DHFL eyes 20-25% growth in its disbursements this year

Dewan Housing Finance Corporation (DHFL) is targeting to achieve 20-25% growth in its disbursements this year. The company had disbursed Rs 16,600 crore in 2013-14. In Kerala, it had disbursed Rs 775 crore last fiscal and is eyeing a 20% growth this year. Moreover, the company’s customer base in Kerala stood at 7,801, of which 22% are women, the highest in the country. The company would encourage women customers to buy their own homes, with a 0.25% waiver on processing fees and interest waiver and would focus on low and middle income and affordable housing. Further, the company launched a new branch at Thiruvananthapuram and three service centers at Kollam, Thodupuzha and Pathnamthitta. It is also planning two more branches at Kalpetta and Tirur.

J Kumar Infraprojects bags various orders worth Rs 467.51 crore

J Kumar Infraprojects has bagged various orders worth Rs 467.51 crore from various authorities. The company has bagged order for W266 concreting of various roads in Western Suburbs worth Rs 204.94 crore. The company has also bagged an order worth Rs 109.26 crore for design and construction Flyover Grade Separator with All Allied Work Including Shifting of Utilities at KSB Chowk. The company has bagged construction of Bridge Over Mulla River Near Balewadi Survey No.46/47 Pune worth Rs 31.45 crore. Besides, it has bagged order for construction of ROB at Jogeshwari (South) in lieu of L.C. No. 24 & 25 enhanced from Rs 198.24 crore to Rs. 298.10 crore i.e. Rs 99.86 crore of worth work increased. Finally, the company has bagged other work from various client worth Rs 22.00 crore. J Kumar Infraprojects is engaged in the business of civil engineering construction contractors in Infrastructural projects mainly in roads, flyovers, bridges, commercial and residential buildings, sports complexes, irrigation projects, airport contracts. The company also undertakes the piling of foundation work using hydraulic piling rigs for major projects which are awarded to other contractors.

HCL Technologies features as leader in Mobile Applications

HCL Technologies has been featured as a leader in the mobile service space by IDC, in the recent report titled ‘IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Mobile Application Development, Testing, Management, and Infrastructure (mADTMI) Services 2014 Vendor Assessment’. IDC assessed 14 service providers, offering mADTMI services to enterprise-class firms. HCL’s capabilities and forward-looking strategy positioned the service provider as a Leader in the mADTMI services. HCL excelled in the IDC MarketScape’s scalability, pricing model options and alignment, marketing, employee management, innovation R&D/pace and productivity, and customer satisfaction ratings categories. HCL Technologies is a leading global IT services company working with clients in the areas that impact and redefine the core of their businesses. HCL leverages its extensive global offshore infrastructure and network of offices in 31countries to provide holistic, multi-service delivery in key industry verticals including Financial Services, Manufacturing, Consumer Services, Public Services and Healthcare & Life sciences.

UNB selects Infosys to empower its treasury and capital markets’ business

Infosys has been chosen by Union National Bank (UNB), Abu Dhabi, one of the Middle East’s leading banks, which has implemented Infosys Finacle Treasury solution to empower its Treasury and Capital Markets’ business, as well as integrate its trading, risk management and back office operations. Finacle has also enabled UNB to extend its Fixed Income offering to newer markets in Europe and South East Asia and manage more asset types effectively. The implementation of the Finacle Treasury solution will help UNB process trades faster and also aggregate risk across multiple asset classes seamlessly. The new solution has automated the monitoring of various limits and alerts to relevant stakeholders at UNB. It also offers real-time monitoring and action in case of a security breach. Infosys is a global leader in consulting, technology and outsourcing solutions. The company enables clients, in more than 30 countries, to stay a step ahead of emerging business trends and outperform the competition.

