Daily News Roundup - July 20 2010

Emirates Telecommunications (Etisalat) is close to buying 26% in telecom firm Reliance Communications. (BS)

BHEL has won an order from Dainik Bhaskar Power worth Rs26.7bn (US$567mn) for setting up a 1,200 megawatts thermal power plant. (ET)



Malaysian investor Khazanah may have to pay more than US$4/share for Singapore’s Parkway or at least 3.1% above its share price to ward off rival bidder Fortis Healthcare. (BS)

GTL Infrastructure has completed the acquisition of 17,500 telecom towers of Aircel and expects an immediate annual revenue of Rs7.2bn.(ET)

L&T General Insurance, the wholly owned subsidiary of Larsen & Toubro, has received approval from IRDA and would start operations within six to ten weeks. (BS)

Bajaj Auto plans to switch to assembling completely knocked-down parts of its motorcycles in its Indonesian plant in the second half of 2010-11, as it will attract lower Customs duties. (BL)

With the Cabinet allowing extra time for drilling wells, Reliance Industries may be able to establish more commercially-viable oil and gas finds in the largest gas field KG-D6. (ET).

Era Infra Engineering Ltd is evaluating QIP and private equity options to raise about Rs7.5bn for implementing the national highway projects that it won in the last one year. (BL)

NTPC Ltd has started commercial operations at its second coal-based 490MW power plant at Uttar Pradesh's Dadri to provide electricity to the Capital for the Commonwealth Games. (BL)

Shriram Group is likely to take over the cash-strapped front-end retail company of Vishal Retail Ltd, after leading private equity investor Texas Pacific Group takes charge of its wholesale division. (BS)

Arcelor Mittal is understood to be jointly working with its domestic partner Uttam Galva for setting up Rs150bn steel plant in Maharashtra. (ET)

Siemens VAI Metals, a unit of Siemens AG with India's Shriram EPC has won an order to construct a rolling mill for SAIL’s plant at Durgapur. (ET)

Bilcare Technologies has announced successful execution of its non ClonableID solution for the security, pharma and agrochemical sectors. (ET)

When the EGoM meets for gas allocation on July 27, it is likely to commit supply for power plants coming up in 2011-12 like Lanco, GMR, Sravanthi power units. (BS)

Bayer CropScience, a part of Bayer Group of Germany, would offer 100 acres of land in Thane, on the outskirts of Mumbai, for sale. (BS)

The US District Court for New Jersey denied Sun Pharmaceutical’s appeal to reverse an earlier jury verdict in the patent litigation over the generic version of Wyeth’s heartburn medicine, Protonix. (BS)

Viacom18 Media filed a petition before broadcasting tribunal TDSAT, asking it to restrain MSM Discovery from distributing and marketing its channels. (BS)

Areva T&D India has bagged a Rs1.3bne eBOP (electrical Balance of Plant) contract for the 600MW Warora thermal power plant being set by the GMR Group in Maharashtra. (BL)

NMDC plans to increase its iron ore production capacity from 29mn metric tonnes at present to 51mn metric tonnes by 2014-15. (ET)

Steel Strips Wheels has set up a manufacturing plant at a cost of Rs1.4bn for supplying the parts to leading auto majors. (ET)

Pharma companies have contested the drug regulator’s decision to ban advertisement of their emergency contraceptive pill brands.(ET)

Canara Bank may raise Rs5-6bn through the debt route over the next few weeks. (ET)

Merchandise exports rose 30.4% yoy to US$17.75bn in June, while imports grew by 23% to US$28.3bn, resulting in a trade deficit of US$10.55bn. (BS)

The government today revised upward its estimate for foodgrain production at 218.20mn tons in the 2009-10 crop year. (BS)

The chemicals and fertilisers ministry would soon come out with a new policy to encourage investments in the fertiliser sector, particularly to enhance urea production. (BS)

SEBI panel has suggested for hiking open offer trigger to 25% from the current 15% and raising the offer size to 100% of the equity in the target company. (ET)