Daily News Roundup - May 10 2012

RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani has voluntarily capped his compensation at Rs150mn, despite having shareholders approval to earn 61% more. (ET) Put off by stifling rules and a hostile business environment, India’s largest micro-lender SKS Microfinance will move its headquarters from Hyderabad to Mumbai. (ET) The government has initiated legal action against Kingfisher Airlines towards dishonour of the cheques submitted by the carrier, while Jet Airways and Spicejet have been served notices on airport charges overdues. (ET) Piramal Healthcare is in talks with Future Generali to buy Future Group’s stake in the life insurance joint venture. (ET) The Authority for Advance Rulings has directed a Bahrain-based firm, Roxar Maximum Reservoir, to pay tax for an offshore transaction involving the entity and ONGC. (ET) IRB Infrastructure will invest around Rs1.3bn to acquire MVR Infrastructure & Tollways, which operates a highway project in Tamil Nadu, marking the road sector’s first acquisition in two years. (ET) Aditya Birla Group has submitted a non-binding bid for buying Australia-listed iron ore producing firm Northern Iron. (ET) Reliance Industries Ltd has raised US$2bn loan from nine overseas banks. This fund raising comes even as the oil major is sitting on a huge cash pile of Rs700bn. (BL) The Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd board would consider signing crude import agreement with the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR). (BS) The power generation business of Cummins India Limited announced an increase in prices of up to 3% for its diesel generator sets and generator set engines in the range of 7.5 KVA and 3000 KVA, attributing the same to current industry dynamics and projected market conditions. (BS) In a bid to cash in on the declining denim capacities in China, textile conglomerate Arvind Ltd is set to partner with a local denim mill there to tap the Chinese market. (BS) Mahindra & Mahindra lost production of about 250 vehicles due to a major fire at its manufacturing facility at Nashik in Maharashtra that has been brought under control. (FE) Economy Snippets NABARD has identified four major states which will be unable to draw funds from the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund for their ongoing projects as their borrowing power is limited by their respective Fiscal Responsibility & Budget Management Acts. (ET) RBI eased restrictions on the usage of foreign currency deposits; just days after its move to relax the interest rate ceiling on such deposits. It has allowed banks to deploy foreign currency funds raised through foreign currency non-resident deposits to lend it to exporters with natural hedge to meet their rupee-denominated working capital requirement. (ET) The government said it will soon auction 54 coal blocks that have an estimated geological reserves of about 18.22bn tonnes. (ET) State electricity boards have loans of nearly Rs800bn. The Planning Commission proposal is to distribute the restructuring burden among state governments, banks that have lent to the state power boards and the Centre. (ET)