Suzlon, Adani Power and Canara Bank to see some action today

Suzlon Energy has secured Rs 720-crore wind-turbine supply order from US-based PowerWorks, reviving its order book after scripting the country's biggest convertible bond default in 2012. Suzlon’s US-based subsidiary, Suzlon Wind Energy Corp (SWECO), has forged an agreement with PowerWorks to supply up to 98.7 Mw of wind turbines. As per the agreement, Suzlon will supply up to 47 wind turbine generators and will oversee the operations, maintenance and service of the wind turbines for a period of two years. This follows Suzlon’s recent move to do a cashless restructuring of its existing foreign currency convertible bonds worth $485 million for five years. In a major relief to Adani Power, Maharashtra electricity regulator MERC has allowed the power producer to charge Mahavitaran an additional Rs 1.01 per unit as compensatory tariff for 800 mw. The Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) in an order today allowed Adani Power to charge a compensatory tariff of Rs 1.01 per unit for only 800 mw. With this, the total power purchase cost from the 800 mw works out to Rs 3.65 per unit. Adani Power Maharashtra had entered into an agreement with the state utility Mahavitaran to supply power from its two units-- 2 and 3--with a total capacity of 1,320 mw in Tiroda at a levellised tariff of 2.64 per unit. The Tiroda plant is linked to the Lohara coal block. Idea Cellular has resumed 3G services through intra-circle roaming (ICR) agreements. The services would be resumed across its 10 telecom circles, and enabling its subscribers roam on 3G networks across all the 22 circles in the country. The 10 circles to be activated under 3G services are Delhi, Mumbai, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Kolkata & West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Assam and North East. The company’s both post- and pre-paid customers can avail of the services. Idea has also partnered with leading telecom operators in the country to enable seamless 3G connectivity. The Aditya Birla group company will extend its 3G services to two additional circles - Punjab and Delhi - in this financial year, increasing its total 3G footprint to 12. Gold finance company Muthoot Finance hopes to record a turnaround this financial year. After witnessing a sharp fall in its loan book in 2013-14, owing to tight regulatory norms, it expects to increase its portfolio to Rs 26,000 crore in 2014-15. In January this year, RBI had eased the norms to extend loans against gold jewellery - it allowed non-banking financial companies to offer loans up to 75 percent of the value of gold, against the previous limit of 60 percent. Between March 2013 and December 2013, Muthoot Finance's gross retail loan book declined from Rs 26,386 crore to Rs 22,588 crore. Now, the company would reactivate work at branches and return to a Rs 26,000-crore loan book by March 2015. The expansion in loan book is expected to improve profitability. For this financial year, the company is eyeing return on asset of 3.25 percent and an interest margin of nine percent. Public sector lender Canara Bank is aiming at a growth of 18-20 percent in its total business at Rs 8.5 lakh crore in 2014-15. It is aiming at a deposit growth of 16-17 percent and a growth of advances of 19-20 percent as of March 2015. The bank reported a growth of 20.7 percent year-on-year (YOY) in global business at Rs 7,21,790 crore in 2013-14 compared to Rs 5,98,033 crore as of March 2013. Its global deposits reached Rs 4,20,723 crore, 18.2 percent year-on-year growth compared to Rs 3,55,856 crore as of March 2013. Global advances (net) reached Rs 3,01,067 crore, with 24.3 percent year-on-year growth compared to Rs 2,42,177 crore as of March 2013. Outstanding advances to various priority segments reached Rs 97,762 crore, recording a YOY growth of 23.8 percent. Advances under agriculture portfolio increased by 19.6 percent to Rs 48,797 crore, covering over 4.8 million farmers. Electricity bills of consumers in Ahmedabad, Surat and Gandhinagar will go up this year with the Gujarat Electricity Regulatory Commission (GERC) approving hike of Rs 0.44 per unit for Torrent Power (TPL) which provides power to these three cities. While the consumers where electricity is supplied by state run Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam and its subsidiaries, the tariff will remain unchanged for 2014-15. For all residential and industrial consumers of TPL in Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar and Surat, there has been increase of Rs 0.44 per unit with effect from May 1. However, there has been no increase in power tariff for BPL (below poverty line) consumer, agriculture consumers and residential consumers using electricity up to 50 units per month. It is estimated that with this increase in charges the additional revenue to the TPL will be Rs 449.20 crore. Two-wheeler manufacturer TVS Motor, which launched the StaR City+ motorcycle, will focus on strengthening its product range in the current year. Pursuant to the launch, the company filled a gap in its mid-range product offering. It has the Sport and the Phoenix motorcycles in the low and high-end range.The TVS StaR is an entirely new product with an ‘ecothrust’ engine of 109 cc with a fuel consumption of about 86 km per litre. The company will launch a new product every quarter over the next few quarters. In the pipeline, are a Scooty Zest next month, TVS Victor motorcycle in a few months and a new TVS Apache in the last quarter of the current year. With regular and consistent delivery of new products the company hopes to grow its market share. In a first, SpiceJet announced it would compensate passengers for any flight delays or cancellations arising out of reasons in the airline’s control. The ‘On-Time Guarantee’ programme, which kicks off, however, doesn’t apply to delays owing to reasons that are beyond the airline’s control such as weather, air traffic congestion, etc. The new offer comes in the backdrop of an improvement in SpiceJet’s on-time performance over the past few months. Passengers affected by flight delays of more than 60 minutes due to reasons in control of SpiceJet will be given a Rs 500 voucher for their next travel. Similarly, passengers travelling on flights cancelled or delayed by over 120 minutes will be given a voucher of Rs 1,000. All redemptions can be made on Spicejet.com. Drugmaker Sun Pharmaceutical Industries has clarified that its subsidiary Silver Street Developers LLP had no access to non-public information of Ranbaxy Laboratories at the time it had bought its shares. Sun Pharma was responding to queries from the bourses on its $4-billion proposal to merge Ranbaxy with itself. The deal has already run into a legal hurdle, with the Andhra Pradesh High Court seeking an investigation into the transaction and allegations of insider-trading. Ranbaxy’s stock had seen a spike in its price in the run-up to the deal being announced. Sun Pharma further clarified that Silver Street had previously bought these shares as a matter of investment. Asian Paints has closed down its oldest plant at Bhandup in Mumbai and all employees of the unit have either taken voluntary retirement or shifted to its some other plants. The Bhandup plant had started production in 1958 and had employee strength of over 100. The Bhandup plant had an installed capacity of 30,000 kl per annum. It was producing decorative paints. Asian Paints, which had acquired controlling stakes of its rival Berger Paints, has an installed capacity of 9,00,000 kl per annum. It has six other plants manufacturing decorative paints at Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Haryana and Maharashtra.