of 32 rupees was attractive and once listed the shares could rise to 45 rupees. Privatisation and Investment Minister Abdul Hafeez Sheikh told reporters this month that the Government also planned to sell a strategic stake in OGDCL, with management control, at a later stage. Pakistan was also considering selling minority stakes in the OGDCL internationally through global depositary receipts in the future, but no dates have been fixed. The most important privatisation deal for the country is the sale of Pakistan state oil, already delayed several times and now set for late November or early December. The Government is selling a 51 percent stake in PSO, which controls 70 percent of the retail oil market, and is expected to fetch between 500 and 800 million. Net revenues for OGDCL for the year ended June 2003 were 45 billion rupees, and profit after tax was 20.7 billion rupees, according to the offering documents released this month. The company has estimated remaining proven-plus-probable reserves of 9.228 trillion cubic feet of gas and 164.25 million barrels of oil. The Government has said there was strong demand for the 3.3 percent of national bank shares on offer, with offers worth 1.21 billion rupees against the target of 600 million rupees. (AGENCIES) |
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Leayan launches new winter collection in northern states Excelsior Correspondent New Delhi, Oct 27: Leayan Overseas Private Ltd has introduced its Red Chief Range, new winter collection —2003 in the market. This range is now available in Northern India besides north-east and western regions of the country. The company has fixed its price as Rs 845 per pair. According to Managing Director of the Company Mr Manoj Kumar, this Range of winter collection has been manufactured, taking care of the mind set of the Indian people and also their suitability. It has available in different colours and are very comfortable for wearing. Mr Kumar said that with the Launch of new winter collection the Company is hoping 25 % increase in the annual turn over for the current year. The response in the northern states is very encouraging and demand has considerable increased. |
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Mobile Cos to lose more than Rs 18,000 cr, seek compensation NEW DELHI, Oct 27: With the crucial meeting of Group of Ministers (GoM) on telecom coming up on Thursday, cellular companies are lobbying hard to seek a compensation package that would offset their estimated Rs 18.000 crore loss in the post-unified license scenario. Industry sources, however, admitted that the compensation will be in the form of a financial incentive where the cellular GSM mobile operators will be allowed to restructure their existing debts totalling Rs 15,000 crores. The prospect of getting a cash compensation from the Government, however, appears bleak, sources added. With the Government having allowed WLL-M services in CDMA standard and currently being executed by the basic telephone operators, cellular or GSM players say their accumulated lossses are expected to increase by Rs 18,400 crores. The cellular industry also says that the present value of future cash flows accruing to the industry over the license period will reduced by Rs 5100 crores. This insufficient cash flow is likely to hamper the GSM industry’s ability to "raise debt", requiring the industry to pump in additional equity of around Rs 6500 crore. The GOM, headed by Finance Minister Jaswant Singh, will attempt to end the turf war between the GSM operators comprising Bharti, Hutch, BPL, Escotel to name a few, and WLL phone providers Reliance and Tatas. Three meetings of the GoM took place on September 25, and October 12 and 4. The fourth meeting on October 30 will define the restriction of WLL-mobility in line with TDSAT order. This meeting is crucial as it would formulate a roadmap, for the time, being in consultation with the telecom regulator for migration to unified licence. The government is expected to act only after the GoM specifies the direction on enforcing WLL-M and on issues like call forwarding and mulltiple registration being offered by Reliance. Communications Minister Arun Shourie had on October 12 confirmed the Government’s decision to implement the TDSAT verdict on enforcing limited mobility for WLL-M operators but did not specificy any time limit. (UNI) |
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Matsushita to introduce merit based pay system in China TOKYO, Oct 27: Japan’s Matsushita Electric Industrial Co said today that the company plans to introduce a merit-based pay system for plant workers and sales staff at its Chinese subsidiaries starting next year. The move is designed to attract skilled workers with a more fixed merit-based pay system than Japan’s to survive in the highly competitive Chinese market, said a Matsushita spokesman in Tokyo. The merit-based pay system was expected to triple the maximum gap between the highest-paid and least-paid workers at the Japanese consumer electronics giant, he said.(DPA) |
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TRAI recommends single licensing system NEW DELHI, Oct 27: Telecom Regulator TRAI today recommended a single licesing system, called unified licesing regime, for basic landline and cellular telephony services. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India suggested to the Government replacement of existing licensing regime, where cellular and wireless (WLL) phone service providers pay different fees to provide telephony services, with a unified license under which both basic and cellular operators will be allowed to offer both type of services without the formality of acquiring a separate license. "The existing operators would have an option to continue under the present licensing regime (with present terms and conditions) or migrate to new unified access licesing regime in the existing circle," TRAI said. The license fee, service area, roll out obligation and performance bank guarantee under the new unified license regime will be the same as for the existing cellular service provider. The service provider migrating to unified regime would continue to provide wireless services in already allocated spectrum and no additional spectrum would be allocated under the migrated process. While cellular operators will not be required to pay any further license fee for migrating to the new regime, the entry fee for basic/WLL service providers would be the difference between the license fee paid by the fourth cellular operator in the circle and the charges already paid by them. The present system of licensing should be replaced by unified licensing/automatic authorisation regime, TRAI said. The objective of this is to be achieved in a two-stage process with the unified access regime for basic and cellular services in the first phase to be followed by a process to define the guidelines and rules for fully unified license encompassing other telcom services like WLL. Under the new access regime, TRAI recommended that Reliance Infocomm should pay additional penalty over and above the entry fee for already offering mobility services almost similar to cellular mobile services. (PTI) |
