Howrah News Service - Latest news and headlines on Howrah,West Bengal and World

Bharti’s bid for MTN at risk from Vodafone

Sun, 11 May 2008 18:05:05 -0400

By OUR CORRESPONDENTS

London/New Delhi, May 11: British mobile major Vodafone is considering making a bid to buy a part or whole stake in MTN, which is South Africa’s third largest mobile group, according to reports in London.

The bid could cost Vodafone up to £20 billion ($39.02 billion), according to reports in the Sunday Times and the Sunday Telegraph. This could queer the pitch for Bharti which is also running for the same prize. Last week, Bharti Airtel admitted publicly for the first time that it was in the race to acquire MTN. MTN has 68 million customers in 21 countries across Africa and West Asia, but most of its subscribers are in South Africa, Nigeria and Iran.

Vodafone CEO, Mr Arun Sarin, according to the Times, has instructed his in-house acquisition team, led by the former UBS banker, Mr Warren Finegold, to examine options to buy MTN. Vodafone already has a significant presence in South Africa through a stake in Vodacom.

Former politician and anti-apartheid campaigner, Mr Cyril Ramaphosa, who chairs MTN, may be reluctant to hand over control to a foreign company.

Vodafone’s interest in MTN, according to the Times and the Telegraph, was triggered by the news about MTN discussions with Bharti Airtel, which is interested in acquiring a 51 per cent stake.

However, the British company’s decision to bid for stake was at an early stage and it is likely that a final bid might not emerge.

Anyone interested in buying a stake in MTN will have to get support from the Alpine Trust, a group that owns 23 per cent of MTN through the pooled investment of company managers and former Lebanese prime minister, Mr Najib Mikati, the Times said.

However, Vodafone said later on Sunday that it did not plan to buy full or partial stake in MTN. "We have no intention of pursuing a bid for MTN," a company spokesperson said.

Last week Bharti admitted that it was looking to acquire MTN. The company had said that the talks are of exploratory nature and may or may not lead to any transaction. Bharti Airtel chairman, Mr Sunil Mittal, has met various MTN officials in London.

According to some reports Bharti has tabled an indicative offer for a 51 per cent which would value MTN at around $37 billion. Bharti has secured $12 billion from Goldman Sachs and Standard Chartered and plans to fund the rest with an issue of equity, either directly to MTN shareholders or to institutions.

However, Bharti had denied that it has made any offer to acquire the whole or part of MTN.

Google to extend deal with Yahoo

Sun, 11 May 2008 18:00:16 -0400

IT WATCH / K.Venugopal

Google is planning to extend its partnership with Yahoo in the Internet advertisement market. The two web giants had experimented with ad-sharing for a week and have termed it as a major success.

Though widely perceived as rivals, they had become friendly after Microsoft's attempts to take over the latter. Now they are planning to increase the partnership further. Google also made light of Microsoft's concerns that this would allow the duo to dominate the Internet ad world. According to Google executives, search advertising was a narrow area and Internet advertising was much broader. They also hinted at the irony in Microsoft raising such concerns since it aggressively dominates the software terrain.

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Computer to diagnose

Computer analysis of faces can help detect symptoms of genetic diseases, a new study has discovered. Scans and diagnoses of genetic diseases are very costly because symptoms are non-specific. However, Peter Hammond of the London University College has devised a simpler and low-cost approach to diagnose diseases using computers. The method involves projecting a pattern of thousands of dots onto a patient's face and taking photographs with a digital camera.

Then software is used to convert these photos into three-dimensional maps of the face.

This is compared with faces of people suffering from various genetic diseases. If the computer detects similarities, then further tests can be done.

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Yahoo opens its Go 3 beta

The Yahoo Go 3 beta has now been released for handsets working on Windows Mobile. The 'all-in-one' mobile application can be downloaded from. Yahoo Go 3.0 helps mobile users to access all Yahoo services including Yahoo oneSearch, news, email, weather, entertainment and the Flickr photo service. The beta version meant for smart phones was released in January but has been tweaked for Windows Mobile only now. A series of widgets also come along with Yahoo Go 3 beta which will help mobile users check out eBay, MySpace and MTV news. More widgets are in the offing.

