NEW DELHI, May 2: Bajaj Auto today announced a growth of 4 per cent in sales at 3,81,590 units in April as compared to 3,67,309 units sold in the same month last year.
Motorcycles sales increased by six per cent to 3,42,324 units in the reported month as against 3,22,235 unis in April 2011, the country’s second largest two-wheeler manufacturer said in a statement.
Exports were highest ever at 1,69,010 units as against 1,58,422 units, registering a growth of seven per cent.
However, the company’s three-wheeler commercial vehicle sales dipped by 13 per cent to 39,266 units in April 2012 from 45,074 units in April 2011.
(UNI)
Bajaj Auto sales up 4 pc at 3.82 lakh units in Apr
RBI approves restructuring proposal for Subex FCCBs
BANGALORE, May 2: Subex Ltd, a leading global business support systems provider, today said the Reserve Bank has approved the restructuring proposal of its outstanding foreign currency convertible bonds (FCCBs) involving a combination of debt and equity.
It will shortly launch a cashless exchange offer, wherein the current FCCBs will be exchanged for new FCCBs with a maturity period of five years and fresh equity, the company said in a statement.
“This restructuring proposal has been formulated with the active support of our existing bond holders whom we have been closely working with.
“We are confident that with their continued support, we will be able to complete the restructuring in the next 45-60 days,” Subash Menon, Subex’ founder, Chairman, MD & CEO, said.
He said with the RBI approval, the company can reach a final and conclusive solution to the FCCB issue and all concerns about the financial stability of the company will be put to rest.
“We are confident of better times ahead and will continue to work hard to sustain our market leadership in BSS (business support systems),” he said. (PTI)
Hyundai posts 4.9 pc rise in April sales
NEW DELHI, May 2: The country’s second largest car maker Hyundai Motor India today reported a 4.9 per cent increase in total sales in April at 54,606 units.
The company had sold 52,057 units in the year-ago period, Hyundai Motor India Ltd (HMIL) said in a statement.
In the domestic market, the company’s sales went up by 10.9 per cent to 35,070 units from 31,636 units in same month last year, it added.
Exports of the company, however, declined 4.3 per cent during the month to 19,536 units from 20,421 units in the year-ago period, the statement said.
“Consumer confidence continues to be weak. Prices went up following the excise hikes in the Union Budget and interest rates are yet to come down. Given the present conditions it’s a challenging market,” HMIL Director (Marketing and Sales) Arvind Saxena said.
In its A2 segment (Eon, Santro, i10 and i20), the company sold 44,891 units, while in the A3 segment (Accent and Verna) sales were at 9,579 units.
The A5 segment (Sonata) of HMIL witnessed sales of 66 units, while its SUV Santa Fe received 70 buyers during April, this year. (PTI)
Subramanya resigns as Tata BP Solar CEO
BANGALORE, May 2: Solar power solutions major Tata BP Solar today said its chief executive officer K Subramanya has resigned from the company.
“Subramanya has decided to move on”, the company said in a statement, adding that with effect from today, Chief Financial Officer D Guru, who has been with the company for 20 years, will be taking over as the acting CEO.
Tata BP Solar is a joint venture established in 1989, with BP holding 51 per cent and Tata Power holding 49 per cent.
The company is a leader in solar power solutions and involved in the full range of activities, including design, manufacture, marketing and project execution, the statement said.
It has a manufacturing hub in Bangalore and a wide network of dealers and service centres throughout India and neighbouring countries, it added. (PTI)
PBOC fixes yuan at new high, spot prices open in new band for first ti
SHANGHAI, May 2:China’s central bank set the yuan’s midpoint at a historical high for a third consecutive trading day on Wednesday, as U.S. And Chinese negotiators prepare for the two-day Security and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) that opens in Beijing on Thursday.
The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) set a midpoint of 6.2670 per dollar, 0.19 percent higher than Friday’s fixing. Domestic markets were closed for a public holiday on Monday and Tuesday.
