Apple Inc.’s Asian suppliers fell after the iPhone maker was downgraded by Citigroup Inc. because a cut in
orders to its vendors raised concerns about demand for the iPhone 5 model.
“We are
turning cautious on Apple supply chain, as we believe we are at the peak of
many product cycles,” Jeff Pu, a Taipei-based analyst at Fubon Financial
Holding Co., wrote in a report today. “The most important message is ‘iPhone 5
is game over,’ as demand appears to be weaker than expected -- i.e., US
peaking, China launch just so so.”
Hon Hai Precision
Industry Co., the iPhone assembler, tumbled the most in more than seven months
in Taipei trading, leading shares of speaker supplier AAC Technologies Holdings
Inc., Flexium Interconnect Inc. and other vendors lower. Cupertino,
California-based Apple, the world’s most-valuable company with a market
capitalization of $480 billion, fell to the lowest level since Feb. 17 in
Friday trading in New York.
The
iPhone, which debuted in 2007, is Apple’s biggest product by revenue. It
accounted for 51.42 percent of revenue in the year ended September, according
to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The
prospect of weak iPhone 5 shipments creates near-term earnings downside for
Apple’s supply chain, and the companies are likely to see further selling
pressure in the near term, Citigroup analyst Kevin Chang
wrote in a note dated Dec. 14.
Asian
shares were mixed on Friday with a pick-up in China's manufacturing sector
lending support but worries over the progress of U.S. budget talks to avert the
"fiscal cliff" weighing on investor sentiment.
European
shares were expected to start higher, with financial spreadbetters predicting
London's FTSE 100 , Paris's CAC-40 and Frankfurt's DAX will open as much as 0.3
percent higher. A 0.3 percent gain in U.S. stock futures hinted at a firm Wall
Street open.
A
deteriorating business sentiment survey and expectations that the Bank of Japan
will ease policy further to support the weak economy next week pushed the yen
to a near 9-month low against the dollar and an 8-month low against the euro,
helping Japanese equities wipe out earlier losses.
China
shares outperformed Asian peers after the HSBC flash purchasing managers' index
for December hit a 14-month high of 50.9, the fifth straight monthly gain,
showing growth in China's vast manufacturing sector picked up and underlined a
brighter outlook for the economy in coming months.
The
private survey followed recent positive data suggesting Chinese economic
activity has gained some momentum in the fourth quarter after it slowed for
seven consecutive quarters.
A
state-backed think tank has also forecast China's GDP growth next year at
around 8 percent -- above the likely government target -- while calling for an
expansion in the central government's fiscal deficit to offset an uncertain
external environment.
The
Shanghai Composite Index soared 4 percent while Hong Kong shares rose 0.8
percent to a 16-month peak.
ASIAN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
The National Conclave on Banking and Financial Services –
2012 on the theme 'Banking and Financial Services in India-The Changing
Contours' was held at Asian School of Business Management (ASBM) here on 15th
Dec 2012.
Chief Guest on the occasion, Ms. Gargi Kaul, Principal
Accountant General, Odisha said, "India is still a way behind other
countries to fully implement the Financial Inclusion Plan and a meager 20 per
cent of the population of the country is
covered by Life-Insurance and 9.6 per cent in other insurance schemes, which
need to be improved."
Guest of eminence on the occasion, Praveen Gupta, CGM
SBI, Bhubaneswar Circle said, "The Banking & Financial services sector
in India has seen a rapid change over the years. The 'Alternate Channel
Banking' system is helping customers by saving their time through Internet
Banking, Mobile Banking, ATMs, Service Kiosks, which is made possible due to
application of upgraded technology."
However, Financial Inclusion remained a key challenge for
the sector, as still 6 lakhs villages are deprived of banking facilities yet in
the country; we have covered around 73,000 villages under financial inclusion
plan in between 2010 to 2012, Gupta added.
Speaking about the 'Direct Cash Transfer' scheme, which
covers 51 districts in the country, Gupta expressed reservation of Odisha not
being a part of it.
As Imports, Exports and Services sector combinedly
contributes around 55% to country's GDP,
hence India will bear the brunt
of global economic change in future, Gupta said.
BANKING
WikiLeaks on Monday announced the launch of a new
platform called the Freedom of the Press Foundation to beat the “the
extra-judicial” banking blockade against it, and to promote “aggressive, public-interest
journalism focused on exposing mismanagement, corruption and law-breaking in
government”.
It said the Foundation was an initiative of the
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a U.S.-based non-profit digital rights
advocacy group, and was backed, among others, by former Pentagon Papers
whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and actor John Cusack.
“They will crowd-source fundraising and support for
organisations or individuals under attack for publishing the truth,” it said.
WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange vowed to fight
“this immoral blockade” which had led to 95 per cent of the contributions to
the organisation being stopped.
“We’ve fought this immoral blockade for two long
years. We smashed it in the courts. We smashed it in the Treasury. We smashed
it in France. We smashed it in Germany. And now, with strong and generous
friends who still believe in First Amendment rights, we’re going to smash it in
the United States as well”, he said.
