Stock Market News, Financial News - Mar 3, 2009

Govt brings blue chip PSU subsidiaries under performance scanner

By Gunjan Pradhan Sinha, Indian Express Finance

The performance of subsidiaries of blue chip public sector companies may now come directly under the government's scanner. This will especially pin down high-profile arms of oil PSUs such as ONGC Videsh, Mangalore Refineries & Petrochemicals, Numaligarh Refineries and Chennai Petroleum Corporation to numerical financial and operational targets set by them in consultation with the government.

The department of public enterprises (DPE) has recently decided to include all subsidiaries in addition to parent companies while entering into a MoU at the beginning of the financial year. In the MoUs, firms agree to certain targets - operational and financial - agreed voluntarily in consultation with the ministry. (More ... )

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Auto sales grow in Feb but industry outlook still bleak

By ENS Economic Bureau

Automobile sales in February have shown that launching new vehicles even in tough economic times pays off. Market leaders Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai Motors India Limited (HMIL) and for the first time in 7 months even Tata Motors have managed to record positive sales growth.

Arvind Saxena, senior vice-president, marketing and sales, HMIL, said in a cautionary mood, "February 2009 sales saw a slight upturn with double digit growth for the industry but the overall market situation continues to be challenging and not much should be read into the February growth as last year in February the budget was to be announced and a substantial amount of sales were deferred till March. We expect a fairly flat sales growth curve for the industry for the first quarter ending March, 2009."  (More ... )

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Jubilant gets Canada regulatory approval for heart drug

By Financial Express Bureau

The domestic integrated pharma player Jubilant Organosys Ltd, now stands poised to grab a significant market share of the injectible drug, Sestamibi, meant for heart disease and coronary artery disease in Canada. The current market size of the drug stands at around $25 million in Canada. Jubilant announced on Monday that Draxis (the company's subsidiary in Canada), has received approval for the generic Sestamibi from the drug regulator Health Canada'.  (More ... )

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Spectrum fee relief to save top telcos Rs 4,000 cr each

By Anandita Singh Mankotia, Indian Express Finance

The country's top three GSM operators Bharti Airtel , Vodafone Essar and Idea Cellular will save around Rs 4,000 crore each in the current financial year, as the department of telecommunications (DoT), has left it to the new government to take a decision on charging a one-time spectrum acquisition fee from these companies for holding spectrum beyond 6.2 mhz.

All the above companies have spectrum in excess of 6.2 mhz in some circles. In view of this, communications and IT minister A Raja had earlier said the government is working on a formula to charge these firms for the excess spectrum held by them. (More ... )