Daily News Roundup - June 30 2010

State Bank of India fixed its base rate at 7.5%. (ET)

JSW Steel is planning to invest Rs750bn in both brownfield and greenfield projects to increase its capacity over fourfold to 32mtpa from the present 7.8mtpa by the turn of 2020. (ET)

JSW Steel may take another six months before Japan’s second-largest steel company, JFE Holdings, buys a stake in it. (BS)

Bharti Airtel said it will invest US$100mn over the next three years to expand in Gabon. (ET)

ONGC and its partners will sign contracts for half of 34 oil and gas blocks awarded in the latest round of auction under the NELP. (ET)

ONGC board is expected to consider a fresh cost estimate for development of the G1-GS15 marginal gas field in KG basin by April 2011, exactly five years behind the original schedule. (BL)

ICRA has upgraded the long-term rating on outstanding Rs45.9bn long-term bonds programme of Indian Oil Corporation from LAA+ and ‘positive outlook’ to LAAA. (FE)

Reliance Communications is likely to acquire privately-held cable television company Digicable in a cashless deal. (ET)

Ashok Leyland has increased prices of its medium and heavy duty vehicles by about 3% with immediate effect. (FE)

Pantaloon Retail has allotted 10mn warrants to its promoters' group company, Future Ideas Realtors India Ltd. (FE)

Cadila Healthcare (Zydus Cadila) has launched generic version of Anastrazole tablets (1 mg) in the US market upon receiving an approval from the US FDA. (BL)

Maytas Infrastructure has reported a net loss of Rs2.5bn FY10, compared with a net loss of Rs4.7bn last year. Its net revenues declined 33.2% to Rs11bn from Rs16.4bn in the previous year. (BS)

Tata Teleservices, which has won 3G spectrum licences in nine circles, has written to the government asking it to delay the allocations until the issue on usage of Chinese equipment is cleared. (BS)

Union Bank of India said it has raised Rs5bn as capital by way of debt. (ET)

Apollo Tyres would increase prices of its products next week. (FE)

Subros has picked up a minority stake in a new 74:26 joint venture with Japan’s Denso. (ET)

Alembic has decided to hive off its core pharma division into a new entity - Alembic Pharma. (ET)

RCF has proposed to invest US$1.5bn to set up a gas-based fertiliser plant with a capacity of 1mn tons in natural gas-rich Ghana. (BS)

AstraZeneca Pharma and Sulzer have sought to delist their Indian subsidiaries. (ET)

City Union Bank has received board approval to raise up to Rs3bn via QIP. (ET)

REI Agro’s Rs12.5bn rights issue will open for subscription for shareholders from Wednesday. (FE)

Aqua Logistics board has approved a proposal to raise funds to the extent of US$70mn. (FE)

Spice Mobiles said it would merge with the parent company Spice Televentures as part of a plan to consolidate the group's telecom businesses. (FE)

Uflex will invest over US$250mn in the next two years to enhance output at its manufacturing plants and set up new units. (FE)

Nasscom will make a pitch to the government, seeking continuity of tax benefits on special economic zones (SEZs) in the Direct Taxes Code (DTC). (ET)

The government has extended the special duty on import of soda ash from China. (ET)

The Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB) issued licence rules for companies laying gas pipelines. (FE)

The Union finance ministry has agreed to states’ demand that tobacco be kept within the ambit of Goods and Services Tax (GST) and alcohol outside it. (BS)

SEBI on Tuesday said that FIIs will now have to disclose information on Indian securities lent by them to overseas entities (for the purpose of short selling) on a weekly rather than a daily basis. (BL)