Daily News Roundup - May 31 2011

Japan’s Kokuyo will buy 50.3% stake in office stationary maker Camlin for over Rs3.65bn in three tranches, after which the Indian firm will be converted into a joint venture. (ET)

ONGC is heading for a legal battle over royalty payments for India’s biggest oilfield in Rajasthan irrespective of the outcome of Vedanta Resources’ US$9.6bn bid to buy Cairn India that operates the field. (ET)

Infosys said its brand value climbed 12% during FY11 to become nearly US$8.87bn, despite ongoing allegations of visa misuse in the US and its founder chairman NR Narayanamurthy set to step down this August. (ET)



Four senior executives at Hindustan Unilever have quit over the past few months after spending almost two decades with the company.

A consortium of ONGC, Petronet and GAIL has bid for a stake in Novatek's liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in the Russian Arctic. (BS)

The controversy surrounding falling production from Reliance Industries Ltd’s D6 field in the Krishna-Godavari (KG) basin is heading for a hearing by an empowered group of ministers on June 9. (BS)

Indian Oil Corporation is currently incurring revenue loss of Rs2.61bn a day on account of fuel sales at state-set prices. (BS)

Indian Oil Corporation may hike petrol price next month as the steep hike of Rs5/litre of May 15 was not enough to cover for the cost of crude oil. (BS)

TCS announced the launch of TCS Bancs Treasury 5.0, an integrated, multi-entity, multi-currency treasury solution, for providing support to front, mid- and back-offices. (BS)

Mahindra & Mahindra plans to launch eight new vehicles in the current fiscal year. (BS)

Sun Pharma will spend a consolidated Rs4.5bn, about 6% of its sales in the present financial year, on research and development. (BL)

Hexaware Ltd has signed a three-year contract in of more than $25mn for providing remote infrastructure management services to an existing client in Europe. (BS)

IVRCL Limited has bagged orders aggregating to Rs 8.9bn for execution of water, buildings, power and transportation works. (BL)

Mahindra Satyam has established a centre of excellence (CoE) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia which will provide support for global testing for payment card security provider MasterCard's business applications, as well as application development in Java and business intelligence. (BS)

Development Credit Bank has received approval from the RBI for 10 new branches.(BL)

Lanco Infratech is all set to tie up funds of about Rs250bn during the current fiscal to finance its power capacity expansion programme. (BS)

PVR Ltd board has approved a buyback of equity shares at a price not exceeding Rs140 per share for a total of Rs262.2mn. (BS)

Central Bank of India and Vijaya Bank have chalked out their recruitment plans for the current financial year and will take in about 2,500 and 1,500 employees respectively. (BL)
Economy Snippets

Power generation companies have expressed concern over the government's proposal of "pooling" international and domestic coal prices, which is aimed at selling the raw material at a uniform price to the customers. (BS)

The Reserve Bank of India should determine the floor rate for the savings bank deposit interest rate without prescribing any ceiling, according to the All India Bank Depositors Association. (BL)

The country's economic growth is likely to slip to 8% this fiscal from the estimated 8.6% in 2010-11, due to slowdown in agriculture and services, according to a survey by Ficci. (BS)

The Centre is set to announce significant hikes, ranging from 15 to 17%, in the minimum support prices (MSP) of most crops to be planted during the ensuing kharif season. (BL)