Breaking News & Stocks

BHEL bags order for 350MW power plant

New Delhi, Feb 26: Power equipment supplier Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd on Tuesday has bagged a Rs 1,075 crore order for setting up a 350MW power plant in Gujarat.

Gujarat State Energy Generation Ltd has placed the engineering, procurement and construction order for the gas turbine-based combined cycle power plant to be installed at Hazira in Gujarat, BHEL said in a statement.

The project is slated for completion in 27 months, the company said.

Scope of work for the project includes supply and commissioning of a gas turbine generator set, one steam turbine generator set and heat recovery steam generator along with associated auxiliaries.

The gas turbine would be manufactured at BHEL's Hyderabad plant, while the HRSG would be supplied by the company's Trichy plant.

The company had recently won a similar contract from Reliance Industries for setting up a 345 MW gas turbine-based combined cycle power plant at Nagothane in Maharashtra.

Bureau Report

No proof of rigging in RPower IPO: Govt

New Delhi, Feb 26: The government has found no evidence of rigging in the Initial Public Offer of Reliance Power by the promoters or merchants bankers, the Rajya Sabha was informed on Tuesday.

"No evidence of rigging by promoters or merchant bankers has come to the notice of the government," Finance Minister P Chidambaram said in a written reply to a query whether there was any rigging by promoters and merchant bankers in the IPO of Reliance Power, whose shares closed at a 17 per cent discount to the issue price on listing day on February 11.

To another related query, he said in view of the pricing regime in vogue, market regulator "SEBI is not investigating the alleged nexus in the matter."

Replying to another question, Minister of State for finance Pawan Kumar Bansal said the government has not made any assessment on the impact of recent stock market crash on the Indian economy or the investors.

Bureau Report

Infosys joins hands with ACDI/Voca

New Delhi, Feb 26: IT major Infosys Technologies on Tuesday said it has entered into a partnership with ACDI/Voca, a non-profit organisation, for providing an application to improve efficiency of the country's agro supply chain.

The information and communication technology-enabled application minimises inventory requirement, reduces waste and facilitate better integration between retailers and farmers, Infosys said in a statement.

The application manages the supply chain from the level of profiling of farmer clusters, crop planning, scheduling, tracking and forecasting.

It also enables farmers to access technical information like data and images, access to region-specific weather updates and market information such as daily sales volumes and average prices.

Currently, 1,700 small farmers are integrated into organised retail supply chains through this application and over the next 5-8 years, the usage is expected to increase to a million farmers, it added.

"This solution gives the organised retail sector access to a reliable small holder production base," Infosys Technologies Senior VP and head (India business unit) H R Binod said, adding that it decreases farm-to-market losses, currently estimated at 30- 40 per cent on certain products.

ACDI/Voca is an international development organisation that promotes broad-based economic growth. This application falls under its growth-oriented 6.3-million-dollar microenterprise development programme, a USAID-funded initiative.

Bureau Report

Sensex up 156 pts after Rail Budget

Mumbai, Feb 26: Investors gave a thumbs-up to the Railway Budget proposals, which among other things include a cut in freight rates, as the markets extended their gains for the second day on Tuesday.

The 30-share benchmark Sensex on the Bombay Stock Exchange settled the day at 17,806.19 points, a net rise of 155.62 points, or 0.88 per cent, over its previous close.

Anil Ambani-promoted Reliance Energy posted a smart gain of 4.59 per cent on news that the company`s board meeting on March 5 will consider buy back of its equity shares.

Marketmen said the Railway Budget 2008-09, it seems, have lifted the investor sentiments further as the proposals provide across-the-board concessions in the fares and freight rates with a thrust on modernisation of rail infrastructure.

They said the rail budget has further ballooned the expectations of large scale concessions in the next Union Budget, which is to be presented on February 29.

The government`s clarification on lending and borrowing of securities under the securities lending and borrowing scheme, has given hopes of some tax sops, mainly related to corporate tax, for the capital markets, marketmen added.

The BSE barometer settled the day at 17,806.19, a net rise of 155.62 points, or 0.88 per cent, over its previous close. The key index had touched the day`s low of 17,678.74 during afternoon trade.

Analysts termed it as a technical bounce and attributed it to approaching expiry of futures contract and Finance Minister P Chidambaram`s last budget.

