Steelmaker Corus to invest 185 million pounds in Britain

LONDON: Indian-owned steelmaker Corus will invest 185 million pounds to rebuild a blast furnace in south Wales, the company announced on Monday in a move that is set to safe-guard jobs.

The investment at the Port Talbot steelworks, equivalent to 225 million euros or $289 million, will begin in July 2012 and aims to increase the facility's output by up to 400,000 tonnes a year, Corus said in a statement.

The company is owned by India's Tata Steel -- the world's eighth-biggest steelmaker.

"This investment is a major step in achieving Tata Steel's ambition to position Port Talbot as a producer of high-quality strip products on a global scale and an internationally competitive cost base," said Kirby Adams, chief executive of Tata Steel Europe.

Union bosses welcomed the move.

"This investment shows that Corus believe that there is a strong future for the British steel industry," said Michael Leahy, head of the Community union.

A Corus spokesman added that the investment may see building contractors take on new staff.

Tata Steel, part of India's sprawling Tata Group conglomerate, bought Anglo-Dutch company Corus for $13.7 billion in 2007.

Transgene Biotek acquires US-based Marillion

Hyderabad: Transgene Biotek Ltd has said that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Marillion Pharmaceuticals Inc, a US Oncology Biopharmaceuticals company based in Exton, Pennsylvania, in an all-share deal.

The Director of the Hyderabad-based Transgene Biotek, Mr S.S. Marthi, in a statement to the stock exchange, said the transaction would accelerate growth of the company business and broaden scope of drug development.

Marillion Pharmaceuticals, a clinical stage bio-pharmaceuticals company, engaged in development and commercialisation of novel therapeutics in oncology, has presence in the US and manufacturing and licensing partners in the UK and Europe.

New entity

The merger of the two companies and Marillion's products with Transgene's own drug pipeline are expected to create an oncology platform and products for the new merged company. The new entity will be able to play a role in licensing deals with multinational pharmaceutical companies as also develop and commercialise drugs. The revenues are likely to come from Marillion's presence in the US and network of collaborators in Europe. Both the companies see significant expansion of drug development right from the early stage and pre-clinical trials to late stage clinical trials. The merged entity will have a research and business platform and an expanded presence in major markets.

According to the statement, Marillion's portfolio includes three clinical stage products useful in oncology and complements Transgene's portfolio. The latter has earlier out-licensed a manufacturing process to Dr Reddy's Laboratories and its recombinant Hepatitis B vaccine technology to vaccine producer Serum Institute of India.

Adani buys Aussie coal assets in $2.7 bn deal

Ahmedabad/New Delhi: Entire 50 mt yearly output for its power projects here; looking for more mine buys

India’s biggest coal importer, Adani Enterprises, has acquired an Australian coal asset of Linc Energy in a cash and royalty deal worth $2.7 billion (Rs 12,500 crore). This would be the largest single investment by an Indian company in Australia and a second coal acquisition abroad for Adani. It owns a coal mine on Indonesia's Bunyu island that produces six million tonnes per annum (mtpa).

Adani will pay A$500 million (Rs 2,100 crore) in cash and A$2 (Rs 41.60) per tonne in royalty for the first 20 years of production from the mine in Galilee Basin of Queensland state. Australia's Foreign Investment Review Board has approved the deal and the provisional Queensland government has given “an indicative approval”.

The Galilee tenement has a thermal coal resource of 7.8 billion tonnes, making it the largest single tenement in Australia. Adani estimates an annual production of 50 mtpa from the mine. “The entire quantity will be imported into India. We are using the integrated play of coal, mining and port, which is available within the group,” Devang Desai, group chief financial officer, told Business Standard. He said the company was looking to buy more coal assets in Indonesia and Australia.

The group is also planning to set up an import terminal at Mackay, which will enable the company to ship the coal to India. "While multiple evacuation routes are available for mined coal, Adani (through Mundra Port and Special Economic Zone) has recently been awarded Preferred Proponent Status for the development of Dudgeon Point Terminal at Mackay, Queensland, which entitles Adani the right (subject to technical and commercial feasibility) to develop a coal terminal of 30-60 mtpa capacity," the company said in the statement.

The coal from Galilee would support the rapid expansion of sister firm Adani Power Ltd, which is developing power projects at Mundra, Dahej and Bhadreshwar in Gujarat, Tiroda and Kawai in Maharashtra and Chhindwara in Madhya Pradesh. The combined capacity of these projects is estimated to be 13,000 Mw.

