Daily News Roundup - Nov 25 2009

RIL plans to fund its acquisition of LyondellBasell Industries by selling treasury stock and dipping into its cash reserves without taking any additional debt on its balance sheet. (ET)

Crisil has maintained a stable outlook on Reliance Industries, after it announced its preliminary non-binding bid for the acquisition of LyondellBasell Industries, thereby reaffirming its ratings on the debt instruments and bank facilities. (BS)

Reliance Industries has re-opened 900 of its 1,432 auto fuel retail outlets. (BL)

Infosys plans to stay away from top auto customers in its engineering services business and shift its focus from commoditised and price sensitive projects. (ET)

Bharti Airtel, launched pay-per-second plan for its US customers using calling cards to make calls to India. (ET)

Tata Motors will start feasibility study next year on launching an electric version Indica in both the domestic as well as the European market simultaneously in early 2011. (BS)

IOC will set up Rs100bn nuclear power plant in association with Nuclear Power Corporation of India. (ET)

BHEL bagged Rs56bn contract from an arm of Jaiprakash Associates for setting up a thermal power plant in Uttar Pradesh. (BL)

SBI expects to receive clearance from the government and the RBI for its proposed Doha branch by the first week of December. (ET)

Hindalco has raised US$600mn by selling shares to institutional investors. (ET)

Unitech has sought approval from DIPP and the RBI to raise funds through convertible instruments to the extent of US$700mn. (ET)

IBV Brasil Petroleo, which is jointly owned by Videocon Industries and BPCL’s exploration arm Bharat Petro Resources, has found more than 150 feet of high-quality oil in Brazil’s Campos basin. (ET)

The Chennai High Court recorded 17 issues likely to be heard on the TVS Motor-Bajaj Auto dispute on the use of twin spark plug technology by TVS. (BS)

Essar Oil is likely to seal the deal with Royal Dutch Shell to buy its three refineries - two in Gemany and one in the UK - in over a month’s time. (BS)

Essar Oil and Aegis Logistics have joined hands to sell each other’s products in their outlets. (BL)

Essar Oil to foray into ATF marketing. (FE)

About 1,000 Substantial Affected Persons (SAP) in the mining and refinery complex of NALCO at Damanjodi in Koraput district have demanded rehabilitation benefits at par with the SAPs of the company in its Angul smelter and power complex. (BS)

NALCO and Hindustan Copper are jointly scouting for acquisition of copper reserves in Namibia. (ET)

Sun TV Networks increased advertising rates by 9-33% for its flagship channel Sun TV. (BL)

JSW Steel, may sell as much as 40% in its upcoming 10mn ton steel unit in West Bengal to its overseas partner. (ET)

Bhushan Steel may look at doing a JSW-JFE like deal with Japan’s Sumitomo Metals Industries. (BS)

Bharati Shipyard’s open offer to acquire 20% stake in Great Offshore is being revised as per Section 10 of the Takeover Code as advised by SEBI. (BS)

Bank of India will cut interest rate on deposits of some maturities by 25bps with effect from November 27. (BL)

Punjab National Bank plans to expand its network in Maharashtra and has sought RBI permission to add 11 branches to the existing 156 in the state. (BL)

Karnataka government will be holding high-level talks with a team from ArcelorMittal on October 27, to take forward the latter’s proposal to set up a multi-billion dollar steel plant in the state. (ET)

Ackruti City plans to set up Rs3bn textile-park on 60 acres in Bhiwandi, a textile hub near Mumbai. (BL)

HCL Security, the security arm of HCL Infosystems, has signed an agreement with technology firm Cisco for delivering IP-based safety and security solutions in India and other countries. (ET)

According to the supplementary chargesheet filed by CBI, Satyam’s founder-chairman Ramalinga Raju and his aides forged board resolutions and unauthorisedly got loans/advances of Rs12bn in the name of Satyam Computers from banks but did not reflect this in the books. (BS)

CBI in its supplementary chargesheet filed on Satyam Computer has claimed an additional fraud of Rs47bn thereby taking the overall fraud to Rs118bn from the initially estimated Rs71bn. (BL)

Shalimar Paints Ltd plans to set up a new paint manufacturing facility at Gumudipoondi, near Chennai, at an investment of Rs550mn. (BS)

Sanghvi Movers plans to invest Rs3.5bn to acquire more cranes for the power sector in the coming fiscal. (BL)