Bureau Report

6 firms to build undersea cable: Singtel

Singapore, Feb 26: Six international tele- communications carriers, including India`s Bharti Airtel, have agreed to construct an ultra-high-speed submarine cable to carry internetand other traffic between Japan and the United States, Singapore Telecommunications (Singtel) said on Tuesday.

Singtel has joined with Bharti Airtel, Global Transit, Google, KDDI Corp and Pacnet for the USD 300 million project, Singtel said in a news release.

The cable system will link Chikura, Japan, with Los Angeles, a distance of 10,000 kilometres, it said, adding the cable will be ready for service in the first quarter of 2010.

"This new submarine cable network, with its high capacity and resilient transmission infrastructure, will be able to meet the strong demand for data, e-commerce and internet traffic between Asia and the United States," said Mark Chong, Singtel`s executive vice president for networks.

"As it is connected to other cable systems in Asia, it will also provide access to other parts of the region and serve as an important cable diversity route."

Internet service to millions of people across Asia was disrupted in December 2006 after a 7.1-magnitude earthquake that hit Taiwan disturbed several massive offshore submarine cables that link Asian countries with the US and beyond.

Industry observers said the incident showed that the region`s cable network is too fragile and overly reliant on connections to the United States.

Dylan Tan, Singtel`s corporate communications manager, said the main purpose of the new cable is to expand capacity between Japan and the US, while adding to diversity.

India may import 2 mn ton of wheat: USDA

New Delhi, Feb 26: Low carry-over stock coupled with likely fall in wheat output may Compell India to import about 2 million ton of the grain during 2008-09 marketing, a report published by the US Department of Agriculture said.

The country's buffer stock is expected to be below 4 million ton. Wheat production is also pegged lower by 1.3 million ton at 74.5 million ton, compared to the previous marketing year, the report said.

Wheat production is projected to be lower as the total area under wheat acreage has declined by 5,00,000 hectare. The fall in acreage has been in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar due to poor soil moisture and higher temperatures during sowing, it said.

USDA warned that India's wheat supplies are expected to come under pressure as demand for the grain through the public distribution system continues to rise.

"Unless the government resorts to wheat imports, stocks by the end of 2008-09 marketing year could fall below the desired buffer stock level of 4 million ton," it added.

With the general election due in early 2009, the Indian government would take all steps to increase domestic supply of wheat and check rising prices, it said.

India has so far contracted 1.8 million ton of wheat for shipment through March, this year.

DSPML to expand Indian operations; appoints Watts as president

New Delhi, Feb 26: Investment banking company DSP Merrill Lynch (DSPML) is all set to expand its operations in India with special focus on the bond market and has appointed Kevan Watts as president for the same.

Watts would continue to hold the position of vice chairman of Merrill Lynch and would be based in Mumbai.

"Business has increased exponentially in the last two years, but still there are other products we want to expand like in the bond market, fixed income and derivative incomes. Watts will play a crucial role to provide further impetus to the firm's momentum in India," DSPML chairman Hemendra Kothari told agencies.

DSPML is one of the world's leading wealth management, investment banking and advisory companies. As an investment bank, it is a leading global trader and underwriter of securities and derivatives across a broad range of asset classes, and serves as a strategic adviser to corporations, governments, institutions and individuals worldwide.

The expansion of local management team would enable DSPML to consolidate its leading position in the Indian market, Kothari said, adding that "India is a place where we find growth in coming in our business".

Asked about the outlook of stock markets in India in view of a slow down in the west, Kothari said "long term growth story of India is not affected... We may feel some impact but we do expect eight plus economic growth in the next year."

RIL discovers gas in Mahanadi Basin Block

New Delhi, Feb 26: Reliance Industries has made a new gas discovery Inits Mahanadi Basin Block, the eighth find in the block that lies off the Orissa coast.

The discovery has been named 'Dhirubhai40' and "notified to government of India and DGH. RIL is currently evaluating the potential commercial interest of the discovery through additional data collection and analysis," a company press release said here.

"This discovery establishes the hydrocarbon potential towards the deeper part of NEC-Mahanadi basin and opens up more acreage for further hydrocarbon exploration efforts."

