SK Modi urges Centre for e-payment in banks

Source:PTI:Tuesday, May 11, 2010 17:17 IST



Patna: Bihar deputy chief minister SK Modi today urged the Centre to arrange for e-payment in all banks for realisation of taxes.


Lack of e-payment facility with banks other than the State Bank of India was the biggest hurdle in the way of realisation of taxes and the Centre should take immediate initiatives for it, Modi told a workshop on e-governance organised by the International Finance Corporation (IFC).

Stating that the Central Excise department was availing e-payment facilities from 26 leading banks in India, he said "but similar facilities don't exist in states, including Bihar.

Bihar could realise revenue of Rs5531 crore during the last fiscal (2009-10) of which the state government received 46 per cent as payment of taxes through e-payment system, Modi said.

"We also expect that introduction of the e-payment system in other banks can help boost the state government's effort to improve revenue collection," Modi said.

Deputy chief minister further said if these facilities were made available to other banks in Bihar it would come in
handy for businessmen not not having accounts with SBI to ensure payment of taxes through e-payment system.

Rahul Gandhi takes Bill Gates on whirlwind visit to Amethi, Rae Bareli

Source:IANS:Tuesday, May 11, 2010 13:07 IST


Jais (UP): Microsoft chief Bill Gates and Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi arrived here Tuesday for a day-long visit aimed at giving the global philanthropist a glimpse of social development work in the two 'Gandhi constituencies' of Rae Bareli and Amethi.

While Rae Bareli is Congress president Sonia Gandhi's parliamentary constituency, her son Rahul represents Amethi.

Gates and Rahul Gandhi, both dressed in white, flew in a chartered aircraft from New Delhi and landed at the Indira Gandhi Flying Academy in Fursatganj town, about 10 km from here, in Rae Bareli.

They drove down to Jais, named after famous Sufi poet Malik Mohammad Jaisi, where Gates, accompanied by an entourage of eight, and Gandhi visited the Rajiv Gandhi Women's Training Centre run by the Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust.

There was heavy security as the group interacted with about 300 women actively associated with the women's self help groups formed here with Gandhi's personal initiative.

Women involved with different NGOs funded by the charitable trust gathered at the training centre well before the arrival of the VVIPs.

While Gandhi and Gates were driven inside the tall gates at the centre, the rest of their entourage followed them on foot after disembarking outside.

More than 100 police personnel were detailed to provide security cover from outside while Gandhi and Gates also had their own personal guards to maintain the inner ring around them.

Gandhi, who chose to keep the Gates visit a closely guarded secret, completely shunned the media as well as party workers. Even state Congress chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi learnt about the visit through the media.

Local Congress leaders said Gandhi will also take Gates to a village in his constituency Amethi where a similar self-help group activity is to be showcased before the Microsoft boss. They will also visit a health camp run by the Rajiv Gandhi trust.

Gates and Gandhi then drove down to Amethi. They will fly back to New Delhi later in the afternoon after the Congress MP's condolence visit to the residence of a Congress worker who was murdered recently.

Citigroup director may get $350,000 for 3 weeks work

Source:Reuters:Tuesday, May 11, 2010 9:51 IST


NEW YORK: Citigroup Inc has agreed to pay board member Robert Joss up to $350,000 this year for as little as three weeks of consulting work, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

In a letter written April 5, Citigroup vice chairman Lewis Kaden said that Joss already was paid $100,000 for consulting services performed from August through December of last year, according to the May 7 filing.

None of the consulting work is to include compensation matters, the letter said, and would be on projects agreed to by Joss and Kaden.

"We expect to call upon you to perform the Services for a minimum of approximately three weeks annually," the letter said.

Joss was appointed to the board in July of 2009. He is the former dean and Philip H. Knight Professor of the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, and former chief executive officer and managing director of Australia's Westpac Banking Corp.

Proxy adviser Glass, Lewis & Co, which advises shareholders on corporate-governance issues, earlier this year recommended shareholders vote against chairman Richard Parsons and other directors who have served on the company since before the financial crisis. That did not include Joss, and shareholders voted in all directors at their annual meeting last month.

The US treasury department owns about 27% of the bank's shares as a result of a bailout during the financial crisis.

Shares of Citigroup on Monday closed up 5.5%, or 22 cents, at $4.22. The Dow Jones Industrial Averagerose 3.9%.

'There's no big differential between domestic and overseas loans'

Source :G Seetharaman / DNA:Tuesday, May 11, 2010 4:32 IST



Mumbai: IRB Infra Developers, one of India’s biggest highway developers, closed 2009-10 with a two-fold jump in its consolidated net profit to Rs 385 crore. The company has 10 operational highways, two under construction and one for which it is to receive the letter of intent, in addition to an airport project in SIndhudurg. we caught up with IRB’s chairman & managing director V D Mhaiskar to discuss the road ahead for the company and the funding scenario here and abroad, among others.

What are the margins in highways like?
There are two segments in it. One is the developer’s side model, in terms of tolling. There you have an Ebidta margin of 85%. If you look at the construction business, it’s 15%. That’s why if you look at IRB, the margin is almost 45-50%. That’s because our product mix is almost 50:50.