"Adani Group aims to achieve 20,000 Mw power generation capacity by 2020, of which 13,000 Mw power projects are being implemented by the company. There is a clear need for securing coal supply and the Australian coal asset will help us reach to the target," an executive said.

The group has tied up the entire quantity needed for 6,600 Mw power capacity through domestic linkages. Some of its present requirement is also being met from its captive mine in Indonesia. The additional imports will be used for its capacity addition plan in the power sector, besides trading. “We have a two-pronged play in the coal sector. We have 50 per cent share in total coal imports into the country and we need coal for captive use. So, the Australian coal will be used for both the purposes,” said Desai.

Coal Grab

Galilee tenement has coal reserves of 7.8 bn tonnes
Adani will take 4 years to begin operations
Plans to import coal to feed its power projects in India
Adani aims to produce 20,000 Mw of power by 2020
Adani Enterprise shares gained 2.11% to close at Rs 622.55 on BSE
The company imported about 25 mt of coal in 2009-10, as against 18 mt in 2008-09. According to Desai, about a 10th of their imports were from Australia. Since it has its own mine in Indonesia, the company is importing 70 per cent from that country.

While the group is looking for mines in Australia to ensure supplies for domestic sale and its own power projects, Linc Energy wanted to exit the thermal coal mining business, since this was not part of its core activity of coal gasification.

The markets cheered the news of the acquisition, with the Adani share gaining 3.9 per cent to touch an intra-day high of Rs 633.40 on the Bombay Stock Exchange. It later shed some weight, to close the day up by 2.1 per cent, at Rs 622.55.

Indian law firm forms ventures with UAE, Saudi counterparts

New Delhi: In a first of its kind venture, an Indian corporate law firm has tied up with its counterparts in UAE and Saudi Arabia seeking to leverage the fast growing India-Gulf trade, investment and people-to-people ties.

The Indian law firm Kochhar & Co has formed separate joint ventures with the Law Offices of Mohammad Issa Odeh (MIO) in UAE, and with the Law Offices of Khalid Alnowaiser in Saudi Arabia.

“These are pioneering JVs. Since we are the only such Indian law firm, we hope to attract a lot of legal work especially in big-ticket infrastructure ventures in the Gulf, as a majority of the work in the sector in the region is supported by Indian construction companies,” Mr Rohit Kochhar, Chairman and Managing Partner, Kochhar & Co, said.

“The focus will also be on arbitration as well as legal documentation work for large commercial contracts, investment funds and even outbound investments for the Royal families there. With our JVs, we aim to be the largest legal services player in the Gulf within five years,” Mr Kochhar said.

Noting that some of the world's largest sovereign wealth funds, including the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, are in the region, he said that through these JVs, his law firm was looking at representing these funds, not just for their investments in India, but globally.

These JVs will also look at providing legal support to Indians who have lost money to Gulf-based companies during the recent real estate crisis in that region, he said.

“The Arab world has a major shortage of high quality legal talent that are English speaking. We have such lawyers and at prices at least 50 per cent cheaper than the English-speaking lawyers from developed countries,” he said.

Incidentally, India is the largest trading partner of the Gulf Cooperation Council that includes Saudi Arabia and the UAE. In 2008, India-GCC trade crossed $91 billion.

Saudi Arabia is India's fourth-largest trading partner with bilateral trade at over $25 billion. Besides, over four million Indian workers in the Gulf, including about two million in Saudi Arabia, remit to India around $5 billion annually.

Indian IT firms top Europe survey

London: Cognizant first, TCS third, Infosys fourth in Performance and Satisfaction study.

Indian information technology (IT) service providers Cognizant, TCS and Infosys have topped the latest ranking of service providers in Europe, in a survey done by EquaTerra, an IT advisory service provider.

In the Performance and Satisfaction (SPPS) study by EquaTerra for 2009-10, Cognizant has captured the first position, with a 79 per cent score. TCS and Infosys have taken the third and fourth position, with 75 per cent and 74 per cent scores, respectively. The second place was taken by US company Compuctacenter, with 78 per cent.

