ONGC claims first right to Cairn India stake

Vedanta Resources was in the news for being denied permission by the government to mine bauxite in Niyamgiri hills in Orissa. Just when the dust was settling on that episode, its proposed acquisition of a majority stake in Cairn India has come under a cloud. Government-owned oil company Oil and Natural Gas Corporation has claimed pre-emptive rights over Cairn India and asked for documentation before giving a go-ahead to the transaction. Continue Reading →

Mahindra is the preferred bidder for Ssangyong

South Korea’s Ssangyong Motor Company announced that Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) was the preferred bidder in its quest to find a strategic investor. It was one among six bidders for the failing auto company, whose prime attraction for bidders would be its product line-up, mainly sports-utility vehicles, and global sales network. M&M will now enter into a memorandum of understanding with Ssangyong, undertake due diligence followed by the final agreements. Continue Reading →

ABG Shipyard makes big investment plans

ABG Shipyard is asking its shareholders to approve Rs 800 crore of investments and Rs 1,750 crore of corporate guarantees. That is a sizeable investment for the company which had a net worth of about Rs 1,080 crore as of March 31 2010. The company’s debt position as of March 31 2009 was Rs 1,771 crore. It has not indicated how it proposes to fund the investments but is taking shareholder approval because they exceed the limits approved under corporate law. Continue Reading →

RBI lowers liquidity but leaves rates unchanged

The Reserve Bank of India announced its quarterly monetary policy today. It left benchmark rates unchanged, like the repo rate (the rate at which banks borrow from the RBI) and the reverse repo rate (the rate at which banks park their surpluses with the RBI. What it did was to hike the cash reserve ratio by a good 75 basis points, taking out Rs 36,000 crore from the banking system. Cash reserve ratio is the proportion of deposits that banks must set aside as a reserve. Apart from this, the RBI has not made any changes and the Annual Policy will be announced on April 20. Continue Reading →