What are your current daily toll revenues?
On a gross basis, it’s Rs 2.4 crore.

None of the 15 projects in your portfolio is annuity-based. Is it a deliberate strategy not to take up annuity projects?
Not deliberate. We kept on bidding for toll road projects, we

kept getting them so we built a portfolio of toll roads. We are not averse to annuity projects. We will look at them as they come. Annutiy roads can be a 12-13% margin business. That’s more like a deferred payment. You can have margins as in the construction business. What happens in tolling is you have the upside to yourself. If you get the traffic higher than expected, there will be an uptick in your income. But in annuity, which is a fixed payment, there is no upside unless you dramatically reduce interest costs, which cannot happen beyond a point.
Have you put in bids for any annuity projects?
Not yet.
Any new developments on your real estate plans along the Mumbai-Pune expressway?
We are still acquiring land and we will continue to do that for a few more months. We currently have 150 acres.
What sort of real estate development would it be?
It would be a mixed-use township where we would be the key infrastructure developer and we will rope in joint developers.
This model is quite new to India. Jaypee Associates’s Ganga Expressway is one of the first projects to have it. What’s your take on the model?
What we are doing is clean development. This is a private project of the company and has nothing to do with the Mumbai-Pune concession. It’s not like the Jaypee model where the revenue for the project is coming from the real estate development.
When can we expect work to begin on this?
Not for a year.
What is the traffic growth you are seeing?
About 6-8% in the recent past. During the recession, we saw a negative growth in a couple of projects, but we have seen a reversal since. Internationally, or even domestically, it’s normally 1-1.2 times the GDP growth.
What is the current state of the funding scene in India?
All the four new projects that we tied-up funds for, we closed at 10.5% during the construction period post which we have a yearly reset.The repayment schedule is now 15-16 years.
How does the overseas funding avenue look?
We have not tapped it. If we look at it on all-hedged basis, it will be 9.5-10%. So there is not a big differential between domestic and overseas loans.The arbitrage would be 100 basis points at best.
We also hear there is not much appetite for these projects?
No, there is appetite, but only for projects that are operational and that would fall under the ambit of refinancing.
Recently, Power Finance Corporation announced a scheme wherein it would lend towards the equity of a power project against the returns of a commissioned project of the developer. Is there similar for highway builders?
Some banks are doing it. We hear IDBI is doing it aggressively. What they do is they give you a loan at the parent company level, a part of which you can use to invest as equity in a project. We have not looked at it though.
Do you see more funding avenues for infrastructure opening up in India?
I think the corporate bond market is something we are waiting to develop. I think India is the only place where infra funding is still done by banks. Most of the international experience is that companies float corporate bonds for project-related purpose, which are then traded. We are nowhere near.
Are the loans given to a highway special purpose vehicle (SPV) secured or unsecured?
Till now, there was a dilemma. Some banks used to consider them secured and some unsecured. But now it’s been solved with the new classification issued by the RBI.
So will IRB continue to stay primarily in highways, with a bit of real estate?
Yes. We have a small airport project in Sindhudurg. We took that up because it’s a good project and it’s an excellent opportunity, with Sindhudurg’s proximity to Goa and the place being developed as a tourist destination. We don’t rule out venturing out to other areas, but we have not thought of anything.

Three senior ICICI Venture officials quit

Source :4 May 2010, 1858 hrs IST,PTI

MUMBAI: Three senior officials of ICICI Venture have submitted their resignations from the company.

The three officials are Jayanta Banerjee, President, Sunay Mathure and Anand Vyas, both Directors.

When contacted, an ICICI Venture spokesperson confirmed the resignations.

"They have resigned," the spokesperson said. While he did not say why they resigned, it is understood that the three are likely to set up their own private equity fund.

ICICI Venture presently manages assets to the tune of over USD 2-billion.

Last year, ICICI Venture's then Managing Director & CEO, Renuka Ramnath, had quit the company to launch her own private equity fund called Multiples Alternate Asset Management.

ICICI Venture is the private equity arm of ICICI Bank, India's largest private sector and second-largest bank overall.

HCL ropes in ex-CEO of TCS e-Serve to drive BPO growth

Source :5 May 2010, 0148 hrs IST,ET Bureau

   

NEW DELHI: HCL Technologies on Monday announced a change in the leadership of its BPO arm, which has seen steady drop in profitability and revenues. India’s fifth-largest software firm announced the appointment of former chief executive & MD of TCS e-Serve Rahul Singh as president for business services.

HCL’s BPO business was headed by Ranjit Narasimhan over the past few years. He moved out to head new strategic initiatives about three months ago and the BPO business was being led by Rajiv Swarup, a senior HCL executive, in the interim.

Rahul Singh will be responsible for driving growth in the company’s BPO and business services division globally, HCL Technologies CEO Vineet Nayar said. “We welcome him to HCL as we reshape and transform the way BPO and business services are being offered to our customers, tightly integrated with IT services,” he said.

