head lines 9 april

Economic times

UTI MF to sell stakes in L&T, ITC and Axis Bank.

Britannia to sell 22 acre property in Chennai to HCL.

Committee of sectaries clears proposal to shift royalty rates from the present specific duty to ad volarem rates.
Indian Railways to offer 74% stake to private players in various JV related to work for the dedicated freight corridors.

Reliance Industries to rethink on its proposed foray into fertilizer business.
Steel makers Tata Steel, Essar Steel, SAIL and Ispat to consider levying raw material surcharge of Rs5,000 per ton on HR coil.

Hindu Business Line

ONGC to buyback Cairn’s 30% stake in Cambay block.
Nitin Fire formally acquires 40% in Dubai company New Age.
C&C Construction wins Rs5,740mn order by Jaiprakash Associates.
Ucal Fuel buys out Mikuni Corporation’s 26% stake.
Vakrangee Software scouting for a software product firm.
Sonata Software to set up new facility in Bangalore in the Global Village SEZ.
Dolphin Offshore gets L1 for Gujarat shipyard project.

Business standard

Reports of a possible takeover bid for Orchid Chemicals by Solrex Pharma, a company controlled by the Ranbaxy group.
Essar Group planning to merge tower arm with GTL Ltd.
Britannia Industries suspends production in Chennai to optimize cost of sourcing.
Ranbaxy gets Japanese clearance for hypertension drug amlodipine.
Areva T&D India bags orders worth Rs4.2bn from Essar Construction.
Garware Offshore to buy three tugs and two platform supply vessels for a total of US$100mn.
Spanco Telesystems plans to set up centres in China and Malaysia.
Dish TV, Tata Sky may post loss of Rs14bn for FY08.
The clinical research division of Suven Lifesciences enters in a pact with Chinese contract research firm for clinical trials.
Subex awarded contract from Fintur group to deliver fraud management solutions.
United Spirits denies talks of stake sale.
Tata Chemicals launched the constructicn of its first bio-ethanol plant.

Government approves extension of CAS in a phased manner.
Finance Ministry approves Rs500bn plan for power transmission reforms.

Mint

Hero Honda opened its third factory in Haridwar and said it would invest additional Rs1.5bn.

L&T wins Rs16.9bn worth contracts for building water supply pipelines and steel plants.
Environmental groups oppose World Bank funding for Tata’s coal fired power plant in Mundra.
PTC India ties up with Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency to promote renewable energy power plants.
Parsvnath to set up 370-acre pharma SEZ.
Government to allow Dollar-Rupee futures soon.
India allows duty free imports from poor African countries.
Telecom Minister may release start-up radio frequency to new telecom players in next two days.

Financial Express

Opto Circuit acquires majority stake in Criticare Systems Inc.
Carburettors to acquire entire 26% equity stake of Ucal Fuel held by co-promoter Mikuni Corporation of Japan.
State Trading Corporation invites tenders for purchase of Urea on long term basis at a discount on fare market price.
Government clears 20 FDI proposals.
State government to keep VAT unchanged on intermediate goods to compensate for losses from reduction in central sales tax.
State government to levy a 4% VAT on imports beginning this fiscal.
Provision of clause 49 of listing agreement modified, half the Board to be independent if promoters or his relative is a non-executive chairman.
SEBI to introduce electronic version of defunct Stockinvest instrument to subscribe to IPO’s.