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No clemency plea for SaraIslamabad, March 18: Pakistan on Tuesday said it has not received any official communication from the Indian government seeking clemency for its national Sarabjit Singh.

Singh will be hanged on April 01 for his alleged involvement in terrorist attacks in Pakistan.

Interior ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema said there has not been any official contact by the Indian government on the issue of clemency for Sarabjit, who is set to be executed following the rejection of his mercy petition by President Pervez Musharraf.

"As far as I know his hanging is fixed for April 1. We have not received any official communication (from India) in this regard," he said when asked at a weekly news briefing if the Indian government had submitted any plea on Sarabjit`s behalf.

However, sources said the Indian government had not yet received any official confirmation from Pakistani authorities about Sarabjit`s execution.

The Pakistan government is also yet to respond to the Indian High Commission`s request for consular access to Sarabjit to confirm the reports that he is to be hanged, the sources told reporters.

"There are only media reports that Sarabjit is to be hanged and consular access had been sought to confirm these reports," a source said.

Sarabjit was sentenced to death in 1991 for his alleged involvement in four bomb blasts in Lahore and Multan that killed 14 people.

His family denies he was a spy as claimed by Pakistan and insists he accidentally strayed into Pakistani territory.
bjit from India: Pak

Goldman Sachs beats 1Q expectations

New York, March 18: Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the world's largest investment bank, on Tuesday reported stronger asset management and commodities performance pushed first-quarter results well above Wall Street projections.

However, the investment house also showed its vulnerability to the global credit crisis. Goldman posted net losses on residential mortgages and securities of $1 billion, credit products produced another $1 billion loss, and investment banking returns were sluggish.

"Market conditions are clearly very difficult," Chairman and Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein said in a statement.

Goldman reported first-quarter earnings of $1.47 billion after preferred dividends, or $3.23 per share, down from $3.2 billion, or $6.67 per share, last year. Revenue fell to $8.33 billion from $12.73 billion a year earlier.

Analysts polled by Thomson Financial on average expected earnings of $2.58 per share on $7.47 billion in revenue. Reflecting the uncertain nature of the times, the 18 analysts reporting earnings estimates had forecast anything from $1.95 to $3.40 per share in profits.

Liquidity problems among investment banks have been a major question in recent days. Lehman's competitor Bear Stearns Cos. was forced to sell itself Sunday for about $2 per share in order to avoid bankruptcy. The sale came just days after its liquidity evaporated in a matter of hours, as investors and lenders worried over the company's investments in risky debt.

As mortgages increasingly defaulted in 2007, investors shied away from bonds backed by the risky loans for fear of the bonds defaulting. That lack of investor appetite led banks to cut the value of their holdings, and has severely reduced investment banks' capital markets and fixed income business.

Goldman was still able to surpass expectations, a major relief to analysts and investors who remained worried that the market's upheaval in the past month might have severely curtailed the investment bank's ability to make money.

One area that did not fare well was its principal trading — usually a strong suit for Goldman. Revenue fell to $5.12 billion, down by about half from the year-ago period.

However, fixed-income trading was down only slightly during the quarter, despite losses from its mortgage loans and securities.

Investment banking revenue fell to $1.17 billion, down by a third as the number of deals during the period began to diminish. Companies are much more reticent to complete big deals given the market's fluctuations.

Shares of the company rose $20.92, or 13.9 percent, to $171.93 in midday trading.

Lehman profit falls 57 percent

New York, March 18: Investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. said Tuesday its fiscal first-quarter earnings fell 57 percent due to a steep decline in its capital markets business, but its shares soared as it easily beat Wall Street forecasts.

Net income for the quarter ending Feb. 29 fell to $489 million, or 81 cents per share, compared with earnings of $1.15 billion, or $1.96 per share, during the same quarter last year. Lehman's revenue fell 31 percent to $3.5 billion during the first quarter.

Analysts polled by Thomson Financial, on average, forecast earnings of 72 cents per share for the quarter on revenue of $3.35 billion.

Lehman Brothers took a $1.8 billion write-down during the first quarter because of deterioration in the credit markets. It had taken about $2.13 billion in write-downs in the previous two quarters combined, while financial services firms have taken about $160 billion in write-downs since the credit markets began to tighten.

Capital markets revenue fell 52 percent to $1.7 billion because of continued deterioration of the credit and mortgage markets. Gains in products like high-grade corporate debt and foreign exchanges were more than offset by investors' lack of appetite for riskier products such as residential and commercial mortgage securities and acquisition finance.