IL&FS open offer for acquiring an additional 20% stake in the Maytas Infra opens today and close on December 14. (BL)

Golden Tobacco said its board will meet on December 1 for considering a proposal from Pramod Jain to buy another 25% stake in the Sanjay Dalmia-promoted company. (ET)

L&T Infotech, the IT arm of L&T, plans to sharpen its focus on its consultancy business by setting up a separate consultancy business unit by March. (BS)

Gujarat Fluorochemicals plans to invest Rs5bn for doubling its existing capacities at its Dahej chemical complex in Bharuch district to meet increased product demand from the domestic and international markets and for captive consumption. (BL)

Bayer CropScience AG, a subsidiary of Bayer AG, and GVK Biosciences Pvt Ltd, Hyderabad, have entered into a research cooperation agreement in the area of early discovery chemistry. (BS)

XL Telecom and Energy said that it is exploring opportunities in the US and Canada. (BL)

Sistema-Shyam Teleservices (SSTL), a JV between the Russian firm Sistema and the Shyam Group, said it will start the process of listing its Indian operations on the local bourses by next year. (ET)

The Pune-Solapur Expressways, an SPV formed by Navinya Buildcon, a 100% subsidiary of Tata Realty and Infrastructure and Atlantia, has achieved financial closure by raising Rs10bn debt from financial institutions. (ET)

Air India has rescheduled the delivery of three Boeing 777-300 Extended Range aircraft beyond 2010 and 27 Boeing 787 aircraft beyond the contracted delivery period commencing April 2011. (BL)

German car maker Volkswagen plans to launch the Beetle in India on December 4. (BS)

Reva Electric Car Company plans to set up manufacturing facilities in Europe and US within the next 12 months. (BL)

Members of CII have signed eight MoUs with American companies across diverse sectors including pharmaceuticals and drug development, telecom, IT and homeland security among others. (BS)

The textile industry is expected to have tie-ups with foreign companies in apparel sourcing, fabric manufacturing and textile machinery manufacturing over the next 4-5 months. (BS)

Inorder to promote traffic of automobiles through railways, the Railways Ministry is considering setting up of 15 automobile hubs on public-private partnership basis across the country. (BS)

The Himachal Pradesh government has given approval for setting up of Rs2bn bio-technology park at Aduwal in the Baddi industrial belt. (BS)

The Uttar Pradesh government has proposed to adopt Public-Private Partnership model for procurement and marketing of agricultural produce. (BS)

The Empowered Committee on Mega Projects approved 7 new mega projects in Punjab for an investment outlay of Rs12bn. (BS)

The Orissa government has sought Rs50bn grant from the Thirteenth Finance Commission to upgrade its power infrastructure. (BS)

The Orissa government does not intend to charge higher tariff to the electricity consumers even as it prepares a contingency plan to tide over the power crisis. (BS)

The Orissa government plans to set up a panel to address the rehabilitation and resettlement issues in the state. (BS)

According to the latest figures released by the RBI, Indian companies raised US$2.6bn through overseas borrowing in October. (BL)

Hotels in Kerala have managed to maintain the April-September occupancy levels at par with year-ago levels but have seen average room rates decline. (BL)

The Minister for Civil Aviation told the Rajya Sabha that the government has given ‘in-principle’ approval for setting up 12 greenfield airport projects for public use. (BL)

The government will pay outstanding balance to holders of special bonds, issued to help the then India’s largest mutual fund UTI bridge deficit in its flagship scheme US-64 and assured return schemes, on their maturity on January 14, 2010. (ET)

Third party administrators facilitating cashless treatment in hospitals for individuals holding health insurance will have to deduct tax upfront while making payments to hospitals on behalf of patients. (ET)

ASSOCHAM has called for inclusion of alloy hot rolled coils (HRCs) in the restricted import list to protect domestic steel industry from cheap imports. (ET)

Government’s plan to ensure a balanced growth of the power market in the country by encouraging trading of power has received a severe jolt with as many as six companies surrendering their trading licences to CERC. (ET)

The government has decided to double the limit of authorized capital in public sector banks to Rs30bn. (ET)

Union Steel ministry has proposed that licensing the mining of strategic minerals should be vested to centre. (FE)

Finance ministry constituted a working group to suggest ways of rationalizing existing regulations relating to foreign portfolio investments. (FE)