The data is also stored in a 'cloud' and can be accessed from any Internet device.

China unveils jumbo jet firm

Sun, 11 May 2008 18:00:37 -0400

Beijing: China unveiled its own jumbo jet maker in Shanghai on Sunday, state press reported, in a move that could eventually rival Airbus and Boeing. The new company, Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (CACC), will be responsible for researching, developing, manufacturing and marketing a made-in-China large passenger aircraft. China announced early last year that it planned to develop a 150-seat passenger aircraft.

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Rupert says no to Newsday bid

New York: Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp has withdrawn its bid to buy the Newsday, leaving Cablevision the likely victor, the Wall Street Journal said on Saturday. Cablevision, which operates cable television, phone and broadband services, offered $650 million for the Newsday, topping equal bids of $580 million by NewsCorp and New York Daily News owner Mr Mortimer Zuckerman.

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Shell suffers in Nigeria attack

Port Harcourt (Nigeria): Royal Dutch Shell said on Saturday it was losing the equivalent of 30,000 barrels of crude oil per day because of recent attacks against its installations in Nigeria. The unrest helped drive oil prices to a record high above $126 on Friday, analysts said. The loss in production translates to $3.47 million in lost revenue every day, said Chidi Izuwah, a company spokesman.

Indian retail to expand foothold

Sun, 11 May 2008 18:01:05 -0400

Kolkata, May 11: Growing retail industry in India would see a phase of consolidation in the medium term while ill-planned malls were likely to go out of business, an official of real estate management company Jones Lang LaSalle Meghraj (JLLM) said.

"There is a huge potential for the retail sector in the country since India is a large economy and 97 per cent of the country’s retail trade is still in the unorganised sector," said JLLM Managing Director (Kolkata market), Mr Abhijit Das. With the country’s economy projected to grow at a rate of nine per cent per annum, there would be gradual shift of the retail business from unorganised to organised sector, he said.

In spite of this, retail sector would see a phase of consolidation in the medium term. According to Das, malls which are ill-planned and of less than average standards would be under severe pressure.

He said a small player with an outstanding mall in terms of design, and value proposition would always do better than a large player with a below average mall, ill-designed and poor value proposition. (PTI)

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Spam turns 30, India on target

Mumbai, May 11: In May 1978, Mr Gary Thuerk sent the first junk e-mail.

None knew this trivial event three decades ago would emerge in the 21st century as the most dreaded Internet security threat called ‘spam’, which is giving sleepless nights to all those who surf the worldwide web.

Spam is defined as junk or unsolicited email sent by a third party.

While it is certainly annoying to users and administrators, it is also a serious security concern as it can be used to deliver Trojans, viruses, and phishing attempts which could have critical financial or operational repercussions.

"While there was not much activity on the spam front until the 90s, the complexity levels in the last one decade has increased greatly," said director of the Symantec Internet Security Response Lab Pune, Mr Prabhat Singh.

In India alone, average 72 per cent of the emails are spam infested.

Symantec, in its latest edition of the Internet Security Threat Report, found India ranks high on the global virus and worm prevalence charts. (PTI)

Google set to go local for India biz

Sun, 11 May 2008 18:01:30 -0400

By PAWAN BALI

New Delhi, May 11: India has emerged as the fastest growing market for the internet search engine major Google.

"The growth in revenues from Indian market for us is faster than Google overall by a significant margin," said Google India managing director, Mr Shailesh Rao. Google is increasingly driving more and more usage and revenue from outside US.

Mr Rao said that the company is bullish over the Indian market even though the broadband penetration is very low in the country. "Given the size of the country even with low broadband penetration, India has huge number of internet subscribers," he said.

Google is trying add local flavour to increase its popularity in the country. Last week the company launched YouTube’s India specific site. YouTube India features a localised homepage and search functions, allowing users to create and share videos, discover the most popular and relevant videos in India. Also, last week Google launched Google Translate- a translation service for Hindi.