The shallow water block nec-osn-97/2 or nec-25, covering an area of 10,755 sq km in water depths ranging between 20-600 meters was awarded to Reliance and Niko resources of Canada in the first bid round under New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP) in 1999. Reliance has 90 per cent interest while Niko the remaining 10 per cent.

Reliance had earlier struck six consecutive commercial discoveries in this block, for which the development plan has been submitted to the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) for approval, the release said.

Well NEC 25-j1 was drilled at a water depth of 478 meter to the target depth of 2926 meter. "For the first time in this basin, the well encountered high quality multi-darcy gas bearing reservoir sands in the interval 2484- 2495.5 meters based on the interpretation of the wire-line logs. Subsequently, the presence of gas in the above interval was confirmed by carrying out Modular Dynamic Testing (MDT)," it added.

Wall Street Lifts on IBM Stock Buyback-
Wall Street reversed earlier losses and moved higher Tuesday after IBM approved a $15 billion stock buyback, suggesting to investors that there are still some companies out there with financial muscle. Dow 12,714.47 +144.25 +1.15%

Key Home Price Index Shows Record Decline in 2007, Double-Digit Drops in 8 Metro Areas


NEW YORK -- U.S. home prices dropped 8.9 percent in the final quarter of 2007 compared with a year ago, Standard & Poor's said Tuesday, the steepest decline in the 20-year history of its housing index.



"We reached a somber year-end for the housing market in 2007," said one of the index's creators Robert Shiller. "Home prices across the nation and in most metro areas are significantly lower than where they were a year ago. Wherever you look, things look bleak."

The S&P/Case-Shiller home price indices, which include a quarterly index, a 20-city index and a 10-city index, reflect year-over-year declines in 17 metropolitan areas with double-digit declines in eight of them.

The 10-city index also set a record annual decline of 9.8 percent in December, while the 20-city index dropped 9.1 percent.

Home prices also plunged 5.4 percent from the previous three-month period, by far the largest quarter-to-quarter decline in the index's history. The previous record was the revised 1.8 percent drop in the third quarter of 2007.

The quarterly index tracks prices of existing-family homes nationwide compared with a year earlier.

A government report Tuesday said U.S. home prices posted their first annual decline in 16 years. The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight said nationwide prices dipped 0.3 percent in the fourth quarter from the year-ago period.

The OFHEO index is narrower in scope and is calculated using mortgages of $417,000 or less that are bought or backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. That excludes properties bought with some of the riskier types of home loans.

"It will only get worse. This record will be shattered by subsequent declines," said Peter Schiff, author of "Crash Proof: How to Profit from the Coming Economic Collapse" about the S&P/Case-Shiller report. "We will experience the most substantial decline in history because before this we had experienced the most unprecedented rise in U.S. real estate history."

After 14 years of rising prices, the housing market is unwinding, taking victims from Main Street to Wall Street. Homeowners are losing their houses to foreclosures at an increasingly rapid rate as interest rates on home loans adjust higher and declining values eat into equity.

Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac Inc. said Tuesday that the number of homes facing foreclosure climbed 57 percent in January from the previous year and more lenders are being forced to take possession of homes they couldn't dump at auctions.

Investors are taking huge losses to rewrite the declining value of securities backed by mortgages. Bond insurers also are taking a hit and could have trouble paying back bond holders if default levels soar. Stalled by swelling inventories and weak demand, homebuilders have been recording record losses quarter after quarter.

Economists worry the housing slump will plunge the broader economy into a recession. The economy grew an anemic 0.6 percent in the fourth quarter.

Earlier this month, Congress passed a $168 billion rescue package with provisions aimed to help beleaguered homeowners refinance into more affordable loans. The Federal Reserve also has aggressively slashed interest rates to spur growth.

The S&P/Case-Shiller index showed the Miami market was the weakest surveyed, posting a 17.5 percent annual decline. Las Vegas and Phoenix followed with a 15.3 percent drop each. Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Detroit and Tampa, Fla., all recorded double-digit annual declines.

Only three metro areas -- Charlotte, N.C., Portland, Ore., and Seattle -- showed year-over-year increases in prices, but Seattle's growth was up a slim 0.5 percent.

On Monday, the National Association of Realtors said sales of existing homes in January fell to the lowest level in nearly a decade while the median price for a home slid for the fifth straight month. The Commerce Department is set to report on January's new home sales Wednesday.