TANMAY OBSERVES!

News Update (27-03-2009):-

• Infosys Technologies Ltd expects to find acquisition opportunities in the US during the downturn, co-chairman Nandan Nilekani was quoted as saying on Friday. "Acquisitions will definitely be very accessible in this market from a price point of view," Nilekani told the Wall Street Journal in an interview. "If it makes sense, we'll do it."
• India's infrastructure sector output grew 2.2 per cent in February from a year earlier, above an upwardly revised 1.5 per cent in January, government data showed on Friday. Output rose an annual 7.0 per cent in February 2008, and in the 2007/08 fiscal year it rose 5.6 per cent. The infrastructure sector accounts for 26.7 per cent of India's industrial output.
• Indian Oil Corp said it has fixed April 28 as the record date for the transfer of shares for merger of Bongaigaon Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (BRPL) with itself.
• OBC to slash prime lending rate by 50 bps from next month
• BHEL said it has bagged a Rs 345-crore contract from Nuclear Power Corp (NPCIL) to manufacture steam generators for its Kakrapara Atomic Power Project in Gujarat.
• MTNL on Friday said it has received Rs516.18 crore as tax refund for the years 2001-02 and 2003-04 from the Income-Tax Department.
• Lupin Ltd said it has acquired a 51% stake in Multicare Pharmaceuticals Philippines Inc, marking the Indian firm’s foray into the $2.5 billion Philippines pharmaceuticals market.
• India's foreign exchange reserves rose to $253.826 billion as on March 20, from $248.724 billion a week earlier, the central bank said in its weekly statistical supplement on Friday.
• JSW Steel Ltd has repurchased 478 zero coupon foreign currency convertible bonds (FCCBs) of $1,00,000 each aggregating to $47.80 million, listed on the Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Ltd.
• India is likely to grow at 6.5 per cent or above in the current fiscal and in 2009-10, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia today said. "We are likely to get a growth rate less than 7 per cent... Between 6.5 and 6.7 per cent in 2008-09," Ahluwalia said at the CII convention. His statement assumes significance in the light of IMF projections that peg GDP growth at a modest 5.1%.
• The government's tax kitty will grow bigger in the current fiscal than in 2007-08 despite the duty cuts announced due to slowing down of economy, a top finance ministry official said. "The gross revenue from direct and indirect taxes will increase nominally this year despite the sacrifices (duty cuts) we have made," Revenue Secretary P V Bhide said at the annual session of the Confederation of Indian Industry.
• The International Research Institute (IRI) for Climate and Society at Columbia University has forecast normal to slightly above normal monsoon for India during June to September this year.
• US Spending, Consumer Sentiment Up, Americans increase their spending a second month in a row even as the recession knocks down income. Personal consumption is up at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 0.2%. The Reuters/University of Michigan final sentiment reading for March stands at 57.3, compared with 56.3 in February.
• Reliance Industries Ltd. (500325.BY), which expects to start producing gas from an offshore field in eastern India by mid-April, hopes to produce 10 million metric standard cubic meters a day, or MMSCMD, initially, a Reliance executive said Friday. "Honestly, we have lost time. We are trying to make up for it. We are trying to accelerate as much as we can," said P.M.S. Prasad, president and chief executive for oil and gas operations at Reliance Industries Ltd. Reliance also plans to ramp up production capacity to 80 MMSCMD by December, Prasad said.
• Volvo said Friday that it's received orders for 260 buses in India. MAIN FACTS: - The orders include 140 Volvo 8400 buses ordered by the city of Bangalore, which already operates more than 300 Volvo buses. - Volvo has also received an order by India's states of Karnataka and Maharasthra for 120 Volvo 9400 inter-city coaches. - The buses will be assembled at Volvo Buses' plant in India. Deliveries will be made in 2009.
• Two Fidelity Investments units sold over 3.7 million shares in Financial Technologies (India) Ltd. (526881.BY) on the Bombay Stock Exchange at an average price of INR501.83 a share, exchange data showed. Reliance Capital Trustee Co. - a unit of Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group - bought 2.4 million of these shares at an average price of INR502.50 a share, exchange data showed. The Fidelity units held a combined 4.8 million shares, or a 10.65% stake, in Financial Technologies as of Dec. 31, exchange data showed. Shares of Financial Technologies closed 8.7% higher at INR567, outperforming the broader Sensex, which ended 0.5% higher.
• The British economy shrank 1.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008, sharper than previously estimated, official data showed on Friday.