Advance tax payout of Top 100 companies sees muted growth in Q2

The advance tax collections from the top 100 corporates from the financial capital showed a muted growth for the September quarter, with the outgoes increasing by only up to 8 per cent.

Advance tax payments is a system of staggered payment of taxes by the companies.

"For the top-100 companies, the advance tax payments have increased by 7-8 per cent," a senior official said.

Cumulatively for the first two quarters till now, the advance tax collections from the Mumbai zone, which contributes over a third of the income tax collections nationally, have grown 11 per cent, the official said.

Leading the pack in the financial capital was Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries, which paid Rs 1,670 crore against the Rs 1,534 crore in the same period year ago, the official said.

Insurance giant Life Insurance Corporation paid Rs 1,624 crore against the Rs 1,307 crore paid in the same period last year, the official said.

Tata Consultancy Services, the country's largest software exporter, paid Rs 1,030 crore against Rs 810 crore in the same period last year, the official said.

Generally, a company's payout is considered as a barometer of the company's performance during the quarter. The payouts for September quarter come with grim news on the economic front wherein the quarterly growth had slipped to a four year low of 4.4 per cent for the June quarter.

The state-run banks led by the largest lender State Bank of India (which paid Rs 1,120 crore, down from Rs 1,820 crore last year) were a disappointment due to issues over asset quality deterioration and treasury losses, the official said.

The Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation's payout also dipped to Rs 797 crore from the year ago figure of Rs 974 crore, the official said.

Dena Bank's payout plummeted to Rs 50 crore from the year ago's Rs 185 crore, while for Central Bank of India, the payout dipped to Rs 200 crore as against the Rs 268 crore in the year ago period, the official said.

US court orders fresh proceedings into claims against Satyam

 
Nearly five years after India's biggest corporate scam broke out at erstwhile Satyam Computer, a US court has ordered fresh proceedings into charges that the Indian IT firm had fraudulently induced a company, Venture Global Engineering, into a partnership.

Satyam, whose founder and then Chairman B Ramalinga Raju, had admitted in January 2009 a long-running fraud at the company, was later acquired by Tech Mahindra and its entire business was integrated with the new owner earlier this year.

The latest ruling by a US Appeals Court follows an earlier direction issued by a Districts Court of Michigan, which had dismissed claims made by Venture Global Engineering (VGE) against Satyam with regard to a joint venture.

In its order dated September 13, the Appeals Court has reversed the judgement of the district court and has ordered further proceedings into the matter.

In its appeal, VGE and the Larry J Winget Living Trust alleged that Satyam Computer Services "induced" them to form a joint venture by "misrepresenting its financial stability and general suitability as a business partner."

Satyam had argued that VGE should have brought their claims during an arbitration in 2005. The arbitrator had ruled that all of VGE's ownership interest in the 50:50 JV - Satyam Venture Engineering Services (SVES) - be transferred to Satyam. VGE had complied with the order at that time.

After Raju confessed to a fraud in a letter to investors in 2009, VGE in December 2010 filed an 'instant action' case, alleging that Satyam was engaged in a massive fraud even before the joint venture started.

"We hold that because plaintiffs' (VGE and the Trust) complaint adequately alleges that Satyam wrongfully concealed the factual predicate to plaintiffs' claims, the defence of claim preclusion does not apply. Thus, the district court erred in granting defendants? (Satyam) motion to dismiss. We therefore reverse the judgement of the district court and remand for further proceedings," the US States Court of Appeals for Sixth Circuit ruled.

According to the court documents, Satyam had approached Venture Industries Australia, a company owned by the Trust, for a joint venture to provide auto industry engineering services.

Satyam told the Trust that it was an attractive business partner, with a strong brand and recognition as a leading global IT company, having a broad base of automotive customers.

It further said it was a publicly traded company and was audited, liquid, and financially stable.

The Trust later formed a separate legal entity, VGE, which eventually formed a JV in the year 2000 with Satyam. The relationship, however, soured in 2005 and the matter reached arbitration.

Samsung launches Galaxy Note 3 in India, priced at Rs 49,900

Samsung has launched the Galaxy Note 3 and the Galaxy Gear smartwatch in India. The products were announced a couple of weeks ago at the IFA, a trade show for consumer electronics and appliances held annually in Berlin.