In a statement, WikiLeaks said its “running primary
cash reserves” were down from more than a million dollars in 2010 to under a
thousand dollars, as of December 2012, because of the blockade.
“Only an aggressive attack against the blockade will
permit WikiLeaks to continue publishing through 2013. The new initiative,
combined with a recent victory in Germany, means contributions to WikiLeaks now
have tax-deductible status throughout the United States and Europe,” it said.
Axis Capital, the investment
banking
subsidiary of Axis Bank on Monday tied
up with Baird, an employee-owned, international financial
services
firm, to offer investment banking services. The firm will initially focus on
cross-border mergers & acquisitions (M&A) between India and Europe, and
India and the U.S,'' said the bank in a statement.
The alliance between Baird and Axis Capital is on an
exclusive basis. The two banks would also get with regulatory clearance offer
other investment banking services like public offerings in the U.S. and private
placements of equity. As the international aspirations of Indian companies
grow, their need for high-quality strategic advice will gain importance. With a
view to servicing this need, Axis Capital is gaining a strong partner across
key geographies thereby giving our clients expertise and access," said
Manish Chokhani, MD & CEO of Axis Capital.
Baird is an employee-owned, international capital
markets, private equity, wealth and
asset management firm with offices in the United States, Europe and Asia. Since
2007, Baird has advised on more than 230 M&A transactions representing $43
billion in transaction value and has served as lead or co-manager on 250 equity
offerings raising more than $76 billion.
BUSINESS
According to the quarterly lobbying disclosure
reports filed with the US Senate and the House of Representatives , at least
three organizations— Financial
Services Forum,
Business Roundtable and Financial Executives International—have lobbied on
issues related to taxation and other
proposals of the finance bill presented in
Parliament early this year. ` Giants like Boeing, AT&T,
Starbucks, Lockheed Martin, Eli Lilly and
GE have also lobbied earlier with US lawmakers on "specific lobbying
issues" related to India, which include discussions on market opening
initiatives and support for their sales and business opportunities in the
country.
Besides, Qualcomm has lobbied on issues related to spectrum licences, Alcatel-Lucent on preferential market access regulations and Pfizer on "issues related to a Supreme Court decision on generic medicine pricing" and certain patent cancellation matter in India.
One of the most active entities with India-related lobbying issues this year has been the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers with its opposition to the regulation of carbon dioxide emissions in the US until India along with China and Russia implement similar reductions. Besides, insurance major Prudential Financial has been lobbying for "Indian financial market access and equity ownership issues". Like the government decision to open FDI in retail, a proposal to increase FDI cap in insurance sector is also being vehemently opposed by various political parties.
So far in 2012, Prudential Financial has spent more than $6 million on various lobbying issues in the US, including those related to India, while the lobbying bill for Morgan Stanley has crossed $2 million.
Besides, Qualcomm has lobbied on issues related to spectrum licences, Alcatel-Lucent on preferential market access regulations and Pfizer on "issues related to a Supreme Court decision on generic medicine pricing" and certain patent cancellation matter in India.
One of the most active entities with India-related lobbying issues this year has been the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers with its opposition to the regulation of carbon dioxide emissions in the US until India along with China and Russia implement similar reductions. Besides, insurance major Prudential Financial has been lobbying for "Indian financial market access and equity ownership issues". Like the government decision to open FDI in retail, a proposal to increase FDI cap in insurance sector is also being vehemently opposed by various political parties.
So far in 2012, Prudential Financial has spent more than $6 million on various lobbying issues in the US, including those related to India, while the lobbying bill for Morgan Stanley has crossed $2 million.
The company made the announcement during trading
hours today, 17 December 2012. Meanwhile, the BSE Sensex was down 26.24 points
or 0.14% at 19,291.01.
On BSE, 27,000 shares were traded in the counter as
against average daily volume of 1.71 lakh shares in the past one quarter.
The stock hit a high of Rs 758.60 and a low of Rs
744 so far during the day. The stock had hit a 52-week high of Rs 885 on 17
February 2012. The stock had hit a 52-week low of Rs 464 on 20 December 2011.
The stock had underperformed the market over the
past one month till 14 December 2012, sliding 0.58% compared with the Sensex's
3.75% rise. The scrip had also underperformed the market in past one quarter,
rising 4.6% as against Sensex's 4.62% gain.
The large-cap company has equity capital of Rs
223.12 crore. Face value per share is Rs 10.
JSW Steel and Japan's JFE Steel Corporation today,
17 December 2012, announced the signing of a joint agreement whereby JFE will
provide technology for the production of non-oriented electrical steel sheets
(CRNGO) at JSW Steel's Vijayanagar plant in Karnataka. At present, the
electrical steel sheet products are primarily imported in India due to
technological constraints and JSW Steel will be in a position to cater to fast
growing consumer and industrial applications market, JSW Steel said in a
statement.
