Tata Metaliks is engaged in the business of manufacturing and selling
Foundry Grade pig iron. Its plant, located at Kharagpur in the state of West Bengal and Redi in Maharashtra , consists of five Mini Blast Furnaces and related facilities including Captive Power Plants. The Company has been progressing steadily in its growth path. The Redi plant of the Company has performed well and (more…)

Tags: Analysis-Reports, INVESTMENT VIEW & MARKET GUIDANCE, share trading, stock investing, stock investment, stock market advice, stock market research, Tata Metaliks

Enthused by the sops and reliefs as granted by the Union Government and also by the Reserve Bank of India, the courageous investors continued to mop up the scrips of their choice and thereby helped a vast majority of leading and frontline stocks gain further gound during the week that was. In sympathy with the leading ones, the medium and a few low quality stocks notched small to handsome gains too. The BSE Sensex marched past 10,000- mark. (more…)

Tags: banking stocks, bse sensex, FIIs, inflation, Realty Stocks, sensex

Open market share buybacks have brought little cheer to investors in the last six months. Market values of 25 out of 34 companies have declined after they announced buybacks during this period. Only nine stocks managed to buck the trend by appreciating between 1 and 40 per cent.
The 34 companies had made a combined provision of Rs 2,730 crore to buy back 172 million shares through open market purchase. Real-estate heavyweight DLF has made a provision of Rs 1,100 crore for buying back 22 million shares and has fixed a floor price of Rs 600 per share. The stock was trading at Rs 458.35 when the buyback was announced on July 10, 2008. However, now the scrip has fallen to Rs 277.39 on BSE, registering a decline of over 40 per cent. So far, the company has bought back 2.1
million shares. Now, Satyam Computer Services, the company that made a flip-flop by announcing two acquisitions and calling the same off within 12 hours under investor pressure, is going to consider a buyback at its board meeting on December 29. Going by the trend in the last six months, even Satyam’s move could prove to be a damp squib if the company goes in for open market buyback. The company has Rs 6,200 crore in its reserves and surplus kitty. If it offers open market buyback, it can use Rs 1,550 crore to buy 6.6 per cent shares at the current market value of Rs 169.35. Buyback of shares through open market mechanism means a company purchasing its own shares at the prevailing market price, subject to the overall limit approved by its shareholders. In this case, there is no pre-determined ceiling price fixed by the company as in case of tender buyback. In a share buyback programme, the acquired stocks are liquidated, thereby reducing the company’s equity base.
Buyback of equity shares is a common practice in a bear market. The difference between the open market buyback and tender buyback is that, in the first mechanism, promoters are not allowed to participate, while in the second, they can be part of the process on a proportionate basis.

Tags: Buyback, satyam, Satyam Computer Services, Satyam computers

Last fortnight, The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) cut repo rate (the rate at which RBI lends to banks) and reverse repo rate (the rate at which banks keep surplus funds with RBI) by 100 basis points each. The repo rate is now 6.5 per cent, down from 7.5 per cent and reverse repo rate has come down to 5 per cent from the earlier 6 per cent, effective 8 December. Talking about the cuts, RBI governor D. Subbarao said, “The new rates are (more…)

Tags: HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Prime lending rates, Reserve Bank of India

Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL) is keen on substantially increasing its stake in Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals (MRPL) from the present level of 16.97 per cent. The 9.6-million tonne standalone refinery is now in the control of the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), which holds 72.15 per cent equity. Financial institutions and the public account for the balance.

It is up to ONGC to decide if it wants to divest a part of its stake in favour of HPCL. Ironically, it would mark a complete volte-face given that the latter was the original co-promoter of MRPL with the AV Birla group way back in the 1990s. The project then was not making money and relations between the two partners were not that rosy either.

As sources recall, HPCL could have easily bought out the Birlas’ stake in the project when it was “literally offered on a platter”. As it hemmed and hawed, ONGC quickly stepped into the picture, acquired the 37.4 per cent stake for nearly Rs 60 crore and then pumped in an additional Rs 1,000 crore in phases to increase its stake to over 72 per cent.
(more…)

Tags: balmer lawrie, mangalore refinery, mangalore refinery petrochemical ltd, mrpl, mrpl.co.in, ONGC, www.mrpl.co.in, www.vit.ac.in

India’s largest bank, State Bank of India (SBI) has been declared as the ‘Best Bank of the Year 2008′ by The Banker magazine, at the ninth annual Banker Awards in London.

A press release by the bank stated that its Chairman, Mr. O P Bhatt received the award from the Editor-in-Chief of the magazine, Stephen Timewell.

The award was announced on the grounds of intensive research and analysis of financials and performance of famous banks. It acknowledged the institutions that have managed to meet the challenges of financial crisis with skill, courage and expertise. On these entire bases SBI appeared to be the winner and best bank in the country.

BNP Paribas, one of the largest and strongest financial services groups in the world, was also announced (more…)

Tags: Best Bank, SBI, sbi.com, state bank of india, www.sbi.com, www.statebankofindia.com

Not many had figured that the economy would slow down so fast. And now that it has, we can at best speculate how long it will stay this way. The global economic turmoil has added ‘sub-prime’ to the common man’s vocabulary, wreaked havoc in the stock market, and taken down some very big names in the financial world. It has not spared the job market either. Still, India is expected to grow at 7 per cent plus. While not as good as the 9 per cent of the previous year, it is still not as bad as the mayhem elsewhere. (more…)

Tags: strategies for survival, survival strategies, working professionals

After witnessing the terror attacks in Mumbai, the horrified hospitality industry has started taking measures to tighten up the security and preparing some sort of guidelines to avoid ‘notorious guests’.

Mr S.P. Jain, managing director, Pride Group of Hotels and president, Federation of Hotel and Restaurant Associations, western region, said: “We are arranging meetings with the crime branch departments of various cities and seeking advice.” (more…)

Tags: terror, tourism

The Reserve Bank on Friday extended the time period for credit facilities given to various sectors including exporters to help them tide over credit crunch and battle the economic slowdown.

In view of the difficulties being faced by exporters on account of the weakening of external demand, RBI decided to extend the period of concessional pre-shipment credit from 90 days to 180 days. The facility would come into effect from December 1, an RBI release said. (more…)

Tags: credit crunch, economic slowdown, RBI

The terror war on Mumbai was on the verge of ending tonight with security forces securing the 5-star Oberoi hotel and a Jewish Centre but a lone gunman continued to hold out inside the Taj hotel at the end of pitched combat that left 30 hostages dead.

At the Centre, a residential complex housing a prayer hall, commandos were air dropped from helicopters in first such operation in urban India the security forces spent the entire day to clear it. Two terrorists were killed but not before five of the hostages were eliminated by them.

A clean-up operation was still on late tonight at the Centre where the victims reportedly included the Rabbi and his wife.

The might of the Indian security forces had to be brought in to rid these landmarks in the country’s financial capital of the heavily-armed suspected Pakistani terrorists who seized the two hotels and the Centre on Wednesday night, but the costs were heavy on both sides.

When the Oberoi was cleared of the terrorists this afternoon, as many as 30 hostages were found dead raising the toll in the worst terrorist strike against India to over 160 including 16 security personnel. 11 terrorists were also eliminated, one was captured and one, possibly two, were still inside the Taj.PTI

For More info:

http://hindu.com/

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Homepage/Homepage.aspx

http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/default.aspx

http://www.zeenews.com/

Tags: mumbai attack, mumbai news, NDTV, star news, terror attacks, times of india, www.aajtak.com, www.ajtak.in, www.ndtv.com, www.star news.com, www.starnews, www.zeenews.com