Adani Enterprises won support from State Bank of India (SBI) and an Australian state to help it build a $7-billion coal mine, defying a slump in coal prices to 5-1/2 year lows that has stalled rival projects. The trading and infrastructure conglomerate signed a memorandum of understanding for a loan of up to $1 billion from the SBI for the mine, rail and port project in Queensland, which it aims to build by end-2017. The company also won a commitment from the State Government to take short-term, minority stakes in rail and port infrastructure needed to unlock massive coal reserves in the untapped Galilee Basin.
ONGC has appointed Intec Sea of Malaysia to help it develop the KG-DWN-98/2 block, which sits next to the block owned by Reliance-BP-Niko consortium, in the K-G basin. ONGC won the block in the first round of biddings - NELP-1 - back in 1999. The block has been estimated to hold 500 million tonnes of oil and oil equivalent gas - 100 mt of oil and 445 billion cubic metres or 1.33 trillion cubic feet of gas - which makes it ten times as big as the Ravva field in the K-G basin, in the deepwater seas off the Andhra Pradesh coast. The block could potentially produce 75,000-90,000 barrels of oil a day. ONGC has spent $1.3 billion on the block, made four oil finds and seven gas discoveries there, but is yet to produce anything.
Generic drug major Sun Pharmaceuticals Industries has recalled about 68,000 bottles of its anti-depressant venlafaxine hydrochloride, from the US market. The company withdrew the drugs, manufactured in its Halol unit in India, after they failed to dissolve properly, as stated by the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA). The USFDA has called it a Class II recall, which means use or exposure to the drug would cause temporary or medically reversible adverse health consequences. Dissolution tests are a standard practice to check how a drug performs inside a body. This is the second recall of this drug by Sun Pharma in last four months. In July, the company had recalled about 40,000 bottles. Sun Pharma Global Inc, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, started the recall on September 26.
Financial Technologies (FTIL) announced that it was selling Bourse Africa, Mauritius, together with its wholly owned subsidiary, Bourse Africa Clear, to Continental Africa Holdings, Mauritius, for $40.5 million. The board of FT Group Investments, a wholly owned subsidiary of FTIL, gave its approval. The entire transaction will be completed in 210 days. Bourse Africa offers trading in commodities, equities and currencies. With this deal, it will be the fourth exchange and in the fifth company sold by FTIL in 10 months, raising Rs 2,900 crore in all. It sold Singapore Mercantile Exchange in February for Rs 931 crore, then National Bulk Handling Corporation, a collateral management company, for Rs 242 crore. In July, it exited Multi Commodity Exchange, raising Rs 900 crore. Early this month, it entered into an agreement to sell Indian Energy Exchange for Rs 577 crore. It still has stake in MCX Stock Exchange, Dubai Gold and Commodities Exchange and Bahrain Financial Exchange.
Real estate firm Unitech’s sales bookings fell by 26 percent to Rs 527 crore in the first six months of this fiscal due to slowdown in the realty sector. The company had sold properties worth Rs 717 crore in the corresponding period of last fiscal. In volume terms, the company’s sales declined to 0.91 million sq ft during April-September period of this fiscal from 1.05 million sq ft in the year-ago period. The average realization has also dropped to Rs 5,818 per sq ft from Rs 6,830 per sq ft during the period under review. Segment-wise, the sales bookings in residential more than halved to Rs 251 crore in the first half of 2014-15 from Rs 510 crore in the corresponding period of last fiscal.
Tata Power, India’s largest integrated power company, has generated 10,946 MUs collectively from all its power plants in Q2 FY15. The Company’s subsidiaries CGPL and MPL have significantly contributed to the increase in generation capacity, with 5722 MUs and 1577 MUs respectively in Q2 FY15. The Company continues to pursue avenues to add ‘clean and renewable energy generation capacities to increase renewable energy portfolio. The total generation from Hydro was 398 MUs, Wind 282 MUs and Solar 1 MUs for Q2 FY 15. The Company has an installed generation capacity of 8521 MW in India and a presence in all the segments of the power sector viz. Generation (thermal, hydro, solar and wind), Transmission, Distribution and Trading.
Public sector steel behemoth Steel Authority of India (SAIL) would pump in Rs 35,000 crore to expand steel capacity of its unit- Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) to 10 million tonne (mnt) from four mnt at present. SAIL had spent Rs 12,000 crore on modernization cum expansion plan of RSP that scaled up the plant’s capacity from two mnt to four mnt. It has installed the biggest blast furnace at RSP. SAIL has already applied for new iron ore mine leases to cater to the expansion of its Rourkela unit. The company has executed the lease deeds with the Odisha government for operation of its Bolani and Barsuan mines.
Tata Motor’s Zest is not able to match up to its competition sales figures mainly because of production constraints, which the company has failed to iron out even three months after launch of the sedan. The waiting period on all-new car from the struggling Mumbai-based company is several weeks, even as competing models in the segment are available off-the-shelf and even at a discount. Zest buyers are forced to wait up to six weeks for the automated manual transmission (AMT) version, available only on this car in the compact sedan segment. Maruti Suzuki’s Swift Dzire is the largest selling in this segment, while the Hyundai Xcent and Honda Amaze make the next two. After a huge promotional campaign prior to the launch, Tata Motors failed to anticipate the demand for the Zest, as well as prepare for a quick ramp-up in production. So far the company has clocked sales of around 10,000 units of the Zest, with an average of only 3,300 units a month in three months.
Hyderabad-based Gulf Oil Corporation India’s (GOCIL) first building of its Rs 1,800-crore ‘Ecopolis’ project at Yelahanka in Bengaluru is in the final stage of completion. The building block consisting of 1.04 million sq feet (sft) and a multi-level car park of 74,000 sft in a special economic zone (SEZ) is in the marketing stage. The revenue streams are expected to commence in the third or fourth quarter of the current financial year. Ecopolis consists of a 30 acre IT/ITeS SEZ park and a 10-acre hotel, hospitality and retail infrastructure. It is being developed in association with Hinduja Realty Ventures.
VE Commercial Vehicles (VECV), a 50-50 venture between the Volvo Group and Eicher Motors, has launched a new range of buses under Eicher Skyline Pro Series promising a comfortable ride for school kids and executives commuting to office. The new buses will meet the demands of the emerging premium market segment providing enhanced passenger safety. The firm, which commands a market share of 15.7 percent in the low and mid-sized bus segment, expects to increase it further during the current financial year with the introduction of these two buses and few other models to follow. Last year, it had a market share of 13.5 percent.
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