JSW Steel plans to start up its new annealing and coating
line for electrical steel sheets in latter half of 2014. The initial annual
output is projected to be 200,000 tonnes, which will be increased to 0.6
million tonnes per year in phases. The company will also take sight on the
production of cold rolled grain oriented (CRGO) grade in future, JSW Steel
said. Implemented in phased manner, JSW envisages becoming the largest
electrical steel producer in the country, the company said in a statement.
BUSINESS
MANAGEMENT
Apptio, the leading
provider of on-demand technology business management (TBM) services, today
introduced Apptio Cloud Express™, a free service that allows businesses to
track the usage and costs of public cloud services including Amazon Web
Services (AWS), Windows Azure and Rackspace. Based on the aggregated data,
Apptio Cloud Express recommends ways to optimize usage and reduce costs. The
free service is available now at www.cloudexpress.com.
Technology leaders are increasingly being asked to develop new strategies to adopt cloud computing, but they often lack the necessary data and analysis required to make informed decisions. In order to maximize value to the business, IT must collaboratively make data-driven decisions about which products and services should be kept in-house or moved to the cloud, and which cloud model is right for each initiative.
“Cloud financial ratios are not widely understood by IT leaders, with many adoption decisions based on rudimentary, incomplete data, or without any financial data at all,” said Milind Govekar, vice president at Gartner, Inc. “As a result, many companies are only now realizing they have over-provisioned virtual machines for private cloud or over-purchased licenses for public cloud initiatives, resulting in lower ROI for cloud projects.”
Apptio Cloud Express users can view their cloud costs in a “bill of IT,” identify and aggregate spending outside of IT’s approval, and perform “what-if” analyses to quantify potential savings of shifting to private or hybrid cloud strategies.
“Apptio allows us to rapidly model and understand the cost and performance impacts of our various cloud projects,” said Don Tierny, CTO at Park Nicolett Healthcare. “As a result, we have been able to partner more closely with our business affiliates to align IT with corporate priorities.”
Technology leaders are increasingly being asked to develop new strategies to adopt cloud computing, but they often lack the necessary data and analysis required to make informed decisions. In order to maximize value to the business, IT must collaboratively make data-driven decisions about which products and services should be kept in-house or moved to the cloud, and which cloud model is right for each initiative.
“Cloud financial ratios are not widely understood by IT leaders, with many adoption decisions based on rudimentary, incomplete data, or without any financial data at all,” said Milind Govekar, vice president at Gartner, Inc. “As a result, many companies are only now realizing they have over-provisioned virtual machines for private cloud or over-purchased licenses for public cloud initiatives, resulting in lower ROI for cloud projects.”
Apptio Cloud Express users can view their cloud costs in a “bill of IT,” identify and aggregate spending outside of IT’s approval, and perform “what-if” analyses to quantify potential savings of shifting to private or hybrid cloud strategies.
“Apptio allows us to rapidly model and understand the cost and performance impacts of our various cloud projects,” said Don Tierny, CTO at Park Nicolett Healthcare. “As a result, we have been able to partner more closely with our business affiliates to align IT with corporate priorities.”
FINANCE
Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS),
India's largest information technology services provider, today told analysts
the company’s third quarter would be a usual one, with no sudden negative
surprises. The company’s stock was down 2.8 per cent, ahead of today’s meeting
between analysts and the management.
TCS expects the October-December quarter volumes to
be lower due to lesser working days, and margins would see a slight decline due
to fresher intake. For the first and second quarters of the current financial
year (FY13), the company had reported a volume growth of 5.3 per cent and five
per cent, respectively. The December quarter is generally a weak quarter for
the industry due to lesser working days. “There
is no negative news from TCS for the third quarter. The tone of the management
is similar to what we have been hearing for the last two quarters,” said Pralay
Das, an analyst with Elara Capital. “They did hint towards a lesser number of
working days in verticals like hi-tech and manufacturing. The management
continued to hold its view that it does see opportunity in discretionary
spends.”
Analysts
present at the meeting said the company would see front-ended growth in FY13,
which it had seen over the last two quarters.
Bharti Infratel Ltd, the
telecom tower arm of Bharti Airtel Ltd, India’s
largest telecom services company, priced its initial public offering (IPO) near
the lower end of the price band, following tepid response from investors.
The company on Monday said it had fixed the issue
price at Rs 220 a share for institutional and high net worth individuals ( HNIs)
and Rs 210 a share for retail investors. The price band for the Bharti Infratel
book building offer was between Rs 210 and Rs 240 per share. The IPO was
subscribed just 1.3 times. The issue largely saw participation from foreign
investors, while domestic institutions, retail investors and HNIs gave it a
miss. The qualified institutional investor ( QIB) portion was subscribed 2.84 times. Both the
non-institutional investor, or HNI category, and the retail investor segment
remained undersubscribed 29 per cent and 19 per cent, respectively. A day
before its IPO, the company had raised about Rs 651 crore from anchor investors
by selling 28.34 million shares at Rs 230 apiece. Anchor investors included Sundaram
Mutual Fund,
Morgan
Stanley,
Citigroup and Alliance Bernstein.