This new launch enables automated translation between Hindi and English. However, Google is also facing legal problems in India. YouTube has been sued by an Indian local music company for alleged copyright infringement.

"We have very well establish processes, when we come to know about some potentially objectionable content to respond to it quickly," said Mr Rao.

Indian exporters bullish on bananas

Sun, 11 May 2008 18:02:06 -0400

By MAYUR SHEKHAR JHA

New Delhi, May 11: Indian bananas are set to become the flavour of the world. Maharashtra-based contract farming firm, Desai Fruits and Vegetables (DFV) has signed a multi-crore deal to export bananas to a group of traders of West Asian countries. DFV is also in talks with retail chains in the European Union countries and Japan. The company has already flagged off its first consignment, on Sunday to Jeddah, UAE-based Sharbatly Fruit Company.

At present, DFV has more than 2500 acres of land under contract farming of which 800 acres is under banana cultivation. "In the next three years, we plan to ramp up banana cultivation to 10,000 acres with over 2,500 farmers working on it," said, DFV head Mr Ajit Desai. At present, India’s presence in the world banana market is abysmally small. This, despite the fact that India is the largest producer of banana in the world, accounting for over 23 per cent of the global output. Over 5 lakh small and medium farmers are involved in banana cultivation and about one-third of India’s fruit production is accounted for by banana alone.

Banana exports has been an area of concern for the commerce ministry. Government has asked APEDA, in collaboration with the National Horticulture Mission, to take up the creation of storage, pack-house and cold storage infrastructure in key banana cultivation clusters with export potential.

Similar facilities will be created in important importing countries as well, as has been created by APEDA for flowers in Rotterdam and is being planned in Dubai and Tokyo soon.

Globally, in terms of volume bananas are the most exported fruit, while they rank second after citrus fruit in terms of value.

By arrangement with Financial Chronicle

Macro outlook may play spoilsport

Sun, 11 May 2008 18:02:38 -0400

By C. Kutumba Rao

Shaken and stirred by simmering international crude oil prices and inflation, markets gave off most of the gains made in last three weeks. On the BSE, the Sensex shed 863 points to close at 16,737 and the Nifty on the NSE plunged 246 points to end at 4,983. Though decline in mid and small cap indices were lower, market breadth was weak on all the days reflecting weak undertone.

Renewed selling from FIIs and weak market internals has heightened fears of May phobia. Escalating food and energy prices have made inflation the buzz word on everyone’s lips. Inflation figures are expected to remain high for a rather protracted period of time before gradually declining again.

Macro outlook for the economy is also turning bad due to weakening rupee and rising commodity prices. Expect tighter monetary environment and slower growth for next couple of quarters, warn analysts.

Barring any unexpected developments on global front, markets are expected to consolidate at current levels with negative bias. Key things to watch in the week ahead are IIP data and unexpected political developments.

For the week ahead, chartists predict trading bands of 16,180-17,300 for the Sensex and 4,800-5,200 for the Nifty. Key support levels for the indices are 16,500 and 15,840 and 4,880 and 4,800. Expect strong resistance at 17,080 and 17,330 and 5,060 and 5,180.

Sniff at inside information; it is usually bunk. The big people don’t talk about their operations. Follow the trend. Do not buck the trend, and do not hedge. Be either long or short, but not both at the same time.

F&O segment

Mirroring the weak sentiment, volumes continued to be on lower side in the derivatives segment. Average daily turnover has dipped to Rs 32,000 crore. Fresh shorts and ‘stuck’ longs saw open interest improving to Rs 70,000 crore plus. True to predictions, Nifty futures have fallen sharply with punters preferring to take some profits off the table. Hold shorts in Nifty futures with a stop loss at 5,060. Buy Nifty 4,900 put option for the coming week. Sectorwise, selling was seen across the board with realty counters bearing brunt of selling.

