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Jain Irrigation Systems Ltd (JISL) and Mekorot, the national water company of Israel, have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for working together in water infrastructure-related projects in India.Initially, the two companies will establish a framework for joint cooperation to explore potential projects in the field of desalination plants, water resource management, water-supply systems, municipal water management, waste water treatment and reclamation projects.

Mekorot will contribute and provide design and technologies along with resources for implementation, management, operation and maintenance of projects. Jain Irrigation will provide the customer relationships, business development, management resources, and procurement of equipment and execution of project. Mekorot supplies 80 per cent of Israel’s drinking water and 70 per cent of the entire water supply.

Mr Anil Jain, Managing Director, Jain Irrigation said: “Waste water recycling is totally unexplored in India. Currently, there is under investment in this sector. Demand for water is growing immensely in agriculture as well as for industrial needs. Right technology and timely execution at competitive rates will be our niche.”

Source: Business Line Thursday, February 14, 2008

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Twentyfive Indian companies raised a total of $8.3 billion on the Nasdaq Portal Market in 2007, a senior Nasdaq official said today. They include Reliance Industries, Suzlon Energy, Axis Bank, DLF, Power Finance Corporation, Idea Cellur, IDFC and Mundra Ports.The Nasdaq Portal Market facilitates trading in those securities that are not registered with the US market regulator SEC and are referred to as 144A securities. The securities through this portal can be sold only to Qualified Institutional Buyers (QIBs) and secondary trading in 144A securities also takes place only among QIBs, which are generally defined as investors with at least $100 million in assets under management.

Since 1990, Nasdaq has been operating the Portal for 144A Securities and in August 2007, the exchange launched the Portal Market Trading System for secondary trading in 144A securities among qualified brokers, dealers and QIBs.

This has brought visibility and trading functionality to the portal market, which has over 750 portal-designated equity securities, Mr Ghanshyam Dass, Managing Director (Asia Pacific), The Nasdaq Stock Market, said.

“The Nasdaq Portal Market facilitates faster raising of capital in the US market. Usually it takes 24 weeks to raise money through the IPO route and only 10 weeks by listing on the Nasdaq Portal,” Mr Jeffrey H Singer, Senior Vice-President, Head of International Corporate Client Group, The Nasdaq Stock Market, said.

Incidentally in 2007, Indian companies raised a total Rs 23,400 crore through Qualified Institutional Placements (QIPs).

Altogether, 70 companies from India are listed on the Nasdaq Portal Market. Among important Indian companies that raised money on Nasdaq portal in 2007 included DLF ($2.3 billion), Axis Bank ($653 million), Idea Cellular ($555 million), IDFC ($520 million) and Mundra Ports ($451 million).

Source: Business Line dated Thursday, February 14, 2008

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Real-estate company DLF Ltd seems to have got the cherry on the top. The Delhi-based developer has bagged the exclusive title sponsorship rights of the Indian Premier League at an excess of Rs 200 crore for a period of five years.DLF won this through an open bid process with the highest bid of Rs 40 crore per annum. The DLF Indian Premier League, as it will be known, will host about 59 Twenty20 matches over 44 days, beginning April 18.

The other bidders, World Sports Group, bidding on behalf of Hero Honda Motors (India) Ltd, had made a bid for Rs 30.60 crore per annum, while Percept D’Mark bid for Rs 30.16 crore per annum.

The third bidder in the fray, 21st Century, quit the process midway due to non-compliance with some of the clauses of the bid.

“I am truly happy to have India’s leading real-estate developer DLF as our title sponsors as they happen to share a common vision with the BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) to make the Indian Premier League, one of finest cricketing leagues in the world. It is exciting to have an eclectic mix of elite Indian businessmen, Bollywood personalities and corporates as our allies, working collectively as one to ensure the success of the IPL,” said Mr Lalit Modi, IPL’s Chairman & Commissioner.

Mr Rajeev Talwar, DLF’s Group Executive Director, said: “This is a game which has mass appeal all over India and both cricket, as well as DLF will grow hand-in-hand.”

The auction of around 85 Indian and international players is scheduled to take place on February 20 through the open bid process in association with IMG – the sports, media and entertainment agency. The players are up for auction between the exclusive franchisee-right owners of the eight cities – Shah Rukh Khan (Kolkata), Preity Zinta (Mohali), RIL Pvt Ltd (Mumbai), GMR Holdings (Delhi), UB Group (Bangalore), India Cements Ltd (Chennai), Deccan Chronicle (Hyderabad) and Emerging Media (Jaipur).

Earlier, sports broadcaster Sony Max and World Sport Group bagged IPL’s global media and production rights for over $ 1 billion for a period of 10 years. The set of matches to be played this year will generate around 60 hours of advertising space for Sony.

Source: Business Line dated Thursday, February 14, 2008

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The withdrawal of two high-profile IPOs on poor investor response and the tepid listing of the Reliance Power stock underline how transient the recent euphoric conditions in the primary market really were. These events probably signal a decisive shift in the way Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) will be priced, evaluated and purchased in the months ahead.