Lehman's chairman and chief executive, Richard Fuld, said in a statement the current credit environment remains "challenging," but the bank maintains a strong capital base and liquidity position.

Lehman has $34 billion in available liquidity at its holding company.

Liquidity problems among investment banks have been a major question in recent days. Lehman's competitor Bear Stearns Cos. was forced to sell itself Sunday for about $2 per share in order to avoid bankruptcy. The sale came just days after its liquidity evaporated in a matter of hours, as investors and lenders worried over the company's investments in risky debt.

As mortgages increasingly defaulted in 2007, investors shied away from bonds backed by the risky loans for fear of the bonds defaulting. That lack of investor appetite led banks to cut the value of their holdings, and has severely reduced investment banks' capital markets and fixed income business.

Investment management operations at Lehman helped lessen the blow of the weakening credit markets. Lehman's investment management division posted record revenue of $968 million, 39 percent more than the year-ago period.

Shares of Lehman rose 17.8 percent to $37.40 in premarket trading.

LIC hikes stake in ACC to 15%

Mumbai, March 18: State-run Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India has increased its stake in cement maker ACC Ltd to nearly 15%.

LIC has acquired 3,833,687 equity shares amounting to 2.02% stake in the cement manufacturer through market purchase route within a time span of March 6-14, ACC said in a disclosure to the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Calculated on the basis of the average closing price of ACC between March 6 to March 14 (Rs 783.25), the deal value amounts to around Rs 300.27 crore.

Prior to this transaction, LIC had 23,972,831 equity shares representing 12.80% stake in ACC, which got increased to 27,806,518 (14.82%) after the said acquisition.

Shares of ACC were trading at Rs 781.50, up 1.37% on BSE in afternoon trade

Allahabad Bank cuts home loan rate by 0.25%

Mumbai, March 18: A day after UCO Bank announcing cut in home loan rate, another public sector lender Allahabad Bank has slashed housing loan rate by 0.25 percent for both floating and fixed amounts up to Rs 20 lakh.

"The reduction in interest rate has been given to customers as the bank has been able to reduce the cost of incremental deposits, the general market scenario and to boost the demand in housing loan sector, particularly among small and medium category borrowers," Allahabad Bank said in a statement to the Bombay Stock Exchange today.

The above reduction will be effective from April 1, on all fresh sanctions, it said.

Accordingly, the minimum interest on housing loan for five-year period will be 9.5 percent per annum and maximum would be 10.50 percent a year for a period of 15 to 25 years in PLR-linked loans, it said.

Earlier this month, Finance Minister P Chidambaram had impressed upon the banks to moderate home loan rates. "I shall certainly bear in mind that there is public demand that interest rates for borrowers, who borrow (housing loans) up to Rs 20 lakh, must be lowered."

"I made a number of efforts to impress upon bankers in this regard ... It is a constant effort that I will have to make... Bankers will have to take a call, RBI will have to take a call," Chidambaram had said.

The bank is also approaching its board for further reduction in prime lending rate to make all PLR-linked loans more comfortable for its borrowers.

If approved, the proposed reduction in PLR will also become effective from April 1, it added.

Allahabad Bank had on September 4, 2007 and February 10 this year reduced the interest rates on home loans with cumulative reduction ranging from 1.5 to 1.75 percent across all tenure of loans over the rates applicable at the start of the year.

With this fresh cut and a likely reduction in PLR, the benefit in reduction to the home loan customers would be even more, it added.

Yesterday, UCO Bank slashed home loan rates by 0.25 percent across all tenures.

The new rates ranging from 9.25-11.75 percent are effective from March 15.

SBI rights issue fully subscribed

Mumbai, March 18: State Bank of India's rights issue was fully subscribed on the closing day on Tuesday, garnering around Rs 16,736 crore following a robust response from institutional investors.

"The response (to the rights issue) has been very good. The issue has been fully subscribed," a senior SBI official told reporters.

The share of retail investors was a mere 6.1 per cent of the total subscription.

The government, which is the largest shareholder in the public sector lender, has subscribed to the issue through special marketable government securities worth about Rs 10,000 crore in order to maintain its existing 59.7 holding in the bank.

The lender had offered around 10.52 crore shares of face value of Rs 10 each at a premium of Rs 1,580 per share, aggregating to Rs 16,736.304 crore.

Recently, India's second largest lender, ICICI Bank, had raised around USD 5 billion through a share-sale in Indian and the US markets.