Spot yuan opened 0.53 percent below the midpoint at 6.3000, the first time the currency has opened trade more than 0.5 percent away from the PBOC’s fix, and traded in this range throughout the morning.
The PBOC allowed the yuan to begin trading up to 1 percent away from the midpoint, an increase from 0.5 percent, on April 16, but spot prices have flattened out and have remained range-bound between 6.30 and 6.31 since mid-March.
An aggressive midpoint fixing on Friday caused the yuan price to test the widened trading band for the first time when it refused to follow the midpoint into stronger territory. Spot yuan touched an intraday low of 6.3124, 0.54 percent weaker than the day’s fix of 6.2787.
A stronger fixing on Wednesday also failed to inspire traders to move spot prices closer to the fixing.
‘The high midpoint setting is completely due to the S&ED,’ said a trader at one of the big four Chinese banks in Shanghai. ‘Most of our big customers are still buying dollars at the 6.3 level, which supports the dollar against the yuan.’
He added that the yuan fixing had strengthened despite the fact that the dollar index had gained in overnight trading. The PBOC usually moves the midpoint in tandem with the dollar.
(AGENCIES)
Bharti airtel shares up over 2 pc post Q4 results
MUMBAI, May 2: Shares of Bharti airtel rose by over 2 per cent in the morning trade today even as the company posted a decline of 28.19 per cent in consolidated net income for the fourth quarter ended March 31.
The scrip started the day on a bullish note and further gained 2.25 per cent to Rs 317.30 on the BSE.
At the NSE, the stock gained 1.37 per cent to Rs 312.55.
Bharti airtel today reported a decline of 28.19 per cent in consolidated net income at Rs 1,006 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 31, hit by higher cost of 3G licence fee amortisation, 3G interest costs, forex losses and tax provisions.
The country’s largest telecom operator had registered a net profit of Rs 1,401 crore in the January-March quarter of the previous fiscal.
“The recent regulatory developments in India will have significant implications on the future of telephony and broadband as well as India’s global competitiveness,” Bharti Airtel CMD Sunil Bharti Mittal said.
Total revenue of the company, however, was up by 15 per cent at Rs 18,729 crore for the March quarter, compared to Rs 1,293 crore in the year-ago period.
For the full year ended March, 2012, Bharti airtel’s net profit was down by 29.6 per cent at Rs 4,259 crore, compared to Rs 6,047 crore in 2010-11.
Total revenue for the 2011-12 fiscal stood at Rs 71,451 crore, as against Rs 59,538 crore in 2010-11, up 20 per cent.
(PTI)
HUL shares at 52-week high on Q4 profit
MUMBAI, May 2: Shares of FMCG major Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL) today soared over 4 per cent to touch 52-week high after the company posted 20.63 per cent increase in net profit for the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2012.
Buoyed by the results, shares of the company shot-up by 4.21 per cent to a 52-week high of Rs 433.90 on the BSE.
At the NSE too, the FMCG major gained 3.87 per cent to touch a one year high of Rs 433.80.
The scrip was the top performer among the blue-chips on both the key indices Sensex and Nifty during the morning trade.
HUL yesterday posted 20.63 per cent increase in net profit at Rs 686.61 crore for the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2012, on back of robust sales growth across all business verticals.
The company had posted net profit of Rs 569.18 crore in the same period of 2010-11. (PTI)
Bobby Brown surprised by Whitney’s drug intake
LONDON, May 2: Whitney Houstoun’s ex-husband Bobby Brown says he was shocked to discover that his former wife was taking drugs before she died.
Houston, 48, died in Beverly Hills in February from accidental drowning caused by cocaine use, reported Contactmusic.
“It is just unexplainable… How one could, you know, (say that I) got her addicted to drugs. I am not the reason she is gone.
“I was hurt… Because, you know, me being off of narcotics for the last seven years, I felt that she was, you know, I did not know she was struggling with it still. But at the same time, you know, listen, it is a hard fight. It is a hard fight to, you know, maintain sobriety that way,” Brown said.
