Tata Motors, Wipro and L&T to see some action today

Tata Motors, Wipro and L&T to see some action today

Sep 16,2014   08:50 Hrs IST

Tata Motors has reported a 9.7 percent decline in global sales to 73,524 units in August. The company had sold 81,457 units in the same month last year. In the passenger vehicles category, the global sales last month were at 42,988 units, as against 43,474 units in August 2013, down 1.11 percent. Sales of luxury brand Jaguar Land Rover rose 2.44 percent to 31,650 units in August, compared to 30,895 units in the same month last year. Sales of commercial vehicles declined 19.6 per cent in August to 30,536 units from 37,983 units a year ago. Wipro Arabia, a subsidiary of Wipro, has entered into a strategic partnership with Saudi Electricity Company (SEC), the largest power utility company in West Asia. As part of this deal, Wipro will rollout the plant maintenance and project system functionality of SAP ERP application for SEC’s distribution business across Saudi Arabia, touching five million customers. With this implementation, the power utility company will have an integrated system that offers centralized and standardized processes across its plants. This will help ensure uptime of distribution networks, expense controls and effective utilization of assets. L&T Construction, the construction arm of Larsen and Toubro (L&T) has won new orders aggregating worth Rs 2050 crore across various business segments in August and September 2014. Under Power Transmission & Distribution Business, the company has bagged international and domestic orders worth Rs 1213 crore. Larsen a Toubro Saudi Arabia LLC, a fully owned subsidiary of L&T, has bagged a major international order from the National Grid, Saudi Arabia (a subsidiary of Saudi Electricity Company) for the construction of an Extra High Voltage Double Circuit Transmission Line with a route length of 192 km. Under the Buildings & Factories Business, the company has bagged orders worth Rs 775 crore which consist of two new orders and a few additional orders from on-going jobs. The Jharkhand government has shut five bauxite mines of Hindalco Industries, a flagship company of the Aditya Birla Group. This follows a report by the Shah commission on illegal mining, which had alleged such mining was causing widespread damage to the environment and losses to the exchequer. Earlier, the Supreme Court had reserved its verdict on Hindalco’s Mahan mine in the coal block allocations case. The action against Hindalco follows similar moves by the Jharkhand government against Steel Authority of India (SAIL) and Tata Steel. Jharkhand earlier ordered the closure of 12 iron ore mines and a few manganese mines in that state. These include SAIL’s mines in Budhaburu, Durgaiburu, and Kiriburu-Meghahatuburu and Tata Steel’s Noamundi mine. Punjab National Bank (PNB) has tied up with Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India (HMSI) to provide attractive retail finance for the latter’s two-wheeler customers. With this MoU, two-wheeler customers can now buy a Honda two-wheeler at the industry’s lowest finance rate of 12.25 percent (with daily reducing interest). The loan amount could be up to 90 percent of the two-wheeler value and the extended repayment tenure could be up to five years. Currently, PNB has a network of over 6,000 branches and about 7,000 Automated Teller Machines (ATM). The country’s largest natural gas distributor GAIL (India) will soon invite expression of interest (EoI) for developing its LNG (liquefied gas terminal) proposed at Paradeep. The project - floating storage re-gasification unit - will have an initial capacity of four million tonne per annum (mtpa) in the first phase, reaching a peak capacity of 4.8 mtpa, with a storage capacity of 170,000 cubic metres. The first phase of the project is expected to go on stream by 2017. While Pradeep Port Trust would invest Rs 650 crore on breakwater and dredging, GAIL would invest the residual Rs 2,458 crore. In the second phase, an additional four mtpa capacity will be added (peak capacity- 4.8 mtpa), raising the terminal’s overall capacity to 8-10 mtpa. The engineering and manufacturing major, Bharat Heavy Electricals(BHEL) will develop a 20 Mw solar power plant at Manamunda industrial estate in Boudh district. BHEL is currently engaged in the design, engineering, manufacture, construction, testing, commissioning and servicing of a wide range of products, systems and services for the core sector companies in the field of power, transmission, transportation, renewable energy, oil and natural gas and defence. The solar plant at Manamunda will be set up over 100 acres of land entailing an investment of about Rs 150 crore. Kotak Mahindra Bank’s proposed Rs 459 crore deal to acquire 15 percent stake in commodity bourse MCX got the approval of fair trade regulator CCI, making the financial sector conglomerate a major player in exchange business. According to the Competition Commission of India (CCI) the proposed deal is not likely to have an appreciable adverse effect on competition in India. On July 20, this year, Jignesh Shah-led Financial Technologies India (FTIL) had announced that it has signed an agreement to sell 15 percent stake in MCX to Kotak Mahindra Bank for Rs 459 crore. India’s largest soaps and detergent maker Hindustan Unilever (HUL) has begun talks with private equity fund Everstone Capital for a possible equity joint venture for its Modern Foods division which makes bread and rusks under the Modern brand. The move by the private equity fund, which jointly owns the India franchise of the American Hamburger restaurant chain Burger King, is to drive synergy from Modern Foods for the quick-service restaurant chain. Last year, Everstone Capital, that manages more than $1 billion in India focused PE fund, won the India franchise Burger King as part of its plan to invest in the Indian consumption space. JSW Steel is close to acquiring Italy’s Lucchini assets for less than $100 million marking his first foray into the challenging European steel market. JSW Steel has put in a binding bid for three re-rolling mills of insolvent Lucchini. The rolling mills will be used to add value to the steel produced by JSW Steel in India while the steelmaking facility at Lucchini will be shut down in the meantime. Lucchini, which went bust in 2012 amid falling steel prices and economic recession, will be soon coming out of bankruptcy. JSW Steel will be taking on no debt or past liabilities of the company. The plan is to start making steel later on from newer technology.