While both devices will be available in stores nationwide from September 25, 100 stores in Bangalore, Mumbai and New Delhi will have them available for customers to experience starting September 18.

The Galaxy Note 3 is slightly larger, but lighter and slimmer than its predecessor. It features a 5.7 inch full HD Super AMOLED display (1920 x 1080 pixels) and is powered by a 1.9 GHz eight core processor with 3GB RAM. It runs Android 4.3 (Jelly Bean), and is heavily customised with Samsung's TouchWiz user interface. It has a 13 MP camera with features such as smart stabilisation and an LED flash. It comes with a new stylus, S Pen, that triggers features such as action memo, scrapbook, screen write, S finder and pen window. The Galaxy Note 3 weights 168 gm and has a 3200 mAh battery. It is priced at Rs 49,900.

Just a couple of months ago, Samsung introduced an exchange scheme for Galaxy Note II, under which selected smartphones could be exchanged for up to Rs 10,000 off on a new Samsung phone. Under this scheme, the Note II sold for Rs 27,500. But now, its price has been slashed, and it sells for Rs 27,000 without any scheme.

Vineet Taneja, Country Head, Samsung Mobile & IT, says: "The Galaxy Note 3 represents the next evolution of the Galaxy Note experience. At Samsung, our goal is not just to make great devices, but to empower consumers to truly experience, enjoy and fulfil their busy life with our devices, like the Note 3 and the Gear."

Samsung's new Galaxy Gear smartwatch, priced at Rs 22,990, connects to select Galaxy smartphones, and shows notifications and quick previews of incoming text messages, email, and the like.

Sony and few other companies have been selling smart watches for over a year.

Samsung also said it will bring the Galaxy Note 10.1, 2014 edition, to India in October.

NTPC plans over Rs 20,000 cr capex in FY14

 
National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) has planned a capital expenditure (capex) of over Rs 20,000 crore during the current financial year for its expansion.

The firm added 4,170 MW of capacity, including 1,000 MW through its joint venture projects, in 2012-13. The company's power generation capacity has reached 41,187 MW.

"We had a capex of Rs 19,926 crore during the previous financial year (2012-13) and plan to raise it to Rs 20,200 crore this fiscal (2013-14)," the PSU's Chairman and Managing Director, Arup Roy Choudhury, said while addressing the shareholders on Tuesday at the company's Annual General Meeting.

NTPC awarded contracts for work of 8,521 MW capacity projects, Choudhury said.

The CMD said the Cabinet Committee on Investment (CCI) has restored coal linkage to the company's proposed 1,980 MW North Karanpura power plant in Jharkhand.

The Coal Ministry in 2008 had withdrawn fuel linkages to the NTPC plant following a tiff with the power ministry over the location of the project. The government also withdrew the de-allocation of NTPC coal blocks in Jharkhand - Chatti-Bariatu, Kerandari and Chatti-Bariatu (South).

The government sold 9.5 per cent of its stake in the thermal power generating company last year. Following this disinvestment, the government shareholding in NTPC now stands at 75 per cent.

The offer for sale garnered over Rs 11,400 crore for the government.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is scheduled to dedicate the PSU's Sipat thermal power project in Chhattisgarh to the nation on Thursday.

The 2,980 MW Sipat project has three units of 660 MW in stage I and 2 units of 500 MW in stage II, which are already operation

YES Bank ties up $255 mn foreign currency loan

Private sector lender YES Bank has tied up a loan facility equivalent to $255 million in dual currency from international lenders.

The syndicated loan facility comprises $180 million and Euro 58 million, the bank said in a statement. The loans will be utilised for corporate purposes and for trade finance, it said.

The commitments, which have a maturity of 1 and 2 years, have come from 11 banks in eight countries across US, Europe, Middle East and Australia, it said.

YES Bank's statement said the recent move by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on offering a swap facility to banks for their foreign borrowings at 1 percentage point below the market rate will reduce the landed rupee cost of the loan and make it competitive as against rupee borrowings of the same maturity.

A clutch of banks, including the country's largest lender State Bank of India and international ones like ANZ Banking Group and HSBC, played the lead arrangers and book-runners for the transaction, the statement said.

YES Bank's scrip was trading 2.13 per cent up at Rs 297.90 a piece on BSE, whose 30-share benchmark Sensex was trading down 0.11 per cent in afternoon trade