HCL Technologies features as leader in Mobile Applications

HCL Technologies has been featured as a leader in the mobile service space by IDC, in the recent report titled ‘IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Mobile Application Development, Testing, Management, and Infrastructure (mADTMI) Services 2014 Vendor Assessment’. IDC assessed 14 service providers, offering mADTMI services to enterprise-class firms. HCL’s capabilities and forward-looking strategy positioned the service provider as a Leader in the mADTMI services. HCL excelled in the IDC MarketScape’s scalability, pricing model options and alignment, marketing, employee management, innovation R&D/pace and productivity, and customer satisfaction ratings categories. HCL Technologies is a leading global IT services company working with clients in the areas that impact and redefine the core of their businesses. HCL leverages its extensive global offshore infrastructure and network of offices in 31countries to provide holistic, multi-service delivery in key industry verticals including Financial Services, Manufacturing, Consumer Services, Public Services and Healthcare & Life sciences.

Gold futures edge higher on subdued global equity markets

Gold futures edged higher on Tuesday on account of continuing concerns over the unrest in Ukraine and subdued global equity markets, amid reports of a notable drop in gold demand from China last quarter. Further, the traders looked to speeches this week from various Federal Reserve officials for clues on the precious metal's next direction too supported the upside. Gold futures for June delivery settled up 80 cents at $1,294.60 per ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. While spot gold rose 0.2 percent to $1,294.29 an ounce.

UNB selects Infosys to empower its treasury and capital markets’ business

Infosys has been chosen by Union National Bank (UNB), Abu Dhabi, one of the Middle East’s leading banks, which has implemented Infosys Finacle Treasury solution to empower its Treasury and Capital Markets’ business, as well as integrate its trading, risk management and back office operations. Finacle has also enabled UNB to extend its Fixed Income offering to newer markets in Europe and South East Asia and manage more asset types effectively. The implementation of the Finacle Treasury solution will help UNB process trades faster and also aggregate risk across multiple asset classes seamlessly. The new solution has automated the monitoring of various limits and alerts to relevant stakeholders at UNB. It also offers real-time monitoring and action in case of a security breach. Infosys is a global leader in consulting, technology and outsourcing solutions. The company enables clients, in more than 30 countries, to stay a step ahead of emerging business trends and outperform the competition.

F&O total turnover stood at Rs 1,99,276.43 crore on May 20

Future & Option (F&O) total turnover stood at Rs 1,99,276.43 crore on May 20 and the total number of contracts traded on the day were 53,96,275. Of the total turnover, Index Futures contributed Rs 15,056.65 crore, Stock Futures Rs 40,879.84 crore and Index Options Rs 1,26,507.43 crore, while the contribution of the Stock Options was of Rs 16,832.51 crore. For the day, the total F&O PutCall ratio stood at 0.77, while Index Options PutCall ratio was 0.81 and that of Stock Options was 0.48. The top five scrips with highest PCR on OI were Ultra Cement 1.63, Mcleodruss 1.59, PNB 1.42, Hero Moto Co 1.41, and Maruti 1.39. Among most active underlying, United Spirits witnessed  an addition of 0.01 million of Open Interest in the May month futures contract, followed by HDFC Bank witnessing   an addition  of 0.03 million of Open Interest in the May  month contract; while Reliance Industries witnessed  an addition  of 0.99 million of Open Interest in the May month futures contract, ICICI Bank witnessed  an addition of 0.68 million of Open Interest in the May month contract and SBI witnessed an addition  of 0.22 million  of Open Interest in the May month's future contract.

