Daily News Roundup - March 9 2009

ICICI Bank has cut the interest rates on floating home loans for new borrowers by 25-50 basis points, with immediate effect.(BL)

Coal India has been awarded two exploratory coal mining blocks A1 and A2 by the Mozambique Government.(BL)

Infosys Technologies is scouting for acquisitions in the consulting and BPO space in Germany, France, and Japan.(FE)

Vishal Retail plans to venture into the shop-in-shop format and to have around 40 such corners in its large format stores within the next three months.(BS)

Aban Offshore may have to reschedule some portion of the $3.1 billion of debt that is due to mature this year and the next.(Mint)

Tata Motors is considering setting up a new assembly line for the Nano in Pune, seeking to scale up production to meet anticipated demand.(Mint)

SBI raises Rs40bn via tier-II capital.(BS)

TCS has decided to hand over pink slips to around 1,300 employees or 1% of its global workforce this year.(TOI)

ONGC acquires 43 overseas oil and gas assets in lands in six years. (ET)

Essar Oil will take a planned shut-down of its refinery at Vadinar, in Gujarat, from April 13, for 18 days for maintenance.(BL)

Sterlite Industries says it has signed an agreement to acquire America's third largest copper producer Asarco Llc for US$1.7bn.(DNA)

Tata Steel says it has posted a 47% rise in sales at 0.58mn tonnes in February, compared with 0.39mn tonnes a year ago.(BL)

HCC group’s company Lavasa Corporation defers its plans to launch an IPO.(ET)

HCL Technologies has emerged as the lowest bidder with a quote of Rs2.3bn for the ERP project of BSNL.(BL)

Titan Industries plans to add nearly 40 Titan stores by March 2010.(BS)

Bolivia plans to take 600 acres of private land that contains part of the El Mutun iron ore deposit and deliver it to Jindal Steel & Power.(TOI)

Power Grid Corp of India plans to invest Rs12bn over the next three years in its telecom business.(DNA)

Kotak Mahindra Bank may be the first Indian bank to join the race along with the other international suitors to buy out the Indian operations of the Royal Bank of Scotland.(FE)

SREI Infra-Sadbhav inks JV for Rs15.7bn project.(ET)

Gujarat government allots GMDC Naini coal block in Orissa, to Adani and Torrent groups.(BS)

Coal India is targeting import of 6mn tonnes of coal in the next financial year.(DNA)

Four global spirits makers including Diageo have shown interest in acquiring stake in United Spirits.(ET)

IOC plans maintenance work at its key plants during April-September, including a full shutdown from late June of its 160,000 bpd Mathura refinery for about a month.(ET)

SpiceJet is in talks with the Wadia group-owned GoAir for a merger or to acquire a controlling stake.(BS)

Ranbaxy Laboratories says it has received approval from Australia’s drug regulator to sell generic terbinafine tablets.(BL)

Acting upon the directions of the Intelligence Bureau, DoT asks BSNL and MTNL to stop providing 3G services till call monitoring services are made available to the intelligence agencies.(FE)

Tata Metaliks shelves Rs8bn diversification plan in West Bengal.(BL)

The sale process of Satyam Computer Services has moved a step forward with SEBI approving the global competitive bidding process. (FE)

The Lavasa hill station project of HCC is set for a private equity injection.(DNA)

Aditya Birla Retail plans to open 8-10 hypermarkets across the country during the next financial year.(BS)

LIC hikes stake to 7.1% in HDFC Bank after purchasing shares in the open market.(FE)

M&M launched new models of its SUV Scorpio and cut its price ranging from Rs 34,000-70,000.(TOI)

Dalmia Cement commences commercial production at its 2.5mn ton greenfield cement plant in Kadapa district of Andhra Pradesh.(BS)





Forex reserves fell by US$249mn to US$249bn in the week ended February 27.(BL)

Growth in the six infrastructure industries slowed to 1.4% in January compared with 3.6% last year.(BL)

The next bid round for oil and gas acreage is likely to be adversely impacted due to lack of an income tax break on gas production, says the Petroleum Minister.(FE)

DoT wants 3G services put on hold, until the security agencies put up the infrastructure to track these high-end services.(ET)

DoT invites bids for rural broadband service.(ET)

RBI is considering a proposal to allow companies another six months to buy back or prepay their FCCBs.(BS)

TRAI will consider tariff regulation in the DTH sector.(BL)