ASBM Business
Updates is a Weekly Selective Compilation of Business News from Various
Sources. To find details follow the links.
We welcome your suggestions in improving this information updating service.
Knowledge Is Power. Be Informed, Be Knowledgeable, Be Powerful.
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Sabita Sahu :Junior Librarian 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
ASIAN BUSINESS
Asian shares fell to a two-week low on Tuesday, with
Japan a notable exception as it reversed early losses,
while the Australian dollar pushed away from a three-year trough after the
central bank cut official rates to a record low.
Japanese stocks rose more than 2.5 percent from
their lows to end up 1 percent on talk the central bank was buying exchange-traded
funds and a Reuters report a massive public pension fund was considering
increasing its allocation mix to buy more stocks.
The turnaround in the Nikkei sparked shortcovering by options sellers and helped
the dollar reverse early declines against the yen, both of which in turn
reinforced the rise in the stock market.
European shares were expected to open lower, with
Britain's FTSE 100 seen down as much as 0.4 percent and Germany's DAX down as
much as 0.2 percent, while the U.S. S&P 500 index futures dipped 0.2
percent.
The Australian dollar rose to $0.8978, up 0.4
percent on the day, after the Reserve Bank of Australia cut its cash rate by a
quarter point to 2.5 percent, as expected, but did not provide a clear signal
that it may cut again.
The Aussie had hit a three-year low below 89 U.S.
cents on Monday.
"It's as the market expected, although there's
a little bit of disappointment that there wasn't a 50 point rate cut,"
said Brian Redican, senior economist at Macquarie Bank.
The U.S. dollar was up 0.2 percent at 98.415 yen,
after the recovery in the Nikkei sparked yen selling.
The dollar had been weakening since Friday after a
soft jobs report saw markets temper expectations the Federal Reserve could start
scaling back its $85 billion-a-month bond-buying programme in September.
ASIAN SCHOOL OF
BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
Inaugurating the 8th Batch PGDM Programme
of ASBM, Shri Sujya Narayana Patro, Cabinet Minister, Revenue and Disaster
Management, Odisha conveyed his good wishes to the students of new batch.
He appreciated the role played by ASBM in providing quality management
education. He added that ASBM has brought laurels to the state by securing a
place among the of business schools of the country with the short span of seven
years. The minister expressed his satisfaction that the students of ASBM have
achieved great success in different industrial houses of the country. At
the end he opined that the future of the students will depend on their hard and
sincere work during their student days.
Shri V. P. Nandakumar, CMD of Manappuram Finance
Ltd. attended the inaugural function as guest of eminence and gave
emphasis on financial inclusion. He said that management education has a prime
role in bringing the downtrodden to the main stream of the Society. He
expressed his happiness that the students of ASBM have been able to prove
themselves in Manappuram Finance through quality work. He assured that his
organization would continue to recruit students from ASBM because of its quality
education and emphasis on excellence.
BANKING
State Bank
of India is going all out to promote electronic transactions.
India’s
largest bank plans to deploy over 1.25 lakh point-of-sale (POS) terminals in
the next 18 months at various merchant outlets and counters at branches across
the country.
POS
terminals help customers carry out cashless transactions at merchant outlets by
swiping credit/ debit cards on the POS machine.
Further,
the terminals also facilitate withdrawal of cash (up to a maximum of Rs 1,000 a
day according to existing RBI guidelines) using debit cards at designated
merchant outlets.
BUSINESS
Ranbaxy
Laboratories (RANB.NS),
India's top drugmaker by sales, reported a net loss of 5.24 billion rupees for
the June quarter on foreign exchange transactions and loss of goodwill booked
at its overseas subsidiaries.
Ranbaxy, controlled by Japan's Daiichi Sankyo Co (4568.T),
had reported a net loss of 5.86 billion rupees for the same period last year.
Sales fell 17.84 percent to 26.33 billion rupees
during fiscal second quarter ended June, the drugmaker said on Wednesday.
The company recorded foreign exchange losses of 3.67
billion rupees while it booked a loss of goodwill worth 1.19 billion rupees at
its overseas subsidiaries, it said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange.
Analysts, on an average, had estimated net profit of
335.56 million rupees, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Shares in Ranbaxy ended up 4.32 percent at 281.50
rupees on Wednesday when the BSE Sensex fell 0.36 percent.
India's largest pharmaceutical firm by market
capitalisation, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, on Friday reported a net loss of
Rs 1,276.1 crore for the April-June quarter, resulting from an exceptional
charge on account of the settlement in a patent infringement litigation related
to generic versions of Protonix.
The company had posted a net profit of Rs 795.5
crore for the corresponding quarter in the previous fiscal.
The company's net sales, however, rose a smart 31
per cent year-on-year to Rs 3,482.2 crore though the Ebitda (earnings before
interest tax and depreciation) margin slipped 200 basis points YoY to 44 per
cent.
Sun Pharma managing director Dilip Shanghvi said
revenues at the company's subsidiaries had been strong during the quarter. He
added that after the implementation of the new Drug Price Control Order, 40 of
Sun's products will be under the new price list.
