PepsiCo India to invest over 1,200 cr on new plant in Andhra

 
Beverages and snacks major PepsiCo India on Saturday said it will invest over Rs 1,200 crore to build a new beverage manufacturing facility in Andhra Pradesh.

The company plans to build a new greenfield beverage manufacturing plant in Sri City, Andhra Pradesh, which upon completion will be PepsiCo's largest beverage plant in India, PepsiCo India said in a statement.

"PepsiCo intends to invest more than Rs 1,200 crore in the project, which is part of the recently announced plans by PepsiCo and its partners to invest Rs 33,000 crore in India by 2020," it added.

The company also announced plans to substantially increase sourcing of mango pulp from Andhra Pradesh in the next six years.

Commenting on the development, PepsiCo India Chairman and CEO D Shivakumar said the new beverage facility is a key part of the company's growth plans for the Indian market and "we are delighted to locate it in Andhra Pradesh".

"Sri City is ideally located and offers the perfect opportunity to harness the benefits of superior connectivity, great infrastructure and an ample talent pool, which are the prerequisites for every industry," he added.

Realty welcomes home loan rate cuts by SBI, HDFC

 
Welcoming the 0.25 per cent rate cut by two of the biggest home loan financiers SBI and HDFC, realty sector participants on Friday said the move will help revive interest in the gloomy market.

"This is a positive move to boost property sales and spur industry growth. Home buyers who were earlier waiting for rates to come down will now certainly look at buying their dream homes," industry body Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of India (Credai) Chairman Lalit Kumar Jain said.

"The home loan rate cuts from certain banks have occurred after nearly a year, and will augur well for investment sentiments in the market," property consultant CBRE South Asia's Chairman and Managing Director Anshuman Magazine said.

It may be noted that the residential sector had suffered a major set back due to increasing home loan rates, which had forced buyers to postpone their home buying decision.

Magazine also welcomed Reserve Bank's move to hold on to its key rates despite the high inflation, which resulted in the rate cut announcement by SBI and HDFC last evening. He said the move is a positive signal for the investment climate.

Weekly roundup: Market takes Fed tapering in stride; Sensex surges 364 pts

 
The benchmark S&P BSE Sensex spurted by 364 points this week on almost across-the-board buying triggered by frantic foreign fund inflows amid status quo stance taken by RBI on key interest rates.

On Friday, the 30-share index spurted by 371 points on sharp rise in heavyweight Reliance Industries, whose stock flared up after the government allowed the company, with some riders, to increase price of its natural gas from April.

The market lost 151 points on Thursday in a knee-jerk reaction to US Federal Reserve's decision to taper its monthly bond buying programme starting next month. It bounced back smartly the next day.

According to brokers, the market had already factored in the much-awaited announcement about stimulus roll-back.

The Sensex resumed steady at 20,714.26, but dropped to 20,568.70 on rise in inflation and fears of hike in interest rates before the December 18 RBI policy meeting.

However, the BSE benchmark index later recovered to 21,117.99 before ending at 21,079.72, showing a smart rise of 364.14 points, or 1.76 per cent, over the last week as RBI unexpectedly decided to keep key policy rates unchanged.

Bombay HC decides to hear petition of FTIL, Jignesh Shah on Jan 8

The Bombay High Court on Saturday fixed for hearing on January 8 a petition filed by Financial Technologies India (FTIL) and its Chief Jignesh Shah challenging an order of Forward Market Commission (FMC) that held that both were not "fit and proper" to run any exchange.

The petition was mentioned by FTIL Counsel Janak Dwarkadas before a bench headed by Chief Justice Mohit Shah which asked the market regulator to file reply by January 6.

The petition has requested for quashing the FMC order that held FTIL is not 'fit and proper' to hold anything more than 2 per cent shareholding in Multi-Commodity Exchange (MCX). FTIL has 26 per cent shareholding in MCX.

The petition has also asked for interim relief to the extent of granting a stay on the FMC order until the matter is finally decided by the HC.

In its 80-page order, the Forward Markets Commission (FMC), which went into the running of NSEL following payment defaults of Rs 5,500 crore to investors, said that Shah was "practically the highest beneficiary of the fraud perpetrated at the NSEL Exchange".

FMC said, "Jignesh P Shah is not a 'fit and proper' person to hold any position in the management and the Board of any Exchange recognised or registered by the government of India/Forward Markets Commission under FCRA, 1952".

FMC had directed that neither Shah individually, nor though any company/entity controlled by him, either directly or indirectly, should hold any shares in any association/exchange in excess of the threshold limit of the total paid-up equity capital as prescribed under FMC guidelines.

Other petitioners are Joseph Massey and Shreekant Javalgekar, former directors of MCX, against whom also FMC held that they were not fit to hold any position in the management and the Board of any Exchange.

Shah founded MCX in November 2003 and then went on to set up a stock exchange this year. He is the Chairman of FTIL, which owns and runs National Spot Exchange Ltd (NSEL), currently hit by a scam.

Shah, on October 9, quit as Vice-Chairman and Shareholder Director of MCX-SX, the third major stock exchange in the country. Few weeks later, he also resigned as Vice Chairman of MCX.

RBI tightens norms for credit card issuers on minimum dues

 
Tightening norms for credit card issuers, RBI on Friday asked banks to treat outstanding as bad loans in case customers fail to pay the minimum due amount within a stipulated 90 period.

With a view to bringing consistency and inducing transparency, the RBI said, "it is advised that a credit card account will be treated as non-performing asset if the minimum amount due, as mentioned in the statement, is not paid fully within 90 days from the next statement date".

In credit card accounts, the amount spent is billed to the card users through a monthly statement with a definite due date for repayment.

Banks give an option to the card users to pay either the full amount or a fraction of it or minimum amount due on the due date and roll-over the balance to the subsequent month's billing cycle.

The Reserve Bank said it has come to its notice that there are divergent practices being followed by banks with regard to asset classification status of credit card accounts if the minimum amount is not paid on the due date.

RBI asked the banks to follow this uniform method of determining over-due status for credit card accounts while reporting to credit information companies and for the purpose of levying of penal charges, like late payment charges, if any.