Unitech is pinning its hopes on the sub-Rs 5 lakh category of flats to counter the slowdown in the property sector. So are a host of others. Apart from Unitech, others such as Omaxe, Raheja, Tata Housing and Ansal API are planning new projects in the suburbs of satellite towns or smaller cities to target the bottom segment, to generate more cash.
"The scene will be a bit like the Maruti 800 days. Those who are lucky enough to be allotted cars this year can resell it immediately at a premium of Rs 30,000 due to the anticipated shortage," an executive at a Motors dealer said. Supply, Tata Motors dealers say, would be between 40,000 and 50,000 cars, with 100,000 being the most optimistic estimate. This would mean customers may have to wait for up to two years to get delivery if all the bookings are accepted.
This has come at a time when commodity prices have dropped and several companies are seeking to lower prices to boost sales. "While the recent drop in raw material prices have been an enabler, our margins are still under pressure due to several factors like operational expenses as well as production and packaging costs, which have peaked year-on-year," said a company official.
Companies are either taking small government projects alone or bidding for larger ones with consortium partners. The companies, which had 18-75 per cent of their order books in property development, say they are facing payment delays of 20-90 days from some of the private developers, blocking their working capital requirements. Some of them take a week's advance payment from developers to execute their projects.
The USFDA has accused Ranbaxy of falsifying data and test results of medicines. A Daiichi Sankyo statement said it takes the issue very seriously. 'Both Daiichi and Ranbaxy have formed a team to solve the issue. Ranbaxy will be responding to the FDA and will continue to cooperate with the agency.' Ranbaxy shares fell more than 18 per cent to Rs 169.85 today on the Bombay Stock Exchange, while Daiichi stock dropped about 10 per cent to yen 1,680 on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
Fox Star Studio India, the distributor of Slumdog Millionaire in the country, has managed to gross around Rs 40 crore (Rs 400 million) from the markets, surpassing collections of some of the biggest Bollywood hits of last year such as Rock On.
This is one question that's uppermost in the minds of analysts, marketmen and industry experts even as the Company Law Board on Thursday gave the scam-tainted IT firm's stake sale plan the go-ahead.
Surinder Kapur, president of the company's 'vendor council,' said it has about a dozen representatives from Tata Motors and an equal number from the vendors. "We supply for about 4-5 per cent of our revenues to Tata Motors and we do not have payment issues," he said. Lumax, which derives about 15 per cent of its turnover by supplying almost half of the lighting solutions for Tata Motors worth about Rs 60 crore a year, said they had not experienced any payment issues.
The Kushan Pal Singh-led realty major has halted construction work on nearly 16 million sq ft of office and retail mall space out of the 62 million sq ft of planned construction. In the office space, the developer has stalled construction on nearly 12 million sq ft of office space out of the 36 million sq ft of space being planned.
The move is expected to give high retail exposure to its products in innumerable kirana stores in the country, without having to spend much on advertising and marketing expenses apart from generating business volumes. When contacted, Reliance Retail spokesperson said: "As a policy, we do not comment on speculation." In a recent reshuffle at the company, Reliance Fresh head Gunender Kapur was made head of private labels business in the company.
Ram Myanampati, the interim chief executive officer of beleaguered Satyam Computer Services, on Thursday admitted that he himself is on a shaky ground.
While portals such as makemytrip, cleartrip and ezeego have seen a rise of 30 per cent in advance booking in the first week of January, others such as yatra and travelocity, with a 10-15 per cent surge, are also expecting more bookings in the coming weeks. The cleverly-introduced advanced booking fares have induced passengers to book tickets until as late as November.
Private equity investments in public firms have tanked as much as $2.24 billion so far this year, thanks to the massive erosion in equity markets as well as the present economic downturn, a latest study says.
The decisions come within 24 hours of the home loan package offered by public sector banks. Chennai-based Indian Bank reduced interest rates of domestic term deposits of Rs 1-5 crore (Rs 10-50 million) by 150-25 basis points across various maturities.
The government on Sunday announced a package of Rs 1,400 crore (Rs 14 billion) under the Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme and 2 per cent interest subsidy up to March 31 next year. But the textile industry had demanded 4 per cent interest subsidy along with reintroduction of the duty drawback scheme.
Hotels are not typically equipped to handle terrorist attacks and present ideal soft targets around the world, according to experts. Even the private security guards that the hotels hire do not always have the expertise to use weapons. This is set to change now, hotel officials say.
Parsvnath Developers is expected to sack its non-performing staff post Diwali as part of its cost cutting measures. "Non performers have to go. Cost cutting measures will start in 15 to 20 days,'' said Pradeep Jain, chairman of Parsvnath, told reporters on the sidelines of a conference in New Delhi on Friday.
Sample this. Five cyber-thieves, allegedly part of a network that hacked into the account of a Noida businessman, were nabbed today for a Rs 1.66 crore (Rs 16.6-million) cyber hack. They used Internet banking to transfer the money from the businessman's account with the Punjab National Bank's Noida branch to their own account.
While 22 per cent of the promoters' stake in Ranbaxy was sold through an off-market transaction, the remaining came from a preferential share allotment. Daiichi Sankyo had earlier picked up more than 20 per cent of Ranbaxy's shares through an open offer. Ranbaxy Chairman and Managing Director Malvinder Mohan Singh said the remaining 12-13 per cent promoter shareholding will change hands in the coming weeks, thereby taking Daiichi's share in Ranbaxy to over 60 per cent.
India Inc, while welcoming the Reserve Bank of India's move to cut the key interest rate, expressed doubts on lenders' response to pass on the benefits to customers.
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