The government has sought data from the Reserve Bank of India to consider a proposal to enhance the investment limit for bank exposure to equity markets. This will be part of several measures to boost domestic institutional participation in the markets at a time when foreign institutional investors are exiting.
The Reserve Bank of India has initiated a review of the benchmarking system for pricing floating rate loans, a move that could impact 70 to 75 per cent of banks' loan portfolios.
Guidelines may be relaxed with strict quality checks.
The move comes at a time when four foreign banks - Standard Chartered, Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, American Express and Citibank -- have moved the Supreme Court with a special leave petition and the hearing for admission of SPL is on September 8. The committee is, however, expected to wait till the Supreme Court decides on the issue before finalising its recommendations. The committee is, however, expected to wait till the Supreme Court decides on the issue.
In the latest annual report posted on its website, Danone has said it is negotiating with its partner with a view to selling its 25.5 per cent indirect stake in Britannia.
A day before the deadline of exclusive takeover talks between Anil Ambani's Reliance Communications and South African company MTN expires, Reliance Industries has invoked the dispute resolution clause of the non-competition agreement against RCom. However, RCom plans to go ahead with its proposed merger with MTN without taking RIL's claim into account.
The Kenyan government has dumped the Mumbai-based group in favour of a Libyan company for a 50 per cent stake in a refinery project in Mombasa. Essar officials said they are still negotiating with the Kenyan government so that they can invest in the project.
Swiss cement major, Holcim, promoter of two of India's biggest cement companies, ACC and Ambuja Cements, said there is no escape from increasing the cement prices in the country considering the high energy costs.
The Ruias of the Essar group have decided to get into yet another takeover battle. And this time they are taking on none other than Lakshmi Narayan Mittal, the owner of world's largest steel maker, ArcelorMittal, to take over the Bulgarian steel firm, Kremikovtzi AD, an ailing steel mill owned by Mittal's younger brother Pramod Mittal.
The Aditya Birla group's wireless telephony firm Idea Cellular has agreed to buy Spice Communications in a three-stage deal in which minority shareholders of Spice would be given an option either to swap their shares for the Birla group firm or sell them in an open offer.
Telecom to Telekom Malaysia in an attempt to complete the merger, sources involved in the negotiations said, declining to be identified. The group has hired Enam Financial as adviser to the transaction. Investment banking sources said the lawyers from both the parties are now busy structuring the deal so that the acquisition meets all the regulatory norms of the country and the Birlas retain control over Idea Cellular.
Idea Cellular, the Aditya Birla group firm that is on the verge of taking over Spice Communications by buying out B K Modi's 41 per cent stake, is sounding out its bankers to raise funds to upgrade in the struggling telecom operator's network and technology.
Kolkata-based personal care products maker Emami, which made a hostile takeover bid for Zandu Pharmaceuticals, on Friday forced the latter to withdraw a plan to offer preferential shares to its promoters.Zandu had sent notice to the Bombay Stock Exchange late on Thursday evening saying its board would meet to discuss a preferential share issue to the promoters and directors.Emami lawyers swung into action and sent legal notice early on Friday to Zandu's board.
The Reserve Bank of India is expected to do a balancing act by further liberalising limits on the foreign exchange outflow to tackle the capital inflow and its impact on inflation. The central bank was likely to raise the limit on corporate investment abroad and the ceiling on individual remittances overseas. RBI has liberalised limits on the overseas investment by companies from 200% to 400% of their networth. Liberalisation is proposed since India has good forex situation.
There may not be any legal obstacles to the State Bank of Saurashtra's merger with the State Bank of India but it is the United Progressive Alliance's political compulsions that are holding back the deal, which is expected to pave the way for merger of the other six SBI associates with the parent. In response to the law ministry's objections, the RBI has told the government that the Centre could go ahead with the merger without any immediate legal glitches.
The initiative could help a large number of the alleged FERA violators get away with just financial penalties instead of criminal charges. The government's advisory, informed sources said, will not apply to all the cases as the RBI will decide on a case-to-case basis.
The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (Irda) may allow up to 25 per cent investment to a single group of companies as part of the group exposure norms for unit-linked insurance plans (Ulips).While in the normal course, the regulator is likely to cap the investment of such polices at 20 per cent, the ceiling can be relaxed by another 5 per cent with prior approval of the board through what is called discretionary limits.
Exchangeable bonds are instruments that allow a holding company or the parent company of a group to raise funds from the overseas market for use by any of the group companies. The bonds will then be converted into shares of the company for which funds were raised. RBI has sent a cautionary note to the government stating that the rules for exchangeable bonds will have to be aligned with the norms for external commercial borrowings.
India will finally sign an investment treaty - the Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (BIPA) - with Myanmar in the first week of April. The pact is going to be of critical interest to a host of oil majors looking at investments in the resource-rich country.According to sources, the treaty will be signed with the approval of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The Cabinet ratification, they say, will come later.
The government has initiated a comprehensive review of external commercial borrowings (ECB) policy. While the details are yet to be thrashed out, the government and the Reserve Bank of India are set to raise the ceiling for the current financial year from $22 billion to $28-30 billion. Sources said the move was prompted due to a breach in the existing ceiling.
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