Markets to make a cautious start on sluggish global cues

Indian markets took a breather in last session, though the markets finally managed a green close after a choppy trade. Today, the start is likely to remain cautious tailing weakness in the global markets. Traders will be paying attention to Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan’s statement that it is essential for India to achieve sustainable economic growth. He has said that containing fiscal deficit is essential for achieving sustainable growth and underlined the need for developing a "good system" to deal with bad loans in banking sector. However, there is some positive news as well, National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) in its latest release has said that the business confidence in last quarter of 2013-14 improved further on expectations of a new electoral mandate that influenced the overall sentiments. The BCI in March quarter rose by about 3.8 per cent from the previous quarter to 127 points. Also after Moody’s, another global credit ratings agency Fitch Ratings has said that the clear electoral mandate given to the Narendra Modi-led BJP has reduced political uncertainty and improved the prospects for economic policy reform. There will be some buzz in the PSU oil marketing companies, on reports that Modi government may push ahead with diesel price deregulation and raise natural gas rates. There will be some important result announcements too, to keep the markets buzzing. Dhampur Sugars, JK Paper, Mahindra Ugine, NIIT, Morepen Lab, T D Power Systems, Texmaco Infra and UCO bank will be among many to announce their numbers. The US markets suffered sharp plunge in last session on possibility of early rate hike after Philadelphia Federal Reserve President said that the Fed may be required to begin raising interest rates sooner rather than later as inflation moves closer to the 2 percent target. Sentiments also remained weighed down by disappointing quarterly results from retailers. The Asian markets have mostly made a soft start led by the Japanese market, ahead of a Bank of Japan decision on monetary policy today. Back home, key domestic benchmarks managed to keep their head slightly above water on Tuesday, extending gaining streak for the fourth straight day. The bourses went through volatility where frontline gauges, after making a gap-up opening, slipped into red and alternately moved between positive and negative zone for most part of the session. Buying which emerged in late trade mainly acted as saving grace for domestic equity markets and helped them to eke out slender gains, as rally in software and index heavyweight shares like ITC and HDFC helped offset losses in oil shares. Earlier, after a positive opening buying momentum picked up pace on sustained foreign funds inflows after credit rating agency Moody’s said the BJP-led NDA’s victory in polls is credit positive for India, as a stable central government is expected to address economic woes. Sentiments also remained up-beat on report that foreign institutional investors (FIIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 1350.04 crore on May 19, 2014, as per provisional data from the stock exchanges. However, reversing the early trend frontline gauges entered into red terrain in afternoon trade largely on emergence of profit-booking in recent gainers. However, reversal of trend was witnessed amid profit booking at higher levels after last three consecutive sessions’ of bull-run. Sluggish opening in European counters too dampened the sentiments. Back home, the software exporters firmed up on bargain hunting activities after previous sessions’ drubbing. Moreover, shares of real estate and infrastructure companies rallied on the back of heavy volumes on expectations of change in policy environment. Unity Infrasprojects, Lanco Infratech, IL&FS Engineering and Constructions, Unitech, Oberoi Realty, Housing Development and Infrastructure (HDIL), Ansal Properties, Man Infraconstructions and Kolte Patil Developers rallied more than 10% each on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). Additionally, stocks related to consumer durables sector remained on the buyers’ radar on hopes of an uptick in demand with the BJP-led NDA government promising to unveil reforms to boost economic growth. Finally, the BSE Sensex added 13.83 points or 0.06%, to 24376.88, while the CNX Nifty was up by 11.95 points or 0.16% to 7,275.50.