Tech Mahindra, BT ink USD 350mn deal

Mumbai, March 18: Telecoms software services firm Tech Mahindra Ltd said on Monday it has entered into a USD 350 million five-year application support deal with UK's BT Group.

"Tech Mahindra has been a system integration partner with us for many years, they have expertise and knowledge of our legacy systems and are working with us in developing new generation systems," Managing Director, wholesale service design for BT, Clive Selley, said.

The total value of the deal would be spread equally over the five years, he added.

The deal would maintain Tech Mahindra's revenues from the BT Group in the 60-65% range, Tech Mahindra President Sanjay Kalra said.

In December 2006, Tech Mahindra had won a USD 1 billion deal from BT spread over five years. The company is a joint venture between automobile major Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd and BT Group.

Shares in Tech Mahindra closed down 3.4% at Rs 622.80 on the BSE.

Fed cuts rates by 3/4 percentage point

Washington, March 18: The Federal Reserve cut interest rates by three-quarters of a percentage point today. The stock market had anticipated a cut and the Dow Jones industrial average jumped over 300 points ahead of the announcement. But the Dow dropped about 100 from its high for the day after the Fed failed to cut rates by a full point, which many had expected.

The Fed's target for the federal funds rate, the interest that banks charge each other on overnight loans, stood at 3 percent before the move, and was at 4.25 percent at the beginning of this year.

Markets posted strong gains before the Fed announcement after Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs reported better-than-expected results for the first quarter.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues have already been working overtime, employing a variety of novel approaches to keep the economy out of a recession or at least moderate the impact of any downturn.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson made the rounds of the morning TV shows Tuesday to underscore the administration's commitment to keeping turmoil in the financial markets from worsening a struggling economy.

"The priority we have is a stable, orderly financial" market, he said on CBS' "The Early Show.

He said the focus of policymakers "is reducing the spillover into the real economy from the turbulence and disruptions in our financial markets."

To those who would complain that the administration is more interested in bailing out Wall Street than struggling homeowners, Paulson said the thousands of Bear Stearns employees likely to lose their jobs and life savings, and thousands of shareholders who have lost billions because of the company's collapse, probably do not feel like they have been bailed out.

A cut in the funds rate will translate immediately into lower rates for consumers and businesses as banks cut their prime lending rate by a similar amount.

"There is no reason for the Fed not to be aggressive," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com. "The economy is in a recession, the financial system is in disarray and inflation is low."

However, a report Tuesday showed that wholesale prices rose by 0.3 percent in February, driven higher by rising energy costs.

Outside of food and energy, core inflation jumped by 0.5 percent, the biggest increase in 15 months and a possible sign that the relentless increase over the past two years in energy costs is making its presence felt in other sectors of the economy.

At the moment, Fed officials have said they are more concerned about weak growth than inflation. Another report Tuesday showed that problems in the housing industry continue, with construction of new homes falling by a bigger-than-expected 0.6 percent and applications for new building permits dropping to the lowest level in 16 years.

Oil Futures Retreat From Earlier Highs After the Fed Cuts a Key Rate Less Than Expected


NEW YORK (AP) -- Oil prices have come off their earlier highs after the Federal Reserve's decision to cut a key interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point.
Many investors were expecting a larger, one percentage point cut. Lower rates weaken the dollar, and a weak dollar makes commodities like oil more attractive. So investors see this slightly smaller than expected cut as less bullish for oil prices.

In afternoon trading, light, sweet crude for April delivery is up $1.49 at $107.17 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. That's about 70 cents lower than where futures were trading just before the Fed announcement.

TCS opens new development centre in US

New Delhi, March 18: Country's largest software exporter TATA consultancy services on Tuesday said it has set up a Software Development and Delivery Center in North America with a capacity of 1,000 seats to cater to the customers there.

The center located in Milford, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati, can accommodate up to 1,000 associates, TCS said in a statement.

"Most of them will be locally hired from the region and its universities," the statement said further.

"The Cincinnati campus is a strategic investment to create an information technology eco-system in the state together with our customers and local universities. It reflects our long-term commitment to customers in one of our key markets globally," TCS Chief Executive officer and Managing Director S Ramadorai said.

The company has selected Cincinnati and the Ohio region as it met all its criteria in terms of proximity to customers, strong talent pool, and a significant economic base that includes 10 fortune 500 companies, N Chandrasekaran, TCS Chief operating officer and Executive Director, said.

TCS has been operating in north America since 1979 when it established its first office in New York city. Currently, it has more than 40 offices throughout North America delivering real business results to customers spanning the fortune 1,000 firms.