Daily News Roundup - June 21 2010

Reliance Industries to foray into power; plans mega investment. (BL)

Besides getting 468 branches, ICICI Bank will also get control of 58 branches of a regional rural bank sponsored by Bank of Rajasthan. (BL)

Saudi Binladin Group is all set to buy a 20% stake in Maytas Infra. (BS)



Reliance Power has started generating power from the second unit of Rosa thermal power project. (ET)

Dr Reddy’s Laboratories is exploring the option of demerging its domestic formulations business and unlocking value. (BS)

Maruti Suzuki plans to introduce a CNG variant of its recently upgraded WagonR hatchback within the next three months. The upgraded version could cost about Rs 70,000 more. (BS)

IDFC is likely to divest a 26% stake in its AMC to global fund managers. (ET)

Promoters of Max India have increased their stake in the company to about 35% last week and are expected to raise their holding further in the near future. (BS)

Brigade Enterprises has announced that it will raise up to Rs7.5bn by the issue of equity-based securities to various investors by means of public or private offering or QIP or through preferential share allotment. (BS)

Dabur India has completed the merger with Fem Care Pharma. (ET)

Gammon Infrastructure to enter thermal power generation business for which it has signed an agreement to acquire a company that is setting up a 250MW power plant. (BL)

Subhash Projects aims to raise Rs3bn to finance its Bhiwandi water project by selling equity of the special purpose vehicle. (ET)

Ceat Tyres is planning to set up a greenfield facility at Haridwar in Uttarakhand to make radial and tubeless tyres. (ET)

Essar Group wants to partner with Uganda’s government to explore for oil in the East African country. (ET)

Ahluwalia Contracts bagged 11 new orders worth Rs5.05bn from various entities. (ET)

Atul Auto plans to set up a new three-wheeler manufacturing plant in a southern state in the next two-years. (ET)

Future Group plans to invest Rs6bn over the next 18 months for the expansion of its hyper market retail chain Big Bazaar. (ET)

Reliance Broadcast Network will form an equal joint venture with US media conglomerate CBS Corp to own and operate TV channels. (BS)

Novelis could bid for the rolled products division of Rio Tinto Alcan. (ET)

FDI in the services sector dropped by 33.5% to US$4.39bn during 2009-10. (BS)

India’s exports grew for the seventh straight month, rising by 34.1% to US$16.1bn in May. (BS)

The finance ministry said it might tag the securities transaction tax (STT) with the capital gains tax, or continue to levy it in its existing form. (BS)

Insurance industry regulator Irda has emerged the victor in a tussle over the regulation of socalled unit-linked insurance plans, or Ulips, with the government. (ET)

India’s foreign exchange reserves rose by US$1.69bn last week. (ET)

Port traffic at the 12 major ports, for the month of May, grew by 4.5% yoy to 48mn tonnes. (DNA)