BSE realty index lost nearly 9.5 per cent indicating that the sector is in for more ‘rough’ times. So, tread cautiously. Fears of rising input costs ‘eating’ away profits have seen players paring exposure to capital goods counters. Avoid for present.

Despite better than expected results, banking and metal stocks witnessed profit booking on assumption of inflation curbs affecting them. Weakening rupee gave some ‘push’ to technology, textile, tea and bulk drug pharma counters.

However, nervousness and May phobia triggered profit taking at higher levels. Bleeding oil marketing PSUs are expected to get a relief fiscal package in near term.

Attempt contrarian buying at lower levels. Adopt stock specific approach for decent short term gains.

Among stock futures looking good for the settlement are TVS Motors, Alok Inds, ITC, BEL and Bharat Forge. Die hard punters can attempt selling in Reliance pack on rallies.

Heightened action expected in side counters like TTML, Ispat Inds, Ashok Leyland, Hotel Leela, Power Grid and HOEC. Use mistakes in trading as object lessons, the person who makes the same mistake twice deserves no sympathy. Don’t let emotion or prejudice warp your judgment. Base your trading on facts.

Satta gupchup

Select infrastructure counters like C&C Constructions, Pratibha, IRB Infrastructure and Noida Toll are attracting the attention of savvy market players. Companies like Noida Toll and IRB Infra operating in niche segment of building of roads or bridges, maintenance of roads and bridges built and toll collection are being fancied because of high degree of certainty in revenue stream. Use sharp declines to accumulate the counters. C&C Constructions known for its presence in infrastructure projects in Afghanistan is now focusing on Indian contracts. For the current year, the company is likely to report EPS of Rs 35. Buy for target price of Rs 290.

n Gwalior Chemicals, Rohit Ferro, NB Ventures, Goldstone Technologies and Jindal Drilling are in the buying list of savvy fund managers. Benefiting from the boom in oil exploration sector Jindal Drilling is expected to report results in next few quarters. Buy on declines for target price of Rs 1,500 in short term. Excellent results predicted from NB Ventures. The company is likely to report PAT of Rs 280 crore. Buy at current levels for price target of Rs 350. Renewed buying interest was seen in Rohit Ferro and Gwalior Chemicals. Further gains indicated in the counters. News driven activity indicated in Goldstone Tech. Punters tip price of Rs 300 in near term.

C. Kutumba Rao is a Hyderabad-based stock market analyst. The views expressed and the recommendations made are those of the author. Readers are strongly recommended to consult their financial advisors before making any financial investments. This newspaper is not liable for investment decisions made on the basis of recommendations in these columns.

Small firms hold key for chip manufacturers

Sun, 11 May 2008 18:03:21 -0400

By Goutam Das

Bangalore, May 11: While the opportunity bucket for Indian semiconductor suppliers predominantly includes large MNCs such as the Nokias and Ciscos, the chip fraternity can ill afford to ignore smaller, domestic players who may form a big chunk of the available market, experts say.

The total available market (TAM) for semiconductor usage in local manufacturing is expected to be $3.18 billion in 2009, a report from Indian Semiconductor Association and market research firm Frost & Sullivan has predicted. This would represent more than a doubling of the market since 2006, when TAM was reported to be $1.26 billion.

"The few large firms are important to the market. They are not only designing in India but also manufacturing. However, we cannot ignore the ‘many small’ ones because they will be a huge grow-th engine for the industry going ahead," Mr Bobby Mitra, MD, Texas Instruments India, says.

All electronic goods incorporate semiconductors. The domestic demand for electronic products has been rising with the higher disposable income of the Indians.

While computers, cell phones, set top boxes, and MP3 players among others have been big drivers of semiconductors, future opportunities for players may lie in segments such as medical and industrial. "Many firms work on Ultrasound, for instance — on innovations such as how to bring the cost of ultrasound scan down," Mr Mitra says.

In the industrial sector, opportunities may stem from customers manufacturing UPS, inverters, solar inverters, and CCTVs among others. One such company is SLN that has built a control system for Moon Mission Earth Station and a thermal printer for point of sales applications. It uses chips from firms such as Freescale, Analog Devices, and Cypress Semiconductors among others.

