26th October - The Financial Express

Rishab Shukla
Ravindra Singh
Section - I

ALL REGULATORS TO GET 5 YEARS TENURES
• The government wants to bring uniformity in the tenures of the heads of various regulatory bodies, currently some regulatory heads have three years tenures, others have five years tenures.
• The heads of SEBI, RBI & TRAI have three years tenure, a uniform tenure of five years could be in place by yearly in time for the appointment of new chiefs of SEBI & RBI.
• Apart from RBI, SEBI & TRAI other regulators IRDA, CERC, PFRDA enjoy five years tenure plan.
• Government sources said the decision to have a uniform tenure for all regulatory heads was taken after demands from some of them that their tenure be extended.

SEBI DOUBLES CAP FOR RETAIL BUYERS IN IPO’S TO RS 2L
• SEBI tightened preferential allotment rules for promoters & paved the way for IPO’s of life insurer while allotting retail investors to apply for as much as Rs 2L.
• SEBI decide if promoters fails to exercise warrants allotted to them would not be eligible to issue equity shares or convertible warrant for the period of one year. Any member of promoter group , who has sold shares in previous six month , will not be eligible for an allotment on a preferential basis.
• SEBI raised the maximum application size for retail investors , across all issues, to Rs 2L from the current limit of Rs 1L.

AFRICA AID SCHEME PROVES NON-STARER
• China continues to make deep inroads into African economies by extending attractive credit lines, India has failed to even meet its commitments to provide economics assistance.
• New Delhi is yet to start allocating firms out of the $ 5.4 billion line of credit sanctioned by the Union cabinet for Africa for did bursal.
• Its difficult for India to take advantage of the 5% annual GDP growth rate for sub Saharan Africa.
• IMF in a report release this week the growth expected to touch .5.5 next year.
• The Indian-Africa Forum Summit held in New Delhi in 2008.Manmohan Singh has committed to provide these funds in 5 years beginning 2009-10.The funding is to be given under the Indian Development & Economic Assistance Scheme which has been a non- performer.Rs.40.51 crores allocated under this scheme have been surrendered.
• China says another IMF Report has sanctioned atleast $19 million within just one year, 2006.

TRADE DEFICIT NARROWS TO $9.12 BN IN SEP.
• India’s trade deficit dropped to $9.12 billion in September.
• In August imports outpaced exports at an alarming rate, pushing the trade deficit to a 23 month higher of $ 13.06 billion.
• Commerce minister Anand Sharma said India traditionally had a high trade deficit & so, it was not a cause for concern yet. India is a big exporter of many commodities. Hence, the trade deficit is on higher side.
• During September overall merchandise export rose 23.2% to $108.02 billion while imports jumped 26.1% to $ 27.14 billion. In April September period, total merchandise export stood at $ 103.3 billion an increase of 27.6% & imports grew by 30% T $166.5 billion. The total gap in trade stood at $63.2 billion.

NO POLICY TIGHTENING IF INFLATION FALLS BELOW 8%, SAYS RANGARAJAN
• If inflation slides below 8% the RESERVE BANK OF INDIA(RBI) need not tighten money in its next policy review on November 2,said Rangarajan(Prime minister's Economic Advisory Council.
• Monetary policy has a role to play even when the inflation is triggered by high food prices because if food inflation persists for some time it gets generalized and affects headline inflation.
• Good monsoon will help in meeting increased demand in the economy and also cool overall inflation to 6.5% by December and 5.5% by march.

INDIA INC EYES EASING OF EXPORT CONTROL NORMS
• With the focus of the forthcoming visit of US President Barack Obama to India is to showcase what the two countries can do together in trade and defence.
• Bilateral trade is expected to touch $50 billion.
• Between 2004 and 2008.our two way trade doubled to $43 billion. There was some drop in 2009.But the way ahead is encouraging.
Top on Obama's agenda are defence, climate change, science and technology, education, health, clean energy, trade, market access and high tech exports.

GOVT BUYS BACK BONDS WORTH Rs. 2K CRORE
• The government has infused Rs. 2148 crores into the economy of buying back of bonds from the banks.
• Last week government has announced that in consultation with RBI that it would buy back bonds worth Rs. 12000 crores in one or more trenches to meet liquidity of system.
• Banks have also borrowed Rs. 89,960 crores from RBI's repo window at 6%, implying a liquidity crunch in the system.

HDFC BANK TOPPLES ICICI IN CREDIT CARDS WITH 5 M BASES
• With a base of 5 million cards, HDFC bank is now an undisputed leader in credit card base from a high of 8.5 million to four million cards at present.
• Credit card spends by Indian consumers have seen a 27% jump in august 2010.
• HSBC India with a card base of 1.5 million is also growing its portfolio once again.

CENTRAL BANK UPS BASE RATE BY 50 BPS
• Public sector Central Bank of India has revised upwards its base rate 50 bps.
• Bank's base rate now stands at 8.50% as against the earlier 8%
• The revised base rate is effective from October 20.

