Investors in SIPs should be especially careful because the taxation is done according to the first-in-first-out basis
A team of engineers at India's largest IT services provider firm. Tata Consultancy Services, was working on a project for an important client. While it was co-ordinating work from three geographical units - Europe, South America and India - it was finding it difficult to collaborate through telephone or other voice means as there were language and pronunciation hurdles.
VMIL officials declined to comment on the development. According to sources close to the development, VMIL will sell stake to raise money for expanding Hungama, the content and mobile services arm. The Mumbai-based company has already held two to three rounds of meetings with these private equity investors. The company's valuation has been pegged at Rs 800 crore (Rs 8 billion). The funds raised would be used for Hungama's expansion.
When the NAV falls, you are going to get more units of the fund. That means when the market turns around, you will get much more returns
Aegis BPO Services, an Essar Group business process outsourcing (BPO) company, is close to acquiring an 8,000-seater BPO firm in the Philippines. The exact size of the deal is not clear.Aegis has been bullish on inorganic growth as its races to reach a turnover of $500 million (around Rs 2,000 crore) by 2010.
US-based buyout fund Carlyle, Providence Equity Partners, Warburg Pincus and Blackstone are understood to be exploring a buyout of Temasek's holding in Mumbai-based pure-play business process outsourcing firm Firstsource. The news triggered the company's share price to rise 6.76 per cent on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) to close at Rs 43.45 on Tuesday. Warburg Pincus has a stake in WNS, a BPO company, while Blackstone has a majority stake in Intelenet.
The broad idea is to help freshers and high-potential employees develop soft skills not generally taught at universities, and simultaneously increase retention rates in an industry that has attrition rates between 30 and 50 per cent. The industry, according to Nasscom estimates, accounts for almost $11 billion and employs slightly over 700,000 professionals (in terms of direct employment).
In the last couple of years, reverse mortgage (RM) has been touted aggressively as a product that will allow the elderly to unlock the value of their house. In fact, in the last two Union Budgets, the finance minister has made a special mention about it.
With ICICI Bank recently offering to reduce the equated monthly instalments of existing customers for high tenure loans, many may like to exercise this option because it would reduce their burden for the time being. Also, with the rise in the interest rates in the last couple of years, many have found their monthly EMIs rising by over 15 per cent.
However, financial experts are of the view that though REMFs are good for those who want to participate in the property boom, investors should not look at them as equity funds.
Sluggish volume growth and mark-to-market losses have affected the performance of a majority of mid-cap information technology companies in the January-March 2008 quarter. Analysts expect that growth will continue to be sluggish in the next two quarters.
With the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) hiking their fees, many general category students will have to approach banks for educational loans. Most will also have to furnish collateral to get that all-important loan.IIM-Ahmedabad, for instance, has almost trebled its fees to Rs 4 lakh to Rs 11.5 lakh. IIM-Kolkata has hiked it from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 7.5 lakh. Others like IIM Bangalore and IIM Lucknow have hiked it from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 8 lakh and Rs 4 lakh to Rs 5 lakh.
India's largest IT firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) will not announce a cut in variable pay of its employees this year , despite the company reporting a negative net profit on sequential basis.Last quarter, the company had announced a reduction in its staff variable pay as it did not achieve the internal targets.
Shah Rukh Khan's Kolkata Knight Riders have signed on Zapak Digital Entertainment, a Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) venture, to develop online games for them. As part of the exclusive one-year tie-up, Zapak will create a cricket gaming zone on the official website of the Knight Riders and is said to make an investment of Rs 1 crore (Rs 10 million) in the deal. The exact value of the deal is not known. The portal has already gone live with two games.
Young borrowers have the opportunity to get bigger loans because age is on their side.
In the last few years, unit-linked insurance plans (Ulips) have quietly become one of the largest players in the Indian stock market. With a total investment estimated at Rs 1.5 lakh crore to Rs 2 lakh crore, they are almost close to the investment made by equity mutual funds.
They are aggressive going through the financial details of the customers. All indications that life is going to get tougher for potential home loan borrowers.
WNS Global Services, India's second largest business processes outsourcing company, has signed on Sri Lankan fast bowler Lasith Malinga as its brand ambassador. It has thus become the first Indian IT services firm to have a brand ambassador. Accenture, a multinational company, is another one that has ace golf player Tiger Woods as its mascot.
With hundreds of theatre screens coming up across India in 2009, Texas Instruments (TI) - a leading semiconductor technology company - is eyeing the Indian cinema market with its digital light processing (DLP) technology. TI has patented the DLP technology. In DLP projectors, the image is created by small mirrors laid out in a matrix on a semiconductor chip known as a Digital Micromirror Device (DMD).
IBM has deployed over 1,200 Indian employees to countries like Austria, Finland, Denmark, Costa Rica, under the Blue Opportunities programme.