A large part of BPO and business service operations was devoted exclusively to British Telecom, mainly providing voice-based services. However, that will change as an effort to revive the fortunes. “We are now focussing on non-voice services and will restructure the business. A new plan for the business will be announced by July,” HCL Technologies CFO Anil Chanana said when the parent declared its quarterly results.

Rahul Singh, who has the experience of running Citi’s captive BPO unit — later sold to TCS — will face a tough challenge to bring HCL BPO back on track. The unit’s January-March 2010 revenues fell 18% while gross profit for the same period declined to Rs 42 crore from Rs 102 crore in the previous corresponding period. Its headcount dropped to 10,205 employees for the quarter to March 31 against 11,426 people in the same period previous year. Taking expenses and depreciation out, the firm actually made a loss of Rs 22.5 crore.

Aditya 'groomed' to lead Mittal's global steel empire

Source :10 May 2010, 0100 hrs IST,PTI


NEW DELHI: NRI billionaire Lakshmi Nivas Mittal, a month away from his 60th birthday, cherishes a dream about his Wharton-educated son Aditya Mittal taking over the reins of ArcelorMittal, the world's largest steel company spread across 60 countries.

"I am very proud of Aditya. Whatever role he has got, he is doing it very well ... clearly he has been groomed to be the leader in the company in the future," the CEO and Chairman of USD 65-billion Luxembourg-headquartered ArcelorMittal, LN Mittal, told PTI.

Mittal, who will turn 60 on June 15, was quick to add that the final decision about his successor would be taken up by the company board.

"... We don't know. The board has to decide this," he said, when asked about the timing of Aditya Mittal, an Economics graduate from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania in the United States.

Aditya Mittal, ArcelorMittal's Chief Financial Officer, is said to have played a crucial role in its USD 32 billion merger deal with Arcelor in 2006.


He is also part of the Group Management Board which is responsible for strategic decisions of the company.

"Today, he (Aditya, 34) is doing a great job .... He is responsible for the strategy, finance, M&As, all American business for the flat (steel) products. He is very well accepted, admired and respected in the organisation," a proud father said.

Senior Mittal, born at Sadulpur village of Churu district in Rajasthan, founded Mittal Steel Company in 1976 and guided its strategic development, culminating in the USD 32 billion takeover of Europe's leading steel-maker Arcelor.

Together, they are one of the most powerful father-son duos on the global business stage.

Metropolis appoints Ameera Patel as CEO

Source :5 May 2010, 1748 hrs IST,PTI
    

MUMBAI: Laboratory chain operator Metropolis Healthcare has appointed its Executive Director Ameera Patel as the company's new Chief Executive, effective April 1.

Patel will be holding both positions concurrently at Metropolis Healthcare, a company release said here today.

Under Patel's stewardship, Metropolis today caters to more than 10,000 small labs, nursing homes and hospitals, over 20,000 consultants and processes more than 10 million tests annually, the release said.

Metropolis Healthcare is India's only multinational chain of diagnostic centres with presence in Sri Lanka, Nepal, Nigeria, South Africa, Bangladesh and Mauritius

Raju Venkataraman named Disney India VP

Source :7 May 2010, 0118 hrs IST,Nandini Raghavendra,ET Bureau


MUMBAI: The Walt Disney Company in India on Thursday named Raju Venkataraman as vice-president and general manager of Disney Media Distribution (DMD), which is the new business name for Disney-ABC International Television.
Raju will look after licensing of branded and non-branded content to all platforms including free-to-air, cable and satellite broadcasters, mobile, broadband and VOD platforms. In addition, Raju will also continue in his capacity as vice president of channel distribution for Disney Media Distribution, Asia Pacific.

Raju has played a crucial role in building the Disney’s network of channels – Disney Channel, Disney XD and Hungama TV - as a preferred entertainment destination among kids and families. He was part of the core team that delivered a multi-year deal with Sun Distribution Services for the distribution of Disney Channel, Disney XD and Hungama TV across multiple platforms in India in March 2010.

Previously, Raju Venkataraman was in charge of Business Operations for Disney Channel in South East Asia prior to taking up the Channel Distribution mandate in June 2008.

Era Infra wins Rs 17.23 billion highway project

Source :11 May 2010, 1101 hrs IST,REUTERS


MUMBAI: Era Infra Engineering said on Teusday it won a road project worth Rs 17.23 billion from National Highways Authority of India, that involves four laning of section of national highway 24 in the state of Uttar Pradesh.

Bill Gates to adopt Bihar village

Source :11 May 2010, 1349 hrs IST,IANS


PATNA: Microsoft chief Bill Gates will adopt a backward village in Bihar during his daylong visit to the state Wednesday, officials said.

The philanthropist, accompanied by officials of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, will visit the state for the first time.

Gates would adopt Gularia village in Khagaria, about 170 km from here, and help improve the socio-economic condition of the people, the district's Superintendent of Police Sudhanshu Kumar said.

At present, the village, comprising mainly Mahadalits, considered poorer than dalits, does not have even basic civic amenities like running water, electricity, schools and health centres.

Gates is also scheduled to meet Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in the state capital to discuss development issues and changes taking place for the poor.