Daily News Roundup - Jan 19 2010

Bharti Airtel plans to pick up stake in public sector telecom companies in Africa and other developing countries through the disinvestment process. (BL)

GAIL will pick up 4% stake in the US$2bn Myanmar-China gas pipeline project, while OVL, the overseas arm of ONGC, will pick up another 8-8.5% stake in the pipeline project that will link two gas producing blocks A1 and A3 in Myanmar with consuming centres in the mainland China. (ET)

Government has asked ONGC to adopt a consortium approach instead of a joint venture with the Hindujas to pick up participating interest in the US$12.5bn South Pars-12 gas projects in Iran that would ensure long-term supply of 6mn ton of LNG to India. (ET)

L&T will invest around Rs250bn to build its thermal power business in the next five years. (ET)

L&T may borrow US$4.4bn to build a power-generation business and is considering buying coal mines in Australia and Indonesia to gain fuel supplies. (FE)

TCS will complete the process of bringing on board freshers from the 2008-09 batch by March. (BL)

TCS has decided to give salary increments to its 0.2mn employees during financial year ending March 2011. (ET)

NTPC is betting on higher valuations for its upcoming FPO, thanks to the new `French auction' model slated to be tried out for the institutional portion of the proposed share sale. (BL)

GAIL is keen to join NTPC in a new 2,000 MW power plant planned adjacent to the beleaguered Dabhol plant in Maharashtra. (ET)

Indian Hotels has decided not to subscribe to a public offer from the luxury hotel chain Orient Express Hotels. (ET)

Reliance Capital is looking to sell up to 20% stake in Reliance Mutual Fund to a strategic foreign partner. (ET)

M&M launched its recently-developed small commercial vehicle Gio in the South Indian market, beginning with Hyderabad. (BL)

Tata Tea, which had gradually increased its stake in Mount Everest Mineral Water over 10 months, has now acquired management control, with a 50.2% stake. (BS)

ICICI Bank raised deposit rates on select maturities. (BS)

State-owned IDBI Bank plans to acquire Kerala-based private sector lender Federal Bank. (BS)

The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas will try to provide gas to refineries such as MRPL as a cheaper alternative to process crude oil. (BL)

Reliance Communications is learnt to have begun talks with strategic and financial investors for selling 5% stake in its tower unit prior to the planned initial public offering. (FE)

Tata Communications said it has reached an agreement to acquire BT Group’s Mosaic business. (ET)

Infotech Enterprises acquired US-based Daxcon Engineering Inc in an all-cash deal for an undisclosed sum. (BS)

Infotech Enterprises won a major avionics contract from Hamilton Sundstrand Corporation, a subsidiary of US-based United Technologies Corp. (BL)

Half of the group of banks led by SBI, have indicated of opting for a conversion of Wockhardt’s bonds into convertible preferential instruments of, with conversion to take place after 8-10 years. (BS)

Shree Ashtavinayak Cine Vision, the film production company, plans to invest Rs4.6bn to expand its movie entertainment business. (BS)

DLF has decided to exit its mutual fund joint venture with Prudential Financial Inc. (BL)

Monsanto will gross roughly Rs3.4bn from licensing its proprietary Bollgard gene traits to Bt cotton hybrid seed firms in India this fiscal. (BL)

Leitner Shriram Manufacturing Ltd, a JV between Shriram EPC and Leitner Technologies of Europe, received orders for installing 45MW of wind turbines in Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. (BL)

Sakthi Sugars has allotted 1.1mn equity shares to two institutional investors following the conversion of US$4.7mn FCCBs. (ET)

Moser Baer launched content-loaded Micro SD cards for use on mobile devices. (BL)

Marg Ltd signed a project development agreement with the Karnataka Government to develop the Bijapur Airport. (BL)

Golden Tobacco received the shareholders’ permission at an EGM to develop property at Vile Parle in Mumbai and sell real estate assets in Hyderabad and Guntur. (ET)

Following a recent directive from RBI to specify the end use of its Rs43bn bond issue, the Essar group said it has issued a new memorandum detailing the "potential" areas where the money would be utilized. (ET)

The Mumbai-based Wadhwa Group bought 18.2 acres in Mumbai’s Ghatkopar suburb for Rs5.7bn from Hindustan Composites Ltd. (BS)

Coal India Ltd plans to go to its board this month with specific "strategic partnership" proposals underlining overseas coal-offtake agreements and equity joint ventures with international majors. (BL)

Strategic Energy Technology Systems, a JV between Tatas and South Africa’s Sasol, is yet to decide on the location of its proposed Rs450bn coal-to-liquid project in Orissa. (BS)

Mumbai-based Oberoi Realty, which plans to raise Rs15bn, filed its draft red herring prospectus for an IPO of 39.6mn equity shares with a face value of Rs 10. (BL)

The government during the Budget 2010-11 may partially roll back tax cuts; raise service tax to 12% and increase excise duty marginally. (BS)

Finance Minister has asked Communications Minister to complete the auction of the 3G spectrum within the agreed deadline, inorder to reflect the revenue from it in the Union Budget 2009-10. (BS)

CERC announced renewable energy certificate norms in a bid to promote power generation from clean sources. (BS)

Failure to comply with renewable purchase obligations will attract ‘regulatory charges', the nature of which will be laid by the respective State Electricity Regulatory Commissions, for entities in the renewable energy business. (BL)

One of the most favoured duty reimbursement schemes among exporters - the Duty Entitlement Passbook scheme - is likely to be scrapped as the government gears up to introduce the Goods and Services Tax from April 1. (BS)

The Centre has suggested setting up a common dispute resolution scheme for settlement of cases in the proposed goods and services tax. (BS)

The Supreme Court today asked TRAI to fix tariffs for DTH services by June 30 and place the plan before it. (BS)

The Andhra Pradesh Cabinet today approved Rs888mn Government guarantee for six co-operative sugar factories to meet their financial requirements during the current season. (BL)

ATF will be kept out of the GST net even as the domestic airline industry is keen on its inclusion in the new tax system. (BL)

The finance ministry has rejected a proposal from the department of industrial policy and promotion to drop the mandatory three-year lock-in for foreign direct investment in real estate.(ET)

The Orissa High Court has directed CBI to investigate the alleged Rs310bn mark-to-market gains of leading banks from exotic foreign exchange derivative contracts that were made at the expense of customers. (FE)