The study evaluates client satisfaction by surveying over 2,000 client relationships from 750 top IT spending organisations across Europe, covering 12 countries. The ranking covers 25 IT service providers in all. Cognizant topped the rankings in seven of the eight parameters the study focused on. These include Relationship Management (actively managing the relationship at the operational and strategic levels), Innovation (actively identifying innovation opportunities), Transition (completing the transition successfully on time and budget and with the required functionality), Quality (meeting the service levels as set out in the Service Level Agreement), Price (charging for services in line with current market price) and Risk (shouldering reasonable commercial risk and making necessary investments to reduce it).

Jef Loos, director, EquaTerra, said this ranking, based on two-thirds of all IT deals in Europe, gives a near-accurate evaluation of client satisfaction. “We choose the clients and do cross-reference where the same client is serviced by more than one IT service provider,” Loos said.

He further said, “Cognizant had not one dissatisfied client, which makes the company the best performer among the top 25 IT outsourcing service providers that we evaluated.”

Apart from Cognizant, TCS and Infosys, the other major IT companies to appear in the top 25 list are Wipro (15), Mahindra Satyam (17) and HCL (18).

Francisco D’Souza, President and CEO, Cognizant, said,“Over the years, we have made significant investments in bringing our industry-leading, client-focused processes to Europe. Our high-touch relationship model, deep domain expertise and consulting skills, our unique reinvestment philosophy, and our ability to build strong multicultural teams around the globe have helped our customers navigate structural changes in the economy and their businesses, enabling them to stay efficient, effective and innovative.”

Manufacturing expands for the 16th consecutive month in July 2010

New Delhi: India's manufacturing witnessed an upswing trend in July 2010 on the back of new orders and better export demand, as per a private survey. The HSBC Markit Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) went up to 57.6 in July 2010 from 57.3 in June 2010, marking 16th consecutive month of expansion in manufacturing.

The factory output index of the PMI rose to a four-month high of 62.3 in July 2010, raising expectations of further expansion in India's manufacturing growth story.

"India is on a roll. The economy was given another leg up in July as new orders continued to pour in. Even the export sector appears to be holding up well, despite worries over cooling demand abroad," according to Frederic Neumann, co-head of Asian Economics Research, HSBC.

PMI, a survey-based compilation of key manufacturing data, is considered a good leading indicator of manufacturing activity. An index level above 50 indicates expansion in manufacturing, whereas a PMI reading of below 50 indicates a contraction in manufacturing. The HSBC India Report on Manufacturing is based on data compiled from monthly replies to questionnaires sent to purchasing executives in over 500 manufacturing companies. The variables in the survey include employment, output, new orders, suppliers' delivery times, and stock of items purchased.

Even as India saw an expansion in its manufacturing sector, China's PMI dropped to 51.2 in July 2010, as per official data released on August 1, 2010. "It's a good reading, especially compared to China where production was a bit softer," said Sonal Varma, Economist at Nomura Holdings.

The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) expects Indian industry to start fresh projects that will entail an investment of about US$ 140.6 billion in 2010-11.
In his monetary policy review for April 2010, D Subbarao, Governor, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on July 27, 2010 revised the gross domestic product (GDP) growth target for 2010 to 8.5 per cent, said "Domestic drivers of growth are robust."

M&A deals treble to near US$ 50 billion from 2009 level

New Delhi: India Inc's merger and acquisitions (M&As) have touched nearly US$ 50 billion level from January-July 2010, over three times the total in 2009. M&A deals in 2009 were worth about US$ 16 billion.

The deal valuations are also witnessing a revival in line with the recovery in stock markets and overall economy, besides the value of M&A deals has risen. According to data compiled by research firm VCCEdge, the M&A deal value increased by almost five-times to US$ 5.4 billion in July 2010, up from US$ 1.1 billion in July 2009.

The cumulative M&A deal value so far in 2010 from January to July’10 has touched US$ 49.7 billion, as compared to US$ 16.3 billion in the whole of 2009, VCCEdge said in its monthly deal report. The number of M&A deals so far this year stood at 411. Indian companies announced 64 M&A deals in June 2010 with a total value of nearly US$ 14.1 billion. March has been the biggest month in terms of M&A deals so far this year, which saw 72 deals worth a total of US$ 14.35 billion.

VCCEdge further pointed that the number of domestic deals stood at 21 in July 2010 and the value of domestic deals went up to US$ 2.03 billion in the month, from US$ 282 million in July 2009. The value of inbound deals rose sharply year-over-year to US$ 2.01 billion in July 2010 from US$ 744 million. The average deal size rose to US$ 216 million last month, from US$ 61 million in July 2009.

