Daily News Roundup - Aug 12 2013

Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) has operationalised the nation’s largest blast furnace at its Rourkela Steel Plant. It will increase SAIL’s hot metal capacity by 2.5 mn tonnes per annum (mtpa) to 4.5 mtpa, the company said in a statement. (BL)

Syndicate Bank is expecting credit to grow at 15-16 % this fiscal, and a net interest margin of about 2.80 %. (BL)

Tata Motors-owned Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is considering a major expansion plan at its UK factory which could create as many as 1,000 jobs. (ET)

The competition in the compact car segment is hotting up, with Maruti Suzuki India set to launch a brand new model early next year in response to rival Hyundai's soon-to-be-launched Grand i10. (ET)

Surya Roshni is aiming to achieve revenue of Rs2.5bn from LED segment by 2016. (ET)

Bombay Rayon Fashions, which owns brands such as Vero Moda and Jack & Jones, has asked its lenders to convert 10% of the total loan into equity to lessen its debt burden of Rs41bn. (ET)

Ending months of negotiation, Irish building materials giant CRH has agreed to buy Sree Jayajothi Cements (SJJC) from the Shriram Group for an enterprise valuation of around Rs14bn said multiple sources involved in the transaction. (ET)

Sun Pharmaceutical Industries has said it will pay its dues of Rs 25.17bn soon as part of settlement agreement with Wyeth (now a division of Pfizer Inc.) and Altana Pharma AG (now known as Takeda GmbH). (ET)

V-Guard Industries is eyeing a 25 % jump in sales revenue this fiscal to Rs17bn driven by new products, booming electrical cable and solar heater businesses and increasing focus on non-South markets. (ET)

The Aditya Birla group is planning to invest US$1 bn in setting up a chemical/fertiliser plant in the US to take advantage of the falling gas prices in that country. (BS)

Tata Group is preparing a blueprint to promote the Tata brand globally and has identified the US, Europe and Africa as areas of focus. (BS)

Having already strengthen its presence in Southern and Western region, now Kalyan Jewellers is planning to expand in the Northern region. (BS)

Lenders to Kingfisher Airlines have taken possession of Kingfisher House, the airline’s headquarters near Mumbai airport, after the guarantors — chairman Vijay Mallya and United Breweries (Holdings) Ltd - failed to pay the dues. (BS)

The Airports Authority of India is set to privatise the operation and maintenance of the Chennai airport. (BL)

Economy Snippets
With public sector banks showing a marked increase in bad loans, the Finance Ministry has asked these banks to diligently conduct quarterly inspection of units/enterprises jointly financed by them.(BL)

The Reserve Bank will soon set up a high-level panel of eminent experts from the banking and financial sector to screen applications of 26 aspirants for new banking licences.(ET)

Good monsoon has brought some respite to the power sector as the peak power deficit for the month of July dropped to 4.5 %from 5.8 % in June.(ET)

India imported over 2 mn tonnes (MT) of urea in the first four months of this fiscal worth US$ 614 mn to meet domestic demand, which is expected to further rise on good monsoon.(ET)