However, many of these small firms may not have cash cushion to source expensive chips in volumes from leading firms. Experts from the industry are therefore mulling "supporting" them. "Lar-ger firms can help realign two-three firms together to manufact-ure a product," suggests Mr Sudip Nandy, CEO, telecom and product engineering solutions of Wipro. "Collaboration could mean consolidation," said Mr Aart J. de Geus, chairman and CEO of Synopsys, said.

RCom forms JV with Alcatel

Sun, 11 May 2008 18:03:38 -0400

By Our Special Correspondent

Mumbai, May 11: Reliance Communications and Alcatel-Lucent are forming a joint venture that will provide managed network services to RCom in both CDMA and GSM networks in 12 circles.

The new JV will also support the expansion and growth of RCom outside India when the Indian market is saturated, said sources close to the development.

RCom will spend $500 million over seven years for this service. Sources say that this is indirect vendor financing of Alcatel as it is also an equipment manufacturer. RCom was looking for a partner capable of maintaining both its GSM and CDMA networks and found Alcatel-Lucent an ideal match. With its end-to-end network integration capabilities and expertise, Alcatel-Lucent will help RCom satisfy its customers needs, the sources said.

It would also improve RCom’s competitiveness by reducing operating expenses, without sacrificing network quality, he added.

In the long-term this JV will also build proactive infrastructure that will manage networks of some of the other companies such as Unitech, Adonis, Nahan, Volga, Loop, Shyam Telecom, Spice among others.

Sources said they may not like to build their own networks so that they could use the infrastructure of this JV to provide and manage the networks.

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Assocham pitches for long-term gas deals

By OUR CORRESPONDENT

Chennai May 11: Even as India is set to increase its indigenous production of natural gas, Assocham has suggested that the government should sign long-term gas contracts with Asian suppliers. This will help India to cope up with the future rise in natural gas demand.

India’s domestic gas requirements, which currently stands at 35 billion cubic metres (BCM), is likely to swell over 120 BCM by 2015. The country currently meets most of its needs through indigenous production. In 2007-08 India produced 32.27 BCM of natural gas out of which public sector firms ONGC Ltd and Oil India Ltd produced 24.55 BCM.

The contribution of the private sector will be increasing in the years to come. RIL, which may start commercial production at its K-G Basin site in 2008, starting off with 40 million standard cubic metres (MMSCMD) per day plans to scale it up to 80 MMSCMD by 2009.

This may satisfy 42 per cent of the domestic gas requirements. But, even after these scale ups, India could fall short of the estimated requirement in 2015, by 60-65 BCM.

Ratan amongst biggest brains in business world

Sun, 11 May 2008 18:04:31 -0400

New York, May 11: After being chosen as one of the most influential people in the world by the Time magazine, Ratan Tata of Indian conglomerate Tata Group has been named among the biggest brains in business by another US publication.

The list of ‘73 Biggest Brains in Business’, compiled by business publication Conde Nast Portfolio, features Mr Tata for his $2,500 car — Nano, along with the likes of media mogul, Mr Rupert Murdoch, and chief executive of investment bank Goldman Sachs, Mr Lloyd Blankfein.

"Brillian-ce comes in many forms, whe-ther it is founding a startup that kicks sand in Micro-soft’s face or creating an affordable car for the developing world. A small number of innovators influence the rest of influencers in business," the magazine said. The list published in the latest issue of the magazine is further classified into five groups — game changers, connectors, tastemakers, rebels and upstarts.

About Mr Tata, the magazine said that he believes the future of the auto industry rests in the hands of people who do not yet drive.

Tata Group, which snap-ped up British luxury brands Jaguar and Land Rover, has unveiled Tata Nano — the world’s cheapest car.

"The model won’t be sold in the US but has the potential to alter the market for manufacturers here. Nissan-Renault is partnering India’s Bajaj Auto to develop a car by 2010 for less than $3,000," said the magazine. (PTI)