According to the report by VCCEdge, energy, healthcare and materials each has witnessed deals worth over US$ 1 billion . The biggest deal in the month of July was Reliance Natural Resources Ltd's merger with another Anil Ambani Group firm Reliance Power in an all-stock deal valued at US$ 1.56 billion. The top five deals accounted for 88 per cent of total M&A deal activity in July 2010, VCCEdge added. The deals included Fortis Healthcare's 25.37 per cent stake in Parkway Holdings for US$ 1.12 billion; Japanese major JFE Steel's US$ 1.03 billion purchase of 14.99 per cent stake in JSW Steel; ABB's US$ 965 million buyout offer for ABB India and Piramal Diagnostic Services' US$ 128 million sale to Super Religare Lab (SRL).

SEBI amends MF regulations

Mumbai: To bring greater transparency in the fee structure and improve turn-around time for customer service processes, market regulator SEBI has amended four mutual fund regulations and omitted one schedule.

These regulations pertain to offer period, allotment of units, refund of excess subscription, account statements and management fees chargeable by the asset management companies. Changes made in management fees have been described in the table given below.

The offer period for ELSS (earnings linked savings scheme) have been brought down by 30 days. These will now be open for more than 15 days instead of 45. Fund houses are now expected to refund excess subscription money within five working days instead six weeks. A failure to do so would start attracting penal interest at 15 per cent per annum on the expiry of five working days.

DoT amends telecom licence rules

New Delhi: In view of national security concerns, the Directorate of Telecommunications (DoT) has made it mandatory for equipment suppliers to share design, development and supply chain details, besides allowing inspection of their manufacturing facility by the Indian government or concerned certification agencies.

According to the amendments to the telecom licence agreement — the unified access service license (UASL) — the equipment providers have to give access to their hardware and software for examination at the time of procurement of equipment. The process would be repeated every year and an inspection would be carried out every two years.

The software code would be kept in the escrow account in an encrypted form and would be used in case of security emergency.

A penalty of 100 per cent of the contract value would be levied by telecom equipment supplier in case malware/spyware is found in the equipment. Operators would also have to pay a fine of Rs 50 crore for every purchase of equipment in case there is a security breach.

The licensee will also work towards a phased plan to take over the maintenance of the equipment locally — entirely by Indian engineers and dependence on foreign engineers will be minimum or almost nil within a period of two years.

DoT in consultation with the Ministry of Home Affairs had been working on the amendment to the licence to address security concerns. It had accepted feedback from the industry and all stakeholders.

DoT had in December, last year made it mandatory for telecom service providers to seek security clearance before placing an order for telecom equipment. Despite this, many orders for Chinese equipment manufacturers Huawei and ZTE have been pending with the department since the last six months.

According to the amendments, telecom service providers will also have to form an organisational policy on security and management of their network. The policy will have to be submitted to the government within 30 working days from the date of the amendment to the UASL licence conditions.

Sebi tightens disclosure norms

Mumbai: Asks companies to submit shareholding details one day prior to the day of listing.

In a move that will help investors take better-informed investment decisions in the newly-listed entities, the market regulator has directed companies to submit shareholding details to stock exchanges one day prior to the day of listing.

The regulator has also amended the way depository receipts are disclosed as part of the shareholding pattern. The decisions were taken at the board meet of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi).

“The board decided to mandate that the companies shall file shareholding pattern according to the Clause 35 one day prior to the date of listing, which shall be uploaded on the website of exchanges before commencement of trading,” said a release issued by Sebi. Currently, unlisted companies disclose their shareholding pattern as part of their prospectus and submit it to the exchanges on a quarterly basis.

In another decision, which will bring in more transparency in terms of actual holding of depository receipts (DRs), Sebi has directed companies to classify such holdings as ‘promoter/promoter group’ and ‘non-promoter’. “In the quarterly shareholding pattern, the disclosure of shares held by custodians, against which depository receipts have been issued, shall be classified as promoter/promoter group and non-promoter,” said the release.

Further, if there is a change of more than two per cent in the paid-up share capital due to any corporate event, the same has to be disclosed to the stock exchanges within 10 days.

“The board also decided that in order to ensure updated public dissemination of shareholding pattern, whenever the change (+/-) exceeds two per cent of the paid up share capital of the company after a corporate event, companies shall file revised shareholding pattern with the stock exchanges within 10 days from the date of such change in the capital structure,” added the release.