NO MAJOR LPG SHORTFALL: PSUs CLAIM
• Public sector oil marketing companies have confirmed that there is no shortfall of LPG in the country
• Any fall in production at refineries is compensated by arranging additional imports at Mumbai and Gujarat.
• The oil industry has decided to operate the bottling plants on holidays/Sundays as well as extended hours during normal days to ensure availability.
• Enrolment of customers during the current financial year is approx. 7lacs in Maharashtra & Madhya Pradesh.

DDA CAN ENCASH EMAAR BANK GUARANTEE:HC
• The Delhi High Court allowed the DDA to encash Rs. 90 crore, which was deposited by Emaar MGF(the builder of Commonwealth Games village) as bank guarantee,for not completing the project on time.
• The order was passed on a petition filed by the company seeking to restrain DDA from seizing the bank guarantee of Rs.183 crore as damages for not completing project on time.
• The court said the rest of the amount will not be encashed if it had not been done so far.

WAL-MART OKAY WITH PACE OF RETAIL FDI REFORMS
• Mike Duke, Wal-Mart’s global CEO met the deputy chairman of planning commission, Montek
Singh Ahluwalia and commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma, said he got positive response towards opening opening the multi- brand retail sector to foreign investment.
• Regarding its JV with Bharti Retail, Duke said until now the two companies share a beneficial agreement and after analyzing the changes made by the govt. would he be able to comment on it.

HUL ACHIEVES HAT-TRICK OF DOUBLE- DIGIT SALES GROWTH
• Hindustan Unilever posted a 32% rise in its net profit at Rs. 566.12 crore in the three months ended September 2010 against Rs. 428.53 crore in the same quarter last year.
• There was an exceptional gain of Rs. 40 crore including a reduction in restructuring cost, an asset sale and profit on long term investments. Excluding the exceptional gains, the profits have grown by 7% year-on-year.
• Personal products category grew by 15%.HUL shares rose 1.36% on the BSE on Monday to close at Rs. 305.65.

IDEA NET PROFIT FALLS 10.5% TO RS. 180 CR
• Idea Cellular reported a decline in net profit by about 10.5% to Rs.180 crore in the second quarter against Rs. 201 crore in the first quarter of the current financial year.
• Average revenue per user (Arpu) during the quarter was down by 8%.Idea’s pan-India
• Ebitda margins declined to 24% during the quarter from 24.3% from the last quarter.
• The company said it would launch the 3G dervices by the first quarter of the next calendar year.

MANU ANAND TO HEAD PEPSICO INDIA
Manu Anand will succeed sanjeev chadha as chairman & CEO, PepsiCo India.The Company has announced chadha will take over as PepsiCo’s chief for the west Asia & Africa region, with effect from january1, 2011.
He will also be a member of PepsiCo’s global leadership team: the PepsiCo Executive committee. Anand moves into this role from Thailand, where he was the CEO for south east Asia, responsible for foods and beverages business in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, And The Pacific Islands.

BHARTI TO LAUNCH 3G BY YEAR END
The country’s largest telecom operator Bharti Airtel would commence its 3G services by the end of this year. With it is third operator after Tata Teleservices and Vodafone- Essar to announce the launch of 3G services in the country.
Bharti Airtel won 3G spectrum in 13 telecom circles of the total 22 for Rs 12,295 crore.
These 13 circles also constitute 68% of Airtel’s revenue market share in the country. The circles include key metros such as Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, and Hyderabad, which account for 21%of all data traffic in the country.

Coal India issue priced at Rs 245
The government on Monday fixed coal India’s mega IPO issue price at Rs 245 per share, the upper end of initial offer price range.
The government would fetch over Rs 15000 crores by issuing 63.16 crore shares of Coal India at a price of Rs 245 per share. It will offer a discount of 5% to retail investors. The company is expected to list on stock exchanges on November 4,with some fireworks a day before Diwali. Coal India’s initial public offer, which closed on October 21, made history by getting oversubscribed by 15.17 times mopping up Rs 2,35,290 crore.

I-T DISTORTING HC ORDER: VODAFONE
• Supreme court adjourns case till November 15.
• Vodafone International Holdings BV on Monday challenged the income tax department’s new demand notice asking the British telecom giant to pay around Rs 11,218 crore as tax on the 2007 Vodafone-Hutch cross-border deal that created Vodafone-Essar.
• The department on October 22 had issued a new order raising a tax demand of Rs 11,217.95 crores on Vodafone International while treating it as an assesses in default for failure to deduct tax as required before making a payment of $11,076 million to Hutchison Telecommunication International, The order came pursuant to the apex court’s directions on September 27 asking the assistant director of income tax to determine the potential tax liability on the basis of apportionment within 4 weeks.
• The bench headed by chief justice SH Kapadia adjourned the matter till November 15 after the telecom company said it was filling a new application challenging the new demand notice fixing its liability.