Daily News Roundup - Feb 13 2009

RIL has written to petroleum ministry raising objection for sale of gas to NTPC. (ET)

The Satyam board has begun the formal procedure to invite bids from potential suitors for company. (BS)

RIL scales up its KG basin investment by US$6bn. (ET)

Cairn India calls off exploration in Ganga basin after failing to trace oil reserve. (FE)

Citi Financial shuts down 280 branches; it has further discontinued auto loan financing activity. (FE)

DLF has withdrawn from Rs50bn Dankuni township project in West Bengal. (ET)

Bharti Airtel signs agreements with Microsoft and Nivio to offer software solution to its customers. (ET)

Rithwik Projects and SEW Infrastructure, two Hyderabad based companies in race to buy Maytas Infra. (ET)

ONGC Videsh may forgo two highly prospective deep-sea oil blocks in Nigeria as it is unlikely to get government approval for the payment of US$485mn signing amount before the March 6 deadline. (BS)

Marico and Emami in race to acquire two premium soap brands Aramusk and Moloy. (FE)

Reliance Power is hopeful of achieving the financial closure for the 4,000MW Sasan UMPP in Madhya Pradesh within a fortnight. (BS)

Reliance Power gets letter of intent for Tilaiya project. (BL)

Tata Communications announced a US$430mn strategic investment plan for the Asia-Pacific region to set up a new Internet Data Centre in Singapore and complete the main segments of its TGN Asia Cable System. (BL)

BEL’s order book grew around 4% to Rs100bn during the first 10 months of the current financial year-ended December 31, 2008. (BS)

BEML targets Rs1bn orders from offset business. (BS)

Kishore Biyani’s Future Group, Vishal Retail and other retailers might sell stake in subsidiaries to take advantage of the new foreign direct investment (FDI) norms. (BS)

Arvind has defaulted on its interest payments to lenders in January.

Apollo Tyres to lay off 1,500 casual employees. (BS)

Infotech Enterprises Japan KK, a subsidiary of Infotech Enterprises Ltd, has signed an agreement with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) to provide engineering services support. (BL)

Azim Premji invest fund is likely to bail out Subhiksha. (ET)

Renault is reviewing plans for its factory in Chennai and may even completely abandon the project. (BL)





IIP contracted 2% in December, 2008, compared to 8% growth in the year-ago month, falling into negative territory for the second time in the current fiscal. (BS)

The inflation rate for the week ended January 31 dropped to 4.39% as compared with 5.07% in the previous week. (BS)

Railway minister may slash AC-III and general fares by 10% in his interim budget. (ET)

Interim budget may hold out goodies for VCs, exporters and infrastructure companies. (ET)

Public sector banks seek right to appeal in tribunals and high courts in income tax cases. (BS)

Sugar output this year is estimated to nosedive to approximately 17mn tons as against the previous forecast of 18mn tons and last year’s output of 26.3mn tons. (BS)

MRTPC has ordered a probe into the sudden hike in air fares by domestic airlines. (ET)

National Housing Bank (NHB), the regulator for housing finance companies, has initiated a review of the books of the home loan providers under its ambit to assess the extent of real estate funding and the end-use of funds. (BS)

The division bench of the Karnataka High Court circuit bench has suspended the stay order granted by the court on granting lease for mining in forest area. (BS)