Toyota to fix 1.53 mn Avalon, other cars worldwide
21 Oct 2010;economictimes.indiatimes.com:TOKYO: Toyota Motor Corp will repair about 1.53 million Avalon and other vehicles globally for problems with the brake master cylinder seal and fuel pump wiring, with most of those to be recalled in the United States and Japan. The announcement comes less than two months after a recall of 1.3 million Corolla and Matrix cars in the United States and Canada carrying defective engine control modules that could cause the vehicles to stall. Toyota, the world's biggest automaker, has already recalled more than 10 million vehicles in the past year, mostly for unintended acceleration, denting its reputation for quality and attracting intense scrutiny from U.S. safety regulators. Toyota said in a filing with Japan's transport ministry on Thursday that about 600,000 vehicles spanning 11 models including the high-end Crown sedan and Lexus IS and GS models were subject to the recalls, either for the faulty cylinder seal, the fuel pump wiring or both. Toyota's U.S. sales unit said separately it would recall 740,000 Avalon, Highlander, Lexus GS300, IS250 and IS350 cars to replace a brake master cylinder seal because there was a possibility that some brake fluid could leak from the cylinder, causing the brake warning lamp to light up. Toyota will decide whether to file an official recall in other markets in line with safety regulations in each market, said Tokyo-based spokesman Paul Nolasco. The cars subject to the repairs are sold worldwide, including in Europe, China, South America, Africa and Oceania. No accidents were reported from the two defects, Nolasco said. He said Toyota does not disclose estimates for recall costs, and had no comment on whether the repairs would have any impact on its earnings. Toyota's shares ended up 0.4 percent at 2,900 yen