Daily News Roundup - Jan 30 2009

Spice Group keen to acquire 51% stake in Satyam (BL)

L&T has appointed Mr Jagjeet Bindra, President of Chevron Global Manufacturing, on its Board as independent non-executive director (BL)

TCS is leading the race for Sony’s US$100mn outsourcing deal. (ET)

Tata Steel has signed a deal with Marcegaglia and South Korea’s Dongkuk to sell majority stake in Teesside Casts Products business. (ET)

Crisil downgrades its ratings on DLF’s debt and bank facilities to negative. (FE)

Tata Motors has won a Rs22bn order from Delhi Transport Corporation. (ET)

HCL Tech enters into multi-year, multi-regional, end-to-end global helpdesk and desktop management outsourcing services agreement with Nokia (BL)

GAIL to raise US$134mn from US agency next fiscal to part its capex of Rs55bn. (ET)

An acute shortage of coal may force NTPC to shut down some units temporarily. (ET)

Satyam Computer is likely to get a new owner in 2 months. (ET)

Unitech Wireless is all set to sign the infrastructure sharing agreement with Tata Teleservices’ tower arm WTTIL. (FE)

L&T seeks management control of Satyam (BS)

Aditya Birla Telecom Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Idea Cellular has scaled down its US$640mn deal with US-based private equity major, Providence Equity Partners. (BS)

Israel’s Supreme Court directs Sun Pharma and Taro Pharma to renegotiate takeover dispute between the two companies. (BS)

The fuel price revision is likely to wipe out the Rs11bn net revenue earned by IOC, BPCL and HPCL in the last one month. (BS)

MTNL to offer 3G services from February 5th, 2009 (BL)

Non fuel on credit for Kingfisher Airlines from oil companies (BL)

Bharat Forge and Areva sign an MoU to build a manufacturing facility for heavy forgings in India (BL)

CavinKare ties-up with Coty to market Adidas range of personal care products (BL)

Bharati Shipyard’s promoters had placed around 5.45% stake in the company as collateral with SBI against the working capital requirements of the company. (BS)

Shoppers Stop exits catalogue retailing through Argos (BL)

Kalpataru Power wins an order worth US$250mn for building transmission lines in Kuwait. (ET)

Dena Bank seeks Rs5bn from the government to bolster its capital base. (BS)

Fortis Healthcare buys 29% stake in Mauritian hospital for US$3.5mn. (ET)


Inflation for week-ended January 17th rises marginally to 5.64% against 5.6% in the preceding week (BL)

Moody’s has changed the fundamental credit outlook for the Indian banking system to negative from stable. (FE)

The government has proposed to do away with the ceiling on portfolio investments by FII and instead prescribe a composite foreign investment cap. (ET)

Rail freight on foodgrains to increase by 8% (BL)

Wheat support price hiked to Rs1080/quintal (BL)

NCAER cuts GDP forecast to 6.7% for the current fiscal, down from 7.6% estimated earlier. (ET)

Government defers decision to change sugar import norms. (ET)

Government clears infra projects worth Rs340bn. (BS)

CCEA gave its nod for the upwards revised cost and concession periods of nine stretches of national highways (BL)

Economy to grow at 7% in 2008-09, says Mr.Pranab Mukherjee, Union External Affairs Minister (BL)

Centre relaxes fiscal deficit target and borrowing ceilings for states (BL)