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SP affirms IRFC rating at ‘BB’, outlook negative NEW DELHI, Oct 27: Standard and poor’s ratings services today affirmed its ‘BB’ long-term foreign currency rating on Indian Railway Finance Corp (ICFC) as the company’s credit quality has remained within the current rating parameters. The outlook is negative, the rating agency said in a statement. The public sector IRFC provides lease financing to Indian Railways, which is the only national rail transport provider. IRFC also provides loans to two other Ministry of Railways (MoR) agencies on a small scale. During 2002-03, IRFC had total assets of Rs 17,900 crore and net income of Rs 330 crore. "IRFC’s rating reflects its symbiotic relationship with the Government of India (foreign currency BB/negative/B local currency BB"/negative/B) as IRFC is the only agency that provides market funding for Indian Railway’s rolling stock," said SP corporate and infrastructure ratings group credit analyst and Director Sharad Jain. "IRFC’s operations and management are closely intertwined with Indian Railways. It funds about half of Indian Railway’s capital expenditure on rolling stock," he added. IRFC’s rating is supported by favourable lease agreements with Indian Railways, which protect its net interest margins. The interest rate and exchange rate risks on most foreign currency borrowings are passed on to Indian Railways. Furthermore, Indian Railways undertakes to make funds available to IRFC by way of advance lease rentals, should IRFC not have sufficient funds to meet its debt obligations. SP believes that IRFC’s rating is likely to remain equal with the sovereign unless its business expands significantly beyond funding ministry of railways agencies, or there is a change in the ownership structure of indian railways. This is due to the importance of IRFC to Indian Railways’ capital expansion and replacement programme and Indian railways’ social, economic and political importance. Further, unforeseen support requirement from the railways is likely to be minimal, given that the MOR is well informed of IRFC’s cash flows and its operations are limited to financing the MOR agencies. (UNI) |
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Matsushita to adapt merit based pay system in China TOKYO, Oct 27: Japan’s Matsushita Electric Industrial Co said today that the company plans to introduce a merit-based pay system for plant workers and sales staff at its Chinese subsidiaries starting next year. The move is designed to attract skilled workers with a more fixed merit-based pay system than Japan’s to survive in the highly competitive Chinese market, said a Matsushita spokesman in Tokyo. The merit-based pay system was expected to triple the maximum gap between the highest-paid and least-paid workers at the Japanese consumer electronics giant, he said. Employees whose job performances fall within the bottom 5 per cent will have to leave the company, the Matsushita official said. The so-called 5-per-cent rule is common among Chinese companies but rare for Japanese companies doing business in China. The merit-based pay system will be applied to employees in the sales and production divisions at Matsushita’s 53 subsidiaries in China, the Matsushita official said. (DPA) |
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Entertainment biz to touch 7 bln dlrs in 2 years: Mckinsey NEW DELHI, Oct 27: Buoyed by the growing advertisement spend, export opportunities and deregulation, the 5.7-billion dollar domestic entertainment sector will reach a size of around seven billion dollar in the next two years, according a Mckinsey study. The Indian entertainment business, which has been growing at 16 per cent cagr over the past four years, is likely to grow at nine per cent cagr to reach 6.7 billion dollars by 2005, said the leading global strategic management consulting firm. Mckinsey identified radio, music, event, television and movies as potential drivers of growth of the Indian entertainment sector. It said the radio industry has not taken off, despite deregulation. However, large growth is expected in the next few years as new private players have started operations. Due to high license fees, few players will make money. Highlighting that the domestic music industry is dominated by film music with a 65 per cent market share, the study said it is highly competitive sphere with very few players making money. Saregama is among the top companies with a revenue of 25 million dollars in 2002. However, the industry has seen the entry of international players like Sony, Polygram and EMI. Competitive bidding model for film music rights has led to astronomical sums being paid to music companies, it added. Mckinsey observed that though the Indian Film Industry is highly fragmented, it offers significant opportunity for industry corporatisation. Further, the percentage of revenues from exports is likely to increase significantly. (UNI) Japan’s sharp to double production of LCD TV sets in Europe TOKYO, Oct 27: Japan’s sharp corp said Monday that it will double production of LCD (Liquid-Crystal Display) televisions to 40,000 units a month at its European production base in Spain as early as April in response to the popularity of the TV sets on the continent. "Due to the growing demand, our Spanish unit will specialize in production of LCD TVs and stop manufacturing CRT (Cathode-Ray Tube) TVs," said Masaaki Takeda, Sharp spokesman. Starting next year, the Spanish unit will outsource production of CRT TVs to local companies or import units made in China and Mexico. It plans to halt sales of CRT TVs by the end of 2005 and specialize in LCD TVs instead. Sharp has already halted production of CRT TVs in Japan. Sharp’s production subsidiary in Barcelona now imports liquid-crystal panels and other parts from Japan to assemble 13- to 30-inch (33- to 76-centimetre) LCD TVs for the European market. Sharp’s Takeda said the company’s Spanish factory will continue importing parts from Japan. Sharp is a leading Japanese manufacturer of LCD TVs. It has a relationship with Loewe Opta GMBH of Germany on television development. (DPA) |
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