Daily News Roundup - Oct 7 2009

Reliance Industries told the Supreme Court that the family MoU signed by Mukesh Ambani to supply natural gas to Anil Ambani was in his personal capacity and the company’s board had not approved it. (ET)

Central Vigilance Commissioner has ordered a discreet inquiry by CBI into the allegations of a nexus between Reliance Industries and DGH. (FE)

Reliance Industries threatened to stop oil and gas exploration if it is not granted the promised drilling moratorium to cover for the acute shortage of rigs. (FE)

TCS Chairman and CEO said that the next phase of investments and growth for the company will be Japan, Europe and in areas such as platform BPO, where it will pursue acquisitions. (ET)

L&T’s building and factory construction division received a contract worth Rs15bn. (FE)

Supreme Court issued a notice to L&T as NHAI appealed against an order passed by Orissa High Court permitting it to encash only 50% of the unconditional and irrevocable bank guarantees furnished by L&T. (FE)

L&T may exit Mahindra Satyam by starting the process of selling its 6.9% stake soon after a lock-in period expires early next week. (BS)

JSW Steel’s production rose 54% to 1.5mn tons in Q2 FY10 on robust demand. (FE)

GAIL will start importing LNG from October end or November to meet growing local demand. (FE)

Government to split the Chiria iron ore mines in Jharkhand into two and give at least half the reserves to SAIL for its expansion plans. (BS)

Coal India hopes to complete the bidding process for contractual development and operation of seven high capacity underground mines by January. (BL)

Suzlon Energy won a repeat order of about Rs3bn for 57MW from Ayen Enerji of Turkey. (BS)

ACC raised Rs3bn via non convertible debentures to fund its expansion. (FE)

Under the recently announced restructuring plan, Ultratech will have greater flexibility to borrow from the market to fund its large scale future expansions. (ET)

Ultratech and Samruddhi merger expected to take about 7-9 months. (FE)

Zain Telecom has quickened with the Indian consortium led by Delhi-based Vavasi group to give a majority stake in the consortium to state-owned BSNL or MTNL. (BS)

IDFC and India Infrastructure Fund have picked up 20% stake in GMR Kamalanga Energy, a SPV of GMR Energy. (ET)

Idea Cellular has entered into a one year sponsorship deal with GMR Industries as the principal partner of Delhi Daredevils, starting with the forthcoming Champions League Twenty20. (FE)

The High Court of Gujarat has approved the scheme of demerger of Arvind Ltd into Arvind Lifestyle Brands (brands business) and Arvind Retail Ltd (retail business division). (FE)

Tata BlueScope Building Solutions, a division of Tata BlueScope Steel, tied up with Arshiya International to provide the Butler building systems for the upcoming warehousing projects of the latter in India. (FE)

Dr. Reddy’s launched two variants of Strea, a dermatological product, in India. (ET)

Japan’s Daiichi Sankyo will sell its products in Mexico through Ranbaxy as part of its plans to exploit its marketing strength. (ET)

Ranbaxy has objected to the appointment of two new directors to the board of Zenotech. (ET)

Lupin may earn upto US$53mn in clinical trial, new drug application and regulatory milestone payments for the bioadhesive drug delivery technology it licensed out to US based Salix Pharmaceuticals. (ET)

Raymond will invest Rs1bn to open about 300 stores across the country by the end of March 2011. (ET)

Pyramid Saimira has divested 40% stake in its production arm to RDB Group. (FE)

K S Oils has acquired an additional 53,000 acres for developing palm oil plantations in Indonesia through its wholly-owned Singapore subsidiary. (BS)

Cadila-Novavax JV can produce 250mn doses of H1N1 vaccine. (BS)

Meghmani’s chlor-alkali plant in Gujarat begins production. (BL)

Indiabulls Retail has rebranded its loss-making lifestyle stores, Indiabulls Megastore, as Store One. (BS)

Safexpress plans to invest Rs6bn for setting up logistics parks across the country, with about a third being invested in the southern states. (BS)

Essar Group said its Rs45bn non convertible debentures issue was oversubscribed within a few hours of opening. (ET)

Private equity firm Actis closed its second infrastructure fund of US$750mn to invest in power generation and transport companies in Africa, China, India, Latin America and South East Asia. (Et)

Special Undertaking of Unit Trust of India, the principal shareholder in Asset Reconstruction Company (ARC), has offered its shares in ARC to the existing shareholders. (ET)

Flughafen Zurich AG, operator of Zurich airport in Switzerland, which has a 17% stake in Bangalore International Airport Ltd, will reduce this to 5%, to fund its growth in India.(BS)

AT&T, Telstra and SK Telecom are expected to enter the Indian telecom market. (FE)

Center is likely to support the two tier duty structure suggested by the states for the proposed goods and service tax. (ET)

The CBDT reported 3.7% growth, lower than the growth target for 2009-10, in direct tax collections at Rs1.5trn in the first half of the current fiscal. (ET)

Delhi based think tank, IEG, says that the country’s growth momentum will pick to 7% in August and 9% in October. (ET)

Government has initiated a probe to impose anti dumping duties on imports of phenol, used in making plywood and particle boards. (ET)

The disinvestment policy and road map prepared by the disinvestment department, which has already received approval from the Prime Minister and finance minister, will be discussed by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs. (ET)

Karnataka government estimates damage to crops due to floods in the state at Rs25bn. (FE)

CERC has reserved its order on a review petition filed by MCX challenging the exercise of jurisdiction by CERC over the forward contracts in electricity. (FE)

The department of fertilizers is mulling a proposal to pool the gas prices for fertilizer users in case the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas is unable to come out with a uniform price. (BS)

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has set up an advisory panel to review and upgrade rules and regulations to the meet the best global practices. (BS)