RIL, ONGC and Sun Pharma to see some action today

State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) stated that its surprise move to sue Reliance Industries (RIL) for alleged theft of natural gas from its Bay of Bengal block, was to protect its commercial interest. ONGC had on May 15 moved the Delhi High Court alleging that RIL may have drawn natural gas worth thousands of crores of rupees from its fields that sit next to Mukesh Ambani-run firm's KG-D6 block Krishna Godavari basin. The company believes its Godavari Block (known as G-4) and New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP-1) discovery block KG-DWN-98/2 are contiguous to RIL-operated NELP-1 Block KG-DWN-98/3 (KG-D6). ONGC believes that RIL’s D6-A5, D6-A9 and D6-A13 wells drilled close to the block boundary may be draining gas from G-4 field of Godavari block while the well D6-B8 may be draining gas from DWN-D-1 field of KG-DWN-98/2 block. The US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) has continued its import ban on Sun Pharmaceutical Industries’ Karkhadi plant in Gujarat. The US drug regulator had issued a warning letter to Sun Pharma in March this year for not complying with the goods manufacturing norms practice. However, the recent inspection by the FDA found that Sun Pharma has not plugged the gaps which were raised while issuing the warning letter. The investigation did not include a comprehensive review of all records in the waste area or a thorough review of Sun Pharma’s practice of destroying CGMP records. Sun Pharma has 15 days time to reply to the various concerns raised by the FDA related to the plant. ONGC Videsh, the overseas investment arm of explorer Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) , aims to produce 3.6 percent more oil and gas during the fiscal year to March 2015. ONGC Videsh is aiming for 8.66 million tonnes of oil and gas in 2014/15, compared with 8.36 million tonnes produced in the previous fiscal year. ONGC’s arm - Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals’ 0.65 MMTPA Coker Heavy Gas Oil Hydro Treating Unit (CHTU), a secondary processing facility of the Phase III Upgradation and Refinery Expansion Project of the company went on stream. The CHT Unit has been built with an investment of about Rs 443 crore with technology supplied by UOP and executed by Technimont ICB India. Abu Dhabi-based Union National Bank (UNB) has implemented country’s second largest software services firm Infosys’ Finacle Treasury solution.  UNB has implemented Infosys Finacle solution to empower its treasury and capital markets business as well as integrate its trading, risk management and back office operations. The solution will also enable UNB to extend its fixed income offering to newer markets in Europe and South East Asia and manage more asset types effectively. Finacle Treasury solution will help UNB process trades faster and also aggregate risk across multiple asset classes seamlessly. The Finacle management modules implemented at UNB include forex, money market, fixed income securities, equities, derivatives, VaR and limits and risk tracking. Private carrier Jet Airways will enhance air connectivity to Kathmandu from New Delhi by launching one more direct flight from May 23. The airline presently operates two daily flights each out of Delhi and Mumbai and the addition of a third service from Delhi will boost connectivity and help tourists choose flights at their convenience. With the introduction of this additional service from the national capital, the airline will operate five daily flights to Kathmandu from India. The airline will operate Boeing 737-800/900 Next Generation aircraft on this additional route, offering premiere and economy class seats. The new flight would also help connect passengers flying the Delhi-to-Kathmandu route and vice-versa to its domestic and international network. Canara Bank has entered South Africa by opening a branch in Johannesburg as a part of its global expansion plans. The bank has 4,750 branches across India apart from a presence in London, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Bahrain and Moscow. 1,027 branches were added last year across the country and this year the bank will be opening another 1,200 branches. The bank plans to go into Tanzania and Mozambique in Southern Africa as well as Germany, Dubai, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand. These are among 20 proposals which have already been approved by the Reserve Bank of India. A branch in New York will be opened next month. Power supply is unlikely to be affected in the national capital with two BSES discoms already in touch with a number of banks to make payments of Rs 690 crore in dues to state-owned electricity generating company NTPC by May 31 as directed by the Supreme Court. The power distribution companies BSES Rajdhani and BSES Yamuna were making efforts to clear the dues to the NTPC at the earliest. The Supreme Court refused to extend the deadline to pay the arrears to the NTPC for electricity supplied to the BSES discoms in the last four months. The two discoms have been maintaining that they do not have money to pay the dues and even asked power regulator Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission to help it financially by making provision for recovery of past losses. Private equity fund SAIF Partners is set to acquire 10% stake in Atul, a Lalbhai Group company. The PE firm has started buying stake from the open market and will end up with 10% by June-end. SAIF will invest Rs 250-300 crore in the company and will then become the largest non-promoter entity in the company. The company has indicated that capex for FY15 will be Rs 100 core and it will focus on improvements in margin and working capital. International business contributes approximately 50% to its total revenue which is helping the company reduce its dependence on domestic growth. Gujarat-based Atul, a leading producer of chemicals, is part of the group that owns leading textile firm Arvind Mills. UT has not been able to pay the electricity bills of CFSC who have therefore, disconnected the supply to the company's factory premises at Budge Budge Trunk Road. Kolkata. The company has been unable to pay the bills due to huge cash loss. UT is leader in the business of hydraulic cylinders for over four decades. The company diversified in full scale hydraulic cylinder manufacturing segment in 1971. Today, company has the experience in entire earthmoving, material handling and industrial segments.