INDIA BUSINESS
Norwegian telecom major Telenor has committed
an investment of Rs 15,500 crore to its Indian operations and may bid for 2G
spectrum
for the Mumbai circle in the proposed auction.
The company in a presentation said that it is "committed to Rs 15,500 crore peak funding", but did not give any timeframe for this funding. The company said it expects to reach operating break even by the end of 2013.
Telenor has set up a separate company Telewings Communications in joint venture with Lakshdeep Investment to run its Indian operations after severing its ties with Unitech. Telenor, at present, holds majority stake in telecom operator Uninor whose licences are valid till January 18, 2013, as per the Supreme Court order.
Post January, the assets and business of Uninor will be transferred to Telewings, in which Telenor would have 74 per cent stake.
Telenor, which won spectrum in six circles in the 2G auction last month, said it will look at participating in 2G auction that is to be held before March 2013.
"There is most likely a new auction coming in the first quarter of next year. We will of course be looking at that, at least for one of our circle Mumbai where we currently have our operations," Uninor Managing Director Sigve Brekke said.
Hitachi, Panasonic to make India base to access Africa, Middle East; plan Rs ...
The company in a presentation said that it is "committed to Rs 15,500 crore peak funding", but did not give any timeframe for this funding. The company said it expects to reach operating break even by the end of 2013.
Telenor has set up a separate company Telewings Communications in joint venture with Lakshdeep Investment to run its Indian operations after severing its ties with Unitech. Telenor, at present, holds majority stake in telecom operator Uninor whose licences are valid till January 18, 2013, as per the Supreme Court order.
Post January, the assets and business of Uninor will be transferred to Telewings, in which Telenor would have 74 per cent stake.
Telenor, which won spectrum in six circles in the 2G auction last month, said it will look at participating in 2G auction that is to be held before March 2013.
"There is most likely a new auction coming in the first quarter of next year. We will of course be looking at that, at least for one of our circle Mumbai where we currently have our operations," Uninor Managing Director Sigve Brekke said.
Hitachi, Panasonic to make India base to access Africa, Middle East; plan Rs ...
Hitachi and Panasonic,
Japan's two biggest corporations, plan to invest more than Rs 5,700 crore in
India as they have identified the country as one of their biggest bets for
growth and a base to expand in Africa and Middle East markets.
Hitachi, which held its first board of directors meeting outside Japan in its 102-year history in New Delhi, announced Rs 4,700-crore expansion plans that include building 5 manufacturing plants.
Japan's largest industrial power and electronics conglomerate has formulated a 'India business strategy 2015' plan to make the country one of its top markets and targets a three-fold jump in its India revenues to Rs 20,000 crore by 2015-16.
"With its market, human resources and business partnerships, India is an important strategic base for Hitachi," its global president Hiroaki Nakanishi said.
Panasonic too has lined up more than Rs 1,000 crore investment in a new plant at Haryana and targets Rs 20,000-crore revenues by 2014-15, a year earlier than Hitachi.
Hitachi, which held its first board of directors meeting outside Japan in its 102-year history in New Delhi, announced Rs 4,700-crore expansion plans that include building 5 manufacturing plants.
Japan's largest industrial power and electronics conglomerate has formulated a 'India business strategy 2015' plan to make the country one of its top markets and targets a three-fold jump in its India revenues to Rs 20,000 crore by 2015-16.
"With its market, human resources and business partnerships, India is an important strategic base for Hitachi," its global president Hiroaki Nakanishi said.
Panasonic too has lined up more than Rs 1,000 crore investment in a new plant at Haryana and targets Rs 20,000-crore revenues by 2014-15, a year earlier than Hitachi.
INDIA MANAGEMENT
Holcim Services (South Asia) Ltd, a unit of the
Holcim Group, will deploy the Trimble® trako Fleet Management and Visual Cargo
solutions in their outbound logistics fleet that transports cement to various
destinations across India.
The Trimble solution will provide Holcim better visibility into its transport logistics operations to help increase fleet productivity, improve operational efficiencies, enhance fleet and driver safety, and meet tight delivery timelines.
As part of the implementation, Trimble will provide the Visual Cargo solution to Holcim’s ACC Ltd and Ambuja Cements Ltd plant operations and the GPS/GPRS based Fleet Management solution for use by their contracted transport vendors. Visual Cargo provides advanced dashboard and reporting features that allow logistics managers to easily monitor, track and manage delivery exceptions. The Fleet Management solution will provide online tools for transport vendors to manage their fleet utilization and driver safety.
“One of the major challenges for the Indian cement industry is to effectively manage logistics and distribution in a highly competitive, high-volume market over a large geography. Across our extensive network of cement plants, we engage a large, dedicated fleet to transport cement products to our customers across India. The effective use of GPS and related technologies to provide efficiencies in the logistics operations can have a direct positive impact on distribution costs and customer satisfaction. We chose Trimble’s cutting-edge solutions to rapidly achieve our goals and further advance ACC and Holcim’s leadership position in the cement industry,” said Kuldip Kaura, CEO and managing director, ACC Limited.