"All our businesses continue to perform in line
with our expectations and we remain focused on strengthening our existing
businesses and developing a differentiated and specialty-driven product
basket," he said, adding that Sun Pharma continued to review opportunities
to expand and strengthen its global footprint.
The company also said that it has completed the
process of transferring its domestic formulations business to Sun
Pharmaceutical Laboratories, a wholly owned subsidiary.
BUSINESS
COMMUNICATION
International Airlines Group (IAG), the parent
company of British Airways and Iberia, and one of the world's largest airline
groups, has selected Microsoft Office 365 as the business communication solution
for around 58,000 employees, enabling its workforce to collaborate virtually
anytime, anywhere around the world.
"Giving our employees the tools and freedom to
achieve more in their day-to-day activities was a key component in our decision
to engage with Microsoft," said Nigel Underwood, chief information
officer, IAG. "Office 365 will allow employees to collaborate and achieve
their work tasks regardless of the platform, product or device. This is an
excellent example of IAG enabling change within the group to create a common IT
platform for our airlines which will be more efficient and reduce our
costs."
IAG sought an all-encompassing solution for British
Airways, Iberia, IAG Cargo and Avios that would provide a new way for employees
to easily work together, as well as ensure access to the mission-critical
enterprise tools a global airline group requires. The new Enterprise Agreement
includes Office 365, with Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Lync Online and
Yammer, and provides the necessary features and security to help British
Airways and Iberia transform their businesses and use cloud based solutions.
FINANCE
Power Finance Corporation surged 4.13% to Rs 102.15 at
13:07 IST on BSE after net profit rose 23.3% to Rs 1198.24 crore on
27.2% growth in total income to Rs 5017.10 crore in Q1 June 2013 over Q1 June
2012.
The Q1 result was announced after market hours on
Friday, 2 August 2013.
Meanwhile, the BSE Sensex was up 14.57 points or
0.08% at 19,178.59.
On BSE, 3.28 lakh shares were traded in the counter
as against average daily volume of 3.80 lakh shares in the past one quarter.
The stock hit a high of Rs 104.50 and a low of Rs 98
so far during the day. The stock had hit a 52-week low of Rs 97.40 on Friday, 2
August 2013. The stock had hit a 52-week high of Rs 227 on 8 February 2013.
The stock had underperformed the market over the
past one month till 2 August 2013, sliding 34.45% compared with the Sensex's
1.54% fall. The scrip had also underperformed the market in past one quarter,
declining 50.57% as against Sensex's 2.9% slide.
The large-cap company has equity capital of Rs
1320.04 crore. Face value per share is Rs 10.
Worried over the widening current account deficit
(CAD) and the sliding rupee, Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Friday held a
series of meetings with top officials to firm up additional steps to support the
currency.
The measures could include further relaxation of
external commercial borrowing (ECB) norms for state-owned companies, curbs on
import of non-essential goods and encouragement to exports, sources said.
Mr Chidambaram also held deliberations with Commerce
Secretary S R Rao.
The Ministry, according to sources, is likely to
announce additional steps soon to contain CAD and check volatility in the forex
market.
Mr Chidambaram had earlier said the government would
be looking at “some compression in non-oil and non-gold imports, especially of
non-essential goods.” He had specifically cited the examples of coal and
electronic hardware and said that the officials would be working out a list of
imported items that could be compressed.
The Minister had also said that blue chip public
sector undertakings could be encouraged to raise funds from overseas markets.
Pursuant to the announcement, heads of several PSUs met Finance Ministry
officials, pleading for relaxation of the ECB norms.
The new measures being considered by the Finance
Ministry are in addition to steps taken recently by the Reserve Bank to tighten
liquidity and curb volatility in the rupee, which touched a life-time intra-day
low of 61.80 to the dollar on August 6.
The RBI yesterday announced it would auction Rs
22,000 crore of bonds every Monday to suck out liquidity and check speculation
in the forex market.
INDIA BUSINESS
In its push for greater connectivity with ASEAN
countries, India is focussing its attention on a deep-sea port in
southern Myanmar that would provide a much shorter sea route to the
economically vibrant Southeast Asian region and help boost trade.
The Dawei deep sea port and special economic zone is
slated to give a huge boost to connectivity and trade in the Southeast Asian
region when it is commissioned in a few years. The $8-billion project is being
developed jointly by Myanmar and Thailand.
"The Dawei deep sea port, when complete, will
provide India an alternative sea route to Southeast Asia and reduce dependency
on the congested Strait of Malacca and cut transport time," an official
told IANS.
The Dawei port is part of the southern corridor of
the Mekong India Economic Corridor. India is concentrating on the southern
economic corridor, which would connect Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, Phnom Penh
in Cambodia, Bangkok in Thailand to Dawei in Myanmar.
"When Dawei port is ready, India is planning to
connect it with Chennai. There will be no need to go through the Strait of
Malacca then," said the official, unwilling to be named.
During Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to
Thailand last May, the Thai government invited Indian business to invest in the
Dawei Special Economic Zone, especially in areas where Indian companies have
expertise, such as steel, manufacturing, power, petrochemicals and services.
