The Hindu Business Line : Thursday, July 31, 2008

Automakers draw up strategies to beat high interest regime
To sharpen focus on finance arms, take up aggressive cost reduction. Mumbai July 30 The Indian automobile industry is gearing up for a bumpier ride in the coming months. With a hardening of interest regime round the corner and a debilitating ...

Tata Motors net slips 30% on input cost rise, forex fluctuations
Sales of commercial vehicles up, passenger cars flat. Mumbai July 30 Volatility in foreign exchange rates, inflationary pressures and a steep increase in input costs pulled down automobile major Tata Motors’ net profit for the quarter ...

Two-wheeler foray: (From ... TODAY'S PICK (Latest Audio: English/Tamil)
Thermax (Rs 438.05): Buy
We recommend a ‘buy’ in Thermax from a short-term perspective. It is visible from the charts of Thermax that it had been on a long-term downtrend from its October 2007 peak of Rs 963 to its July 2008 trough of Rs 330. The stock lost ...

Day Trading Guide

M&M Q1 net down 17%
To merge Punjab Tractors with itself. Mumbai, July 30Tractor and utility vehicle major Mahindra and Mahindra reported a 17 per cent fall in the first quarter net profit. According to the company, the fall in profits is mainly on account of ...

M&M to drive Kinetic 2-wheeler
Kinetic to get Rs 110 cr cash and 20% stake in new venture Mahindra Kinetic. Mumbai, July 30 Ending months of speculations about its entry into the two-wheeler sector, utility vehicles and tractor major Mahindra & Mahindra on Wednesday ...

PNB to hike PLR, deposit rates from Aug 1
New Delhi, July 30 On the heels of the Reserve Bank of India announcing its ‘dear money’ policy on Tuesday, Punjab National Bank (PNB) has decided to raise its benchmark prime lending rate (PLR) by 100 basis points to 14 per cent ...

Philips-Goldman Sachs consortium lone bidder for Railways’ CFL project
New Delhi, July 30 A consortium led by Philips and Goldman Sachs has put in the lone bid for the Indian Railways’ tender to replace incandescent lamps in 6.5 lakh Railway households with compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) under a ...

IOC first quarter profit slides 71% at Rs 415 cr
New Delhi, July 30 Indian Oil Corporation Ltd’s (IOC) continued good performance in the physical business was not enough to better its financial performance, with the company reporting a 71 per cent decline in net profit for the first ...

ITC net dips on excise duty hike on cigarettes
Turnover up 18%, non-cigarette biz grows 29%. Kolkata, July 30 ITC Ltd reported 4 per cent drop in net profit at Rs 748.67 crore for the quarter ended June 30, 2008, from Rs 782.87 crore during the corresponding quarter of last ...

‘Market needs stability before spending picks up’
Infosys’ V. Balakrishnan talks about offshoring trends, growth approach. Bangalore, July 30 While it is still too early for the IT industry to predict the business environment for the next couple of quarters and some of the companies ...

BSNL-union talks on IPO deadlocked
New Delhi, July 30 The deadlock between the Government and the employees union of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd on the proposed Initial Public Offering continued after two rounds of meeting held over the last week. ...

Global majors keen on Railways loco unit
5 bids received for proposed factory in Bihar. New Delhi, July 30 Indian Railways has received five bids for its proposed electric locomotive factory to be set up in Madhepura, Bihar. ...

Hexaware to trim workforce by 5%
Fall-out of low utilisation rates, delay in deals. Mumbai, July 30 Hexaware Technologies is likely to end the year with a 4.5 per cent reduction in its workforce. ...

Now, apply for IPO without spending money
SEBI introduces supplementary process for applying. Mumbai, July 30 SEBI on Wednesday issued details on the modalities by which investors can apply for an IPO, while still keeping the application money in their bank account till finalisation ...

Two-wheeler companies watching monsoon closely
New Delhi, July 30 After wrestling with subsequent rounds of interest rate hikes, reduced lending by banks on two-wheeler loans and soaring steel prices, motorcycle companies like Hero Honda, Bajaj and TVS are now keeping a close eye on the ...

Crisil ranking of EPFO fund managers not reflected in final selection
New Delhi, July 30 The best asset management companies in terms of qualitative rankings made by Crisil to the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) have not found their place among the selected four for managing EPFO’s ...

Fee income beefs up banks’ Q1 bottomline
Global presence, technology, complex product suite help. Mumbai, July 30 Strong growth in fee income in the first quarter has helped many banks show higher profits and offset the pressure on margins. ...

Banks repricing term loans as margin shrink
Bangalore, July 30 Faced with mounting margin pressures, banks have now begun repricing some of the term loans on their books. Top bankers said the repricing would include some of the term advances made in 2005 and 2006, when interest rates ...

Rupee near key resistance
The steep climb in the rupee caused by the sell-off in crude prices and the victory of the UPA government in the no-trust vote was arrested at 41.7 against the dollar. Terror attacks in two Indian cities and the resultant decline in equities ...

Kolkata tops in ‘ethics at workplace’ survey
CHANGING SCENARIO. Nearly 45 per cent people in the corporate workforce in eight Indian cities don’t bat an eyelid while logging incorrect entry/exit times, 46.8 per cent feel using the office telephone for personal long distance calls ...

Rains in South may relent ahead of next spell
Thiruvananthapuram, July 30 Intensity of rainfall over the peninsula and adjoining central India may get compromised over the next two days after the well-marked ‘low’ over east Vidarbha lost some of its steam overnight from ...

ITC’s paper trail
Paper products, especially notebooks, continue to appeal to this division of the cigarettes-to-hotels major which has exited the greeting cards business.. Good wishes are always in demand, but what with the Internet and SMS delivering us ...