The Trimble solution will provide Holcim better visibility into its transport logistics operations to help increase fleet productivity, improve operational efficiencies, enhance fleet and driver safety, and meet tight delivery timelines.
As part of the implementation, Trimble will provide the Visual Cargo solution to Holcim’s ACC Ltd and Ambuja Cements Ltd plant operations and the GPS/GPRS based Fleet Management solution for use by their contracted transport vendors. Visual Cargo provides advanced dashboard and reporting features that allow logistics managers to easily monitor, track and manage delivery exceptions. The Fleet Management solution will provide online tools for transport vendors to manage their fleet utilization and driver safety.
“One of the major challenges for the Indian cement industry is to effectively manage logistics and distribution in a highly competitive, high-volume market over a large geography. Across our extensive network of cement plants, we engage a large, dedicated fleet to transport cement products to our customers across India. The effective use of GPS and related technologies to provide efficiencies in the logistics operations can have a direct positive impact on distribution costs and customer satisfaction. We chose Trimble’s cutting-edge solutions to rapidly achieve our goals and further advance ACC and Holcim’s leadership position in the cement industry,” said Kuldip Kaura, CEO and managing director, ACC Limited.
India-based cement producer Ambuja Cements has
scooped three awards at the 9th National Award for Excellence for its work in
the drought-prone state of Rajasthan.
Ambuja’s two plants in Rajasthan – Rabriyawas and
Marwar Mundwa – both won awards for their respective water management efforts.
Commenting on the company’s achievements, Ambuja’s CEO, Ajay Kapur, said: “This
is a matter or immense pride for Ambuja to bag these awards, and thus setting
fresh benchmarks in water management not just in the arid region of Rajasthan
but also across the country.”
The company’s Rabriyawas took top spot under the
category "Excellence in Water Management: Within the Fence" for its
initiatives within the facility/industry. Meanwhile the Marwar Mundwa, unit was
awarded under the category of "Excellence in Water Management: Beyond the
Fence" that showcased an innovative leadership role in implementing water
and watershed management projects with the involvement of public/ private
agencies and the community. Rajesh Singhi, Joint President (Special Projects),
Marwar Mundwa, commented: “Our groundbreaking work fanned across this area
ensured we would comfortably race past the 48 other contenders.”
INSURANCE
The
government is in talks with capital markets regulator SEBI and insurance body
IRDA to ensure that mutual funds and insurance firms are also allowed to enter
the commodity futures markets.
This
follows a similar move to enable banks to enter the segment by amending the
banking regulation law.
“We want
to enable them (mutual funds and insurance companies to trade in commodity
futures),” a senior finance ministry official told FE.
Commodity
futures help in hedging risks involved in fluctuations in the commodity prices.
Participation
of large institutional investors such as banks, insurance firms and mutual
funds would help in deepening the commodity market. In taking this initiative,
the government is banking on the suggestions of a parliamentary standing
committee on consumer affairs, food and public distribution.
Meghalaya
Government officially launched the universal medical health insurance for all
the residents of the State at a public function here yesterday, stating it is
the first of its kind in the country.
Chief
Minister Mukul Sangma handed out the biometric medical health insurance scheme
identity card to a select few beneficiaries at the function.
The scheme
named Megha Health Insurance Scheme (MHIS) would give medical relief of Rs
90,000 annually to a family of five and Rs 1.6 lakh in case of critical
illness.
Distributing
the cards, Sangma said that the Government has lived up to its commitment to
provide better health care to the people of the State. “Now you need not worry
about medical bills, the Government would take care of it as much as possible,”
he told the gathering.
Somewhat
similar universal health care schemes are available in developed European
nations and the Americas, where the Government takes care of all medical bills,
except dental care.
Sangma
further assured that the Government would try to increase the benefit as time
goes by. “This is a scheme that we have worked out primarily keeping in mind
the sustainability factor, because Government health care even in developed
nations is facing challenges,” he said.
INTERNATIONAL
BUSINESS
Emerging Indian telecom
provider Aircel has set a time frame of minimum six months to launch 4G
services in select cities across India. Once it starts
the service, Aircel will be the second network carrier after Airtel to provide
4G services.
K. Sankara Narayanan, regional business head, Aircel
Ltd, Chennai said, "Aircel had placed the orders for equipment (for 4G
service). It was testing the product and service configurations and it will
take a 'minimum of six months' to launch 4G services," reported Business
Line.
He further said that the company is also focused on
another youth-related segment. Aircel is providing Pocket Internet Games
services to reach out to the young population.
The latest mobile communication standard 4G/LTE
(Long Term Evolution) is already in use in the US. Several months back 4G
services were launched in select UK cities as well. The 4G services already
function in many countries across the world. India has lot more catching up to
do compared to developed nations. Airtel is currently the only mobile carrier
to provide 4G
services in select cities across India.
Narayanan reportedly said that Aircel will focus
more on data services as it is seen as the growth engine of the future. He
further added that in 'Rest of Tamil Nadu' (ROTN) area it has 1.8 crore
subscribers. Out of those subscribers, 26 lakh customers use data services.
