The Hindu Business Line : Weekly News Round up

The Reserve Bank of India on Tuesday cut key policy rates - repo and reverse repo - by 25 basis points each in order to push banks to lend more at viable rates and prop up the sagging economy. The RBI, in its Annual Policy for 2009-10, reduced the reverse repo rate to 3.25 per cent. This is lower than the savings bank rate of 3.50 per cent and the repo rate to 4.75 per cent.

Wipro Technologies has acquired the Mobile Broadcast Solutions unit of cellular handset maker Nokia for an undisclosed sum. The 40-employee enterprise mobile TV unit develops software and hardware that enables mobile TV technology on the phone to find and access the broadcasting network.

Maruti Suzuki India Ltd announced 18 per cent drop in quarterly net profits despite a 30 per cent growth in total income. The drop is because of increased raw material costs and forex fluctuations offsetting gains from higher car sales. Net sales for the fourth quarter increased by 32 per cent to Rs 6,308.35 crore from Rs 4,762.91 crore in the same period of fiscal 2007-08. However, its net profit for the quarter declined 18 per cent at Rs 243.13 crore from Rs 297.68 crore during previous year period.

Reliance Industries has reported its second consecutive decline in quarterly net profit, as adverse global conditions continued to shrink its refining margins.

Its fourth quarter net profit fell 9.4 per cent, to Rs 3,546 crore, from Rs 3,912 crore a year ago. Its gross refining margin fell to $9.9 from processing one barrel of crude, against $15.5 a year ago. Reliance turnover for the quarter dipped 25 per cent to Rs 29,073 crore against Rs 38,697 crore following drop in oil and gas exploration, production, refining and petrochemicals revenue during the period.

Markets regulator SEBI has in an interim order debarred Mr Nirmal Kotecha, a former promoter of Pyramid Saimira Theatre Ltd, P.S. Saminathan, its promoter cum Managing Director, and over 250 other entities from dealing in the securities market including IPOs in any manner till further orders. The SEBI order follows investigations into the origin of a fake SEBI order in December 2008 and its impact on the share price of Pyramid Saimira which greatly benefited Mr Kotecha, who emerged as the biggest seller of the shares of PSTL on December 22, 2008.

The annual Wholesale Price Index-based inflation rose 0.26 per cent during the week ended April 11, above the previous week's annual rise of 0.18 per cent, government data showed last Thursday. For the corresponding week of the previous year, inflation was recorded at 8.0 per cent. In the `food articles' group, inflation decelerated to 7.1 per cent from 7.3 per cent in the earlier week.

Twenty pilots from Kingfisher Airlines have put in their papers and 16 more are likely to quit in the next few months. The pilots were unhappy with the deteriorating service conditions and the recent restructuring in their pay scales, a company source said. In February, Kingfisher had slashed salaries of its pilots by 15-20 per cent amounting to a cut in the range of Rs 50,000 to Rs 75,000 a month, the source said. The official version of the airline was that the company was moving "towards a productivity-linked compensation structure, which is the international norm".

The board of Axis Bank appointed Ms Shikha Sharma, Managing Director, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company, as the bank's new Managing Director & CEO. The appointment, however, did not find favour with the current Chairman & CEO, Dr P.J. Nayak, who quit in protest. Ms Sharma's appointment, which will be for a period of 5 years, beginning August 1, 2009, is subject to RBI clearance and shareholders approval.

The current economic crisis coupled with losses related to forex hedging continued to weigh down the financials of Tata Consultancy Services, which reported a seven per cent rise in consolidated net profit for the three months ended March 31, 2009. The net profit for the quarter rose marginally to Rs 1,333 crore from Rs 1,245 crore in the year-ago quarter. Revenues for the quarter increased by 18.5 per cent to Rs 7,172 crore.

Oracle Corp agreed to buy Sun Microsystems in a $7.4-billion deal. The Oracle offer caught the industry by surprise as it came barely two weeks after the collapse of takeover talks between IBM and Sun Microsystems.

Compiled by M J Madhavan
Podcast by S Vasudevan