MUMBAI: Crude oil prices were lower in Asian trade Wednesday. New York’s main futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in March, eased to $34.92 per barrel. Brent North Sea crude for April delivery fell to $40.73.

The rupee was lower at 49.72 against the dollar on concerns of capital outflows from stock market following weakness in global markets.

Commerce minister Kamal Nath is likely to announce an export booster package later this month which would address some of the crucial concerns of the exporters. The sops under consideration include simplification of rules for service tax refund, extension of time given to exporters to meet export obligation and an increase in rates of input duty reimbursement schemes like drawback and DEPB for some sectors.

The government may allow private companies to set up captive cargo handling berths at the existing 12 major ports in the country. The move will benefit steel, mining, oil and cement companies such as Tata Steel, Sesa Goa, Ispat Industries, JSW and Essar group which extensively use port facilities for importing raw materials and exporting finished products.

The Centre did an action replay at Maytas Infra and Maytas Properties, a month after it appointed a new board to salvage Satyam Computer Services. The government on Tuesday moved the Company Law Board seeking supercession of the boards of Maytas Infra and Maytas Properties, firms linked to the disgraced founder of the software firm B Ramalinga Raju.

Satyam Computer Services has called back more than 1,500 overseas employees, attached to projects that are being shut down due to termination of contract by clients. The first batch of 170 employees who were attached to State Farm Insurance, an Illinois-based insurance company, that terminated its contract with Satyam, has already returned to Satyam headquarters in Hyderabad.

The board of Hindalco Industries has approved the proposal to use $1.8 billion in its reserve to write-off costs relating to its foreign acquisition and domestic expansion.

In a bid to protect their margins — the difference between lending and deposit rates — big banks are fixing a floor on loans disbursed below their benchmark prime lending rates even as top-rated corporate borrowers continue to demand lower interest rates. Lenders such as the State Bank of India, Indian Overseas Bank, IDBI Bank, Corporation Bank, Union Bank of India and Punjab National Bank have begun fixing floor rates on loans below PLR on a case-to-case basis.

A number of institutional investors have moved the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) and the department of company affairs, objecting to Siemens’ move to sell its IT arm, Siemens Information Systems (SISL) – to German parent Siemens AG.

A consortium of private equity funds, including UAE’s leading financial institution Taib Bank, the Blackstone group and JP
Morgan, are believed to be in advanced negotiations with promoters of the DLF group to pick up a majority stake in affiliate company DLF Assets. The deal, if finalised, would fetch DLF Assets around $400-450 million.

With the global slowdown taking a heavy toll, private shipyards are now hoping to get some business from the defence sector. Companies like ABG Shipyard, Bharati and Pipavav are tying up with international engineering companies like Rolls Royce, Wartsila Diesel and Yanmer Marine, among others, to get a share of the Rs 8,000-crore defence pie for ships.

Vishal Information Technologies has fixed March 06 as the record date for the purpose of sub-division the equity shares of the company from Rs 10 each to Re 1 each.

Wockhardt will be launching generic version of migraine drug Sumatriptan in the US market. The company received USFDA approval for the sale of drug which has a market of $255 million alone in the US.

SOURCE: Economictimes

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