Consider the facts. In three short weeks, IPOs have gone from being subscribed several times over to a state where some of them are unable to scrounge up even the minimum required bids. Investors have gone from taking leveraged bets on offers to withdrawing their bids at the last minute. The Emaar MGF and Wockhardt Hospitals offers were no doubt aggressively priced and carried high execution risks. However, such factors hardly deterred investors — individual and institutional — from giving the thumbs up to equally risky IPOs barely a couple of weeks ago. Euphoria about IPOs reached a crescendo just before this meltdown. Companies seeking funds from the primary market were pricing their businesses at a huge premium to listed peers; fancy valuations were demanded for businesses that were still on the drawing board and ‘grey’ market premia for IPOs were so widely publicised that one could have mistaken them for stock market quotations! Hopefully, the failed offers and dwindling listing gains will induce investors to treat such hype with more scepticism. From the issuers’ standpoint this may lead to quality offers being priced more realistically. Companies with a negligible track record, which should ideally be seeking venture capital rather than retail funds for their business ideas, may be forced to rethink their IPO plans. Over the medium term, all this may make the primary market less attractive to speculators and help it attract more serious investors looking to participate in the long-term growth prospects of a business. However, this does not rule out more pain in the near term. Unbridled optimism in the stock market usually gives way to extreme pessimism and recent events may well end up choking off IPO funds even for quality businesses in the immediate days ahead. In this context, the response to forthcoming IPOs from issuers such as Rural Electrification Corporation needs to be keenly watched.

For investors, the events of the past week indicate a need to reframe their IPO strategy. They should go back to evaluating offers on business fundamentals rather than on the potential for listing gains. Investors should also evaluate the opportunity cost involved in tying up funds with an IPO, at a time when attractive investment opportunities may be available in the secondary market. This apart, the poor response from the institutional investors to these IPOs suggests that institutions, both domestic and foreign, may be developing an increasing aversion to risk, even if the “growth story” is peddled from a sought-after market such as India. This may well indicate that the market as a whole may now be unwilling to pay an exorbitant price for growth, whether it is for already listed businesses or companies taking the IPO route. Caution may be the watchword.

Source: Business Line dated 12-02-08

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Mr Kishore Biyani’s Future Capital Holdings will be included in the BSE-500 Index from February 15.
Future Caital Holdings would be replacing Murli Industries Ltd while Gammon India Ltd would be replacing Ballarpur Industries Ltd on the BSE-500 Index from February 29, according to information available on Bombay Stock Exchange website.

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Biocon Ltd announced its first footprint in Europe by acquiring 70 per cent stake in German pharma distribution company AxiCorp GmbH for €30 million (around Rs 174 crore).Biocon now has the distribution muscle in Germany and Europe; it would first launch its branded injectible insulin Insugen, on its own in these markets and follow up with others later, said its CMD, Ms Kiran-Mazumdar-Shaw, at a news conference.
Insugen’s European launch may be 18-24 months away as it was in the process of registration with the EMEA (European Medicines Agency, the regulator). AxiCorp, founded in 2002, is a €75-million, 170-strong company specialising in marketing and distributing low-cost drugs across Europe. “AxiCorp heralds our European foray for biosimilars like recombinant human insulin.
According to the AxiCorp officials – formerly with Sanofi Aventis – the German company has grown on an innovative low-cost drugs model based on cheaper generic alternatives and off-patent drugs sourced from all over Europe into Germany and has launched 180 products across the continent, said it also has its own brand of discounted drugs, Axcount. A senior company official said Insugen would double its markets to 40 countries by the end of this year. It was the company’s first global brand, soon to enter West and South-East Asia and Latin America where the registrations were going on.

Biocon’s share price on the BSE on Monday ended just over one per cent lower at Rs 401.4 over Friday’s close of Rs 405.95.

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In a move that is perhaps indicative of a softer interest rate regime, State Bank of India, the country’s largest bank, cut its benchmark prime lending rate by 0.25 percentage points from 12.75 per cent to 12.50 per cent on Monday. This will bring down the interest rates on retail and corporate loans that are linked to PLR.
The revised rate will be effective from February 16. Canara Bank, Bank of India and Allahabad Bank, too, have cut rates on home and other retail loans , between 25 and 100 basis points, in the past few days. According to the RBI figures, the non-food credit extended by scheduled commercial banks had increased only by 11.8 per cent up to January 4, compared to an increase of 17.5 per cent in the same period last year.

Source: Business Line dated 080212

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Yahoo’s board of directors on Monday rejected Microsoft’s buyout offer saying the $44.6 billion bid “substantially undervalues” the veteran Internet Company.
After careful evaluation the board believes that Microsoft’s proposal substantially undervalues Yahoo, including our global brand, large world wide audience, significant recent investments in advertising platforms and future growth prospects, free cash flow and earnings potential, as well as our substantial unconsolidated invetments.
On february 1,  Microsoft unveiled what it called “a generous” offer to take over Yahoo. 

Source:Business Line Dated:080213

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Reliance Power, whose IPO made history on the Indian stock exchanges in January sent ripples through the market when it closed 17 per cent below allotment price on listing on Monday.
This was not unexpected, given the backdrop of the market conditions, where two IPOs recently bombed and had to be withdrawn. Still it also made history being among the few mega issues in recent times to close below issue price on the first day of trading.
The stock oepned on the BSE with a gain of Rs 97 over the issue price of Rs 450. Within minutes it fell to Rs 389 as investors rushed in to sell, to book “listing gains” , for the rest of the day, the stock traded below Rs. 450 closing the day 17 per cent down, at Rs.372.50. On NSE the script opened at Rs 530 and closed at 372.30 its day,s low at Rs 355.
The script also topped the volume charts; on NSE 13.43 crore shares worth Rs5601 crore were traded on BSE 6.38 crore shares worth Rs 2640 crore were traded.

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Hindustan Unilever Limited, 01-OCT-2007 to 31-DEC-2007 (Second Quarter) Results: 

Hindustan Unilever Limited has announced the non-consolidated Results for the quarter ended on 31-DEC-2007 as follows: Net Sales of Rs.3687.40 crores for the quarter ending on 31-DEC-2007 with Net Profit of 631.44 crores with an EPS of 2.90.  Other Income was at 159.70 crores and Total expenditure was 3160.08 crores.

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