Houston had apparently wanted to reunite with her former husband of 14 years and the pair had decided on an intimate ceremony with their daughter Bobbi Kristina as the only witness. (PTI)
Lindsay Lohan gives USD 100 to toilet cleaner
LONDON, May 2: Troubled actress Lindsay Lohan has reportedly given USD 100 to a cleaner at the 98th Annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
The 25-year-old attended the dinner in Washington DC on Saturday night with her lawyer Shawn Chapman Holley, reported Femalefirst online.
During a visit to the ladies’ room, Lohan met an elderly Hispanic cleaner Bianca and after seeing how hard she was working, she felt sorry for her.
“You are too old to be doing this,” said Lohan.
The “Freaky Friday” actress then reached into her purse and handed Bianca a USD 100 bill.
The attendant initially refused Lindsay’s generosity and said, “No, no, no.”
Other guests at the dinner included Kim Kardashian and her mother Kris Jenner, Elle MacPherson, Josh Hutcherson, Mary J Blige, Goldie Hawn and Eva Longoria. (PTI)
Boko Haram has killed hundreds since its 2009 uprising
KANO, May 2: Islamist group Boko Haram released a video celebrating its bombing of a Nigerian newspaper and warning of more attacks on local and foreign media if they published reports that were biased to the sect or insulting to Islam.
Suicide car bombers targeted the offices of This Day in the capital, Abuja, and northern city of Kaduna last Thursday, killing at least five people in apparently coordinated strikes.
Boko Haram has been fighting a low-level insurgency for more than two years and has become the main security threat facing Africa’s top oil producer, although most attacks have been in the largely Muslim north, far from southern oil fields.
The sect, which wants to impose an Islamic state on Nigeria’s more or less evenly mixed population of Muslim and Christians, has been blamed for hundreds of killings since its uprising against the government in 2009.
It had not previously targeted the press in its bombing campaign, although last October it killed a reporter for state TV who the sect said was an informant to President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration.
The video posted on the Internet opens with a Koranic song and a drawing of the Koran sitting on two crossed AK-47s. A banner in the northern Hausa language says:
‘Message from Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati Wal-Jihadl (Boko Haram’s full name): on why we attacked ThisDay’.
It then plays a video tape shot from a distance of the ThisDay Abuja office, which promptly explodes into a ball of flames and grey smoke – that suggests the sect had a cameraman set up in anticipation of the strike.
‘We attacked Thisday because we will never forget or forgive anyone who abused our Prophet,’ a voice booms in Hausa.
ThisDay angered Muslims a decade ago when one of its columnists suggested the Prophet Mohammad might have wanted to marry a beauty queen, an event to which the tape alludes.
JIHAD VIDEO
The statement rages against local and international media for carrying reports by Nigeria’s government that a faction of the sect was behind the kidnapping of two hostages – one British, the other Italian – who were killed by their captors during a botched March rescue attempt.
‘We said we have nothing to do with it, yet these media houses reported that we were responsible for the incident,’ it said, also complaining about reports, which it denied, that its spokesman Abu Qaqa had been captured.
It warned it would attack other media houses soon, listing several local papers as next on the list and several international media as ‘on the verge of jointing them’.
It was at least the fifth video that Boko Haram had posted this year, mostly from self-proclaimed leader Abubakar Shekau. Shekau appears in this one, too, waving an AK-47 around.
From being a secretive sect in the shadows, the group has gradually raised its media profile, which may explain both the proliferation of home videos and growing attacks on media.
A spate of attacks in the past few days, including one against Christians in the north that killed 19 people on Sunday, dampened hopes that tighter security in the north had drastically reduced the sect’s capability.
Nigerian forces raided the hideout of Islamist militants in Kano on Tuesday, killing the suspected mastermind of an attack on Christian worshippers in a gun battle that lasted several hours in the main northern city.
(agencies)