Thailand's construction giant Italian-Thai
Development Co has been involved in construction of the deep-sea port, which is
designed to accommodate ocean-going cargo ships that pass through the Indian
and Pacific oceans, cutting short the maritime distance over a relatively long
detour via Singapore.
The Dawei Special Economic Zone Development Co,
jointly owned by Thailand and Myanmar, will be assigned to run the project.
INSURANCE
The
Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (Irda) issued a new set of draft
regulations on Web aggregators in July that relate to how they get paid.
According
to the new regulations, insurance Web aggregators will not get any money for
generating leads and referrals but will be paid only if a product is sold
through their services or leads provided by them. However, their remuneration
won’t exceed the stipulated cap on commissions prescribed under section 40A of
the Insurance Act, 1938.
“Online,
we generally promote low- or zero-commission products. Our costs are seen as
cost of acquisition by insurers, which now must be within the limits set under
section 40A. This does not mean any extra cost to the policyholder,” said Yashish
Dahiya, chief executive officer (CEO), Policybazaar.com, an
insurance Web aggregator. In order to procure sales, the Web aggregator can
make use of telemarketing and distance marketing.
In the
earlier guideline issued on Web aggregators in November 2011, the insurance
regulator had axed the remuneration on lead generation to Rs.10. According to
the guidelines, an insurer was allowed to pay up to Rs.1 lakh per year towards
a product being displayed by a Web aggregator. The remuneration per lead was Rs.10
and if a lead got converted into sales, the insurer could pay up to 25% of the
commission on the first-year premium of the policy.
These
guidelines were not well received by Web aggregators and many of them changed
their business model from lead generation to a sales-driven model.
LOGISTICS
China's logistics
sector reported a 9.1-percent rise in the total value of goods transported in
the first
half of 2013, according to data released by the China Federation of
Logistics and Purchasing on Monday.
The growth rate slowed by 0.3 percentage point from
the first quarter, and decreased by 0.9 percentage point compared to the same
period last year, the data show.
During the first half, new value created in the
sector hit 1.8 trillion yuan ($291.4 billion), up 7.4 percent year on year.
However, the growth rate retreated by 2.9 percentage
points and the sector's total expenditures rose 9 percent to 4.5 trillion yuan,
with the growth rate down 2.8 percentage points year on year, according to the
data.
The federation said that a sluggish shipping
industry due to gloomy international trade and overcapacity in the commodities
logistics sector were among the factors slowing the sector's growth.
An index tracking the sector's overall running also
slowed to 52.4 percent in July, down 0.7 percentage point from June. The data
marked the fourth straight month of continuous slowdown in the industry.
Canadian midstream company Gibson Energy Inc and
logistics provider U.S. Development Group (USDG) said on Tuesday they will
build a 140,000-barrel-per-day terminal in Hardisty, Alberta, to ship oil sands
crude by rail.
The project would be
the largest terminal for western Canada, where demand to move crude by rail has
been gathering pace as producers look for ways to ease congested export
pipelines.
It also underlines
how the runaway fuel-train accident that killed 47 people in the town of
Lac-Megantic, Quebec, last month appeared unlikely to halt Canada's crude-by-rail
boom.
The terminal, due to
be operational by the first quarter of 2014, would be able to handle two unit
trains of up to 120 railcars per day and load multiple grades of crude oil for
transport to refining markets
across North America.
Hardisty is one of
the two main storage hubs for the Canadian oil sands and the starting point for
export pipelines to the U.S. Midwest.
RETAIL
A Parliamentary panel today warned that FDI policy
for retail may not have beneficial impact on MSMEs and has suggested that a
regulatory authority be set up to safeguard the interest of domestic players in
the sector.
"The committee is of the opinion that the FDI
for retail may not have beneficial impact on the MSME sector... It is of the view that
not enough safeguards have been provided for to insulate the SME sector from
sudden changes in trade policy," said the report, tabled in the
Parliament.
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Industry,
headed by Tiruchi Siva, DMK leader, said that the MSME Ministry should
commission a survey to assess the benefits and losses of previous FDI policies
on the sector.
"...the committee feels that FDI in
retail may not benefit the retail sector unless designing, packaging, bar
coding, skill development are improved upon and integrated into supply
chain." it said.
It also said that the implementation of policy
provision should be closely monitored through an institutional mechanism in the
initial years, and not left to self-certification.
The committee suggested that the auditor should
specifically certify the adherence to the 30 per cent sourcing norm and it must
be mentioned in the audited report of the companies which would invest under FDI in
retail scheme.
"The committee recommends that 30 per cent
sourcing norm should be applicable item wise. The committee emphasises the need
for setting up an institutional mechanism like a Retail Regulatory
Authority," it said.
_______________________________________________________________
Source of
Information for this issue: Google alert accessed on 12th Aug 2013
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
Junior Librarian
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
E-mail:library@asbm.ac.in, chieflibrarian@asbm.ac.inSabita Sahu :Junior Librarian 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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