During the July-Sept period, Aircel earned Rs. 520
crore in ROTN area. The company also noted that number of subscribers using
data services has gone up by 100 percent.
According to COAI (Cellular
Operators Association of India) October 2012 Survey, Aircel is currently placed
fifth with 66.79 million subscribers.
Iran is losing half of its oil revenues because of
international sanctions imposed over its disputed nuclear programme, Economy
Minister Shamseddin Hosseini said in remarks quoted by media on Monday.
"Iran is facing a 50-percent drop in its oil
revenues due to sanctions," Hosseini told state television, Jomhuri Eslami
newspaper reported. Hosseini put down the loss to difficulties in repatriating
oil money.
Subject to harsh Western sanctions over its
controversial nuclear work, Iran is struggling against what it calls an
"economic war" to cope with punitive measures targeting its vital oil
income and access to global financial systems.
An oil embargo on Iran imposed by the European Union
came into effect in July, ending European purchases of Iranian crude and also
decreasing Tehran's oil exports to its Asian customers from 10 to 30 percent.
According to the International Energy Agency,
Iranian exports in November were estimated at 1.3 million barrels per day, down
from nearly 2.3 million last year.
A number of Iranian lawmakers and government
officials have hinted that the drop in oil revenues will shrink the budget for
the next Iranian calendar year, starting on March 21, 2013.
In early September, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
acknowledged that Iran had "some problems" in selling its oil because
of the sanctions.
LOGISTICS
Automobile manufacturers need dedicated logistics
service providers
(LSPs) having specially designed transport vehicles (car carriers) and storage
facilities (car yards).
Maintaining this type of infrastructure to fulfil
the needs of a limited number of target users is challenging, hence there are
limited number of participants in the 'automobile logistics services',
especially in the car storage services. On the other hand, auto components
industry's transportation and warehousing needs can be fulfilled by any typical
LSP, since the regular trucks and storage facilities can be used for auto
components as well. Thus, the potential available LSPs for this segment are
high.
Despite the higher return on investment, why is the
segment not attracting more logistics players into the fold? One of the key
reasons limiting the entry of more LSPs into automobile logistics market is the
limited scope for return loads.
Automobile
manufacturing plants
are based primarily in just 3 hubs and vehicles need to be distributed from
these hubs to markets spread across the country. Hence, a typical automobile
transporter has to comeback with an empty vehicle since the vehicle is not
suitable to transport any other cargo.
Furthermore, most auto
manufacturers
typically have and manage large yards and ship vehicles directly from plants to
dealers. Only in very few cases LSPs are employed to manage yards of
manufacturers. This means denying LSPs the potential revenues from warehousing
services.
In addition, the vendor selection process is very
stringent and selection is uncertain . How do you find lack of adequate
connectivity impacting auto logistics industry? Lack of adequate connectivity
across different transport modes is proving to be a major hindrance in
improving logistics efficiencies for most industries including automotive.
The Indian Government’s decision to privatise Delhi
airport that has seen airport charges rise manifold has been criticised by the
International Air Transport Association (IATA).
Calling on Governments to ensure that privatisation
should be well regulated, IATA Director-General Tony Tyler said that tax
receipts from the economic activity generated through aviation-enabled
connectivity far outweighs the short-term economic gains of misguided
privatisation.
“India, for example, developed Delhi into a first
class hub airport with the participation of private partners. The facilities
are great. But the structure of the concession agreement requires the
concessionaire to return 46 per cent of top line revenue to the government,”
Tyler said.
A consortium led by the Bangalore-based GMR group
won the contract for modernising the Delhi airport.
Pointing out that the Airports Economic Regulatory
Authority (AERA) approved a hike of 346 per cent in airport charges at Delhi,
the IATA DG said, “That is unacceptable for the industry. A more realistic
concession agreement might have prevented it.”
Tyler added that “since our protests”, the Civil
Aviation Ministry has directed the airport to remove airport development fees.
“The challenge now is to make sure that this is
implemented,” the DG said. The development fee is to be removed from January
2013 although a question mark hangs on whether this will actually happen.
MANAGEMENT
Bolstered
by government's moves to attract more foreign investments and changing legal
framework, the country's risk management consultancy business is expected to
see an annual growth of as much as 30 per cent, experts say.
Instances
of corporate frauds as well as sluggish economic conditions are also likely to
benefit the risk management consultancy business since entities would seek
assistance of such services before deciding on investments, they said.
Hill &
Associates India Country Manager Shalini Chakravorty said more FDI in sectors
such as retail, and issues related to business laws, among others, would
necessitate the need for risk management.
The
business of risk management consultancies are expected to grow at a "rate
of 20-30 per cent a year", she told PTI.
Entities
would be looking for risk management both for financial and non-financial
areas, she added.
Headquartered
in Hong Kong, Hill & Associates is an independent security and risk
management consultancy firm.
The New York-based group, often described as a
“vulture fund”, snapped up 10pc of HMV’s debt last week in a move some are
predicting could lead to a takeover. The music chain has already warned it is
likely to breach banking covenants in the New Year.
Any failure to meet its covenants would put the
chain at the mercy of its lenders, which now include Apollo, a company that
takes pride in its “contrarian, value-orientated approach”.
HMV has been fighting for survival for some years.
Competition from online retailers such as Amazon and music downloading offers
from Apple have stripped it of much of its customer base. In its most recent
set of accounts the company unveiled a £37.3m first half loss alongside its
warning about banking covenants. The news led to a 39pc fall in its share price
to 2.4p.
The result led to renewed speculation HMV could
reduce its presence on the high street through more store closures.
If Apollo is to use its position as a creditor to
HMV to leverage control of the group it may need to buy more of the retailers
discounted debt. Last week’s deal with Allied Irish Banks could be the first in
a series over coming weeks.
MARKETING
Oracle
has jumped into the rapidly growing and consolidating business of automated
marketing software by acquiring
Eloqua for $871 million. The company struck the deal so it can compete with
rivals such as Salesforce and IBM
which already sell such software to businesses.
The deal reflects the growing high-tech budget of
the marketing department. The issue for CIOs is how they work with marketing to
facilitate the use of this technology.
Automated marketing is a hot technology. In
May 2010, Oracle acquired
then-Eloqua rival Marke2Lead. A few months later, IBM acquired Coremetrics
and Unica
Salesforce.com
has also built its own marketing cloud, relying on partnerships with Eloqua and
Infor for automated marketing.
Automated marketing applications shorten sales
cycles by eliminating repetitive phone calls and emails in sales organizations.
Traditionally, sales people would create spreadsheets of prospects they want to
target and email or call them. But this process becomes unsustainable as
organizations scale, said Gartner analyst Andrew Frank. Today, many companies
use automated marketing applications to analyze online
behavior and buying preferences of potential prospects from their sales contact
databases. The software assigns prospects scores, which sales workers use to
create targeted email or social media campaigns.
Interesting news from the NFC front today: despite recent
reports that the iPhone 5′s lack of NFC has set the market back by two
years in the U.S. and Western Europe, an NFC-based mobile advertising startup
known as Tapit has
closed on a $2.3 million in Series A funding. Maybe being based in
Sydney, Australia helps in this case.
The round was led by MPC Ventures Pty Limited, a
subsidiary of Monash
Private Capital, also based in Sydney. Participating in the round, too,
were David Shein and David Thrum and Jon Medved’s ourcrowd.com.
Founded in March 2011, the company had
previously raised seed funding from Sydney Angels. At
the time of that funding – August of last year – it was the fastest investment
the angel investing group had ever made, at just 22 days from pitch to funding.
The size of the seed round was not disclosed, but Sydney Angels usually invests
between $100K-$500K.
For those unfamiliar, Tapit’s focus is on leveraging
NFC for advertising and marketing campaigns. While NFC may not ever become an
international standard for making purchases (a lot of this will depend on what
Apple decides to do, of course), Tapit still believes in its potential as a way
to reach consumers. The company works with agencies, brands, handset makers and
carriers to offer them marketing services involving mobile commerce, coupon
distribution, ticketing, surveys, reviews, content delivery, competition,
social community building and more. Basically, almost anything that could
leverage NFC.
ODISHA BUSINESS
Claiming to have expedited mining lease renewal
activities, Odisha government today said it is likely to take up development of
different mining areas in the next fiscal.
This was conveyed to a team of the Supreme Court
appointed Central Empowered Committee (CEC) during a meeting here.
The CEC team headed by its member secretary M K
Jiwrajka was reviewing the compliance of apex court guidelines with forest and
environmental laws in mining areas. Officials
of the Steel and Mines department, Forest and Environment and Revenue departments
replied to several questions of the CEC members, official sources said.
CEC
members Jiwrajka and Saroj Patnaik were tight-lipped over the review.
However,
Odisha's Director of Mines Deepak Mohanty said, "CEC has appreciated the
steps taken by the state government. We have informed the CEC about disposal of
115 cases of mining lease renewal in two years."
Of the 351
mining lease renewal cases, 50 mines were operating under the category of
deemed renewal status. CEC had earlier suggested clearance of all the mining
lease renewal cases including the deemed renewal cases, Mohanty said.
"The
state government had already submitted its recommendation for renewal of 40
mines operating under the deemed renewal category," Mohanty said.
RETAIL
Capital markets regulator Sebi has agreed to settle
a case related to Pantaloon
Retail failing to redress investor grievances after the company agreed to pay
Rs 7.5 lakh towards settlement charges and legal costs.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi)
had passed an order in October 2011, wherein it had imposed a penalty of Rs
five lakh on Pantaloon Retail (India) Limited after finding the company to have
failed in redressing the investor grievances within the stipulated time. While
Pantaloon had challenged Sebi's order in an appeal before the Securities
Appellate Tribunal (SAT), it later proposed to settle the case through
Sebi's consent mechanism, which allows for settlement of the matter in certain
cases.
In its final consent order in the matter, Sebi has
now said that Pantaloon has paid Rs 6.5 lakh towards settlement charges and Rs
one lakh as legal expenses, pursuant to which the proceedings initiated by the
regulator stand settled.
Sebi said Pantaloon representatives had a meeting
with Sebi's Internal Committee in in April, after which they had proposed the
revised consent terms involving these payments to settle the proceedings.
The proposal was accepted by Sebi's
High Powered Advisory Committee, as there were no investor grievance
pending against the company. The panel of whole-time members of Sebi also
accepted these recommendations of the high-powered committee.
When it comes to the Google LG Nexus 4, one may say
that consumers in India have not received any positive news so far. First, the
India launch date of the smartphone was being speculated to be on November 30,
which was later proved to be wrong. Then the prices of the smartphone were
increased on several online retail websites. And now, the LG Nexus 4 has been
sold out on some online retail websites.
The Google LG Nexus 4 is either sold out or no
longer available on e-commerce websites like eBay India and Tradus.com. The LG
Nexus 4 was listed on eBay India, and the prices of the smartphone were Rs.
29,990 for the 16GB version and 25,990 for the 8GB version. However, a message
on the website now says ''This listing was ended by the seller because the item
is no longer available.''
Moreover, a CIOL viewer wrote in to us saying ''Not
available on eBay/cart2India. They are going to refund me the money I had given
to preorder the phone on 10th Nov @ Rs. 27,490/-. It appears they do not have
the phone yet.'' However, some users on eBay India are selling the smartphone
at a price of Rs. 34,990 and Rs. 36,000.
Google LG Nexus 4 is sold out even on Tradus.com. This website was offering the LG Nexus 4
(imported) smartphone to Indian consumers at the price of Rs. 31,999 for the
8GB version and Rs. 37,999 for the 16GB version. However, a message on the
website says that ''This product is SOLD OUT.''
SUPPLY CHAIN
Global marine terminal operator DP World announced
that its flagship Jebel Ali Port has achieved a new milestone, handling more
than 500,000 vehicles in less than 12 months.
Achieved in the first 49 weeks of this year, the
record exceeds the peak levels of 2008 when the number of vehicles handled
through the port for the full year was 479,000. It translates into almost one
vehicle imported, exported or re-exported every minute of the day, 24/7.
Mohammed Al Muallem, senior vice president and
managing director, DP World, UAE Region, said: “DP World is proud that our
flagship Jebel Ali Port continues to play its full role as the premier gateway
to the GCC region. The record number of vehicles that have passed through the
port’s facility for roll-on roll-off (Ro-Ro) vehicle carriers reinforces the
growth message for the UAE and the wider region that we are hearing from
economic commentators such as the IMF.
“We congratulate the management and employees at the
General Cargo Terminal on an excellent job done in handling 500,000 vehicles.”
General Cargo facilities at Jebel Ali include 30
berths and a total storage area of over 1.3 million square metres, comprising
1.2 million square metres of open storage and 100,000 square metres of covered
space.
Liverpool building contractor and heating company,
Fletchrose is working in partnership with Wolseley UK's Integrated Services to
develop a dedicated supply solution for its business.
Integrated Services' bespoke supply solution,
tailored to Fletchrose's needs, is now open on the Fletchrose head office site
at Aintree Business Park, with an embedded member of staff running supply
operations.
A specialist division within Wolseley UK, Integrated
Services offers bespoke integrated supply chain solutions, including stores
management and procurement models, to clients responsible for large residential
social housing estates, major construction projects and off-site construction.
Fletchrose is currently the only independent
contractor in Merseyside to be working with Integrated Services in this way and
expects to see significant efficiency savings on managed procurement supply
chain and construction projects, by using Integrated Services' expertise and
experience to manage the supply of all materials, rather than procuring through
multiple sources.
Paul Durose, Managing Director of Fletchrose said:
"This is a fantastic move for us that will allow us to have direct access
to our essential heating products, from boilers to accessories and equipment.
______________________________________________________________________
Source of
Information for this issue: Google alert accessed on 17th, 18th and 21st Dec 2012
We welcome your
suggestions in improving this information updating service.
Knowledge
Is Power. Be Informed, Be Knowledgeable, Be Powerful.
Best wishes
Compilation
Sabita Sahu
Sabita Sahu
Professional Library
Trainee
Concept, Layout and
Editing
Syamaghana Mohanty
Chief Librarian
Chief Librarian
Information and
Documentation Division, Chanakya Central Library
Asian School of
Business Management
Shiksha Vihar Bhola,
Barang Khurda Road,
Chandaka
Bhubaneswar-754012
Tel:0674-2374832, 2374833
Sabita Sahu : Professional Library Trainee and Syamaghana Mohanty : Chief Librarian, Knowledge and Information Services Unit, Chanakya Central Library, Asian School of Business Management, Bhubaneswar. chieflibrarian@asbm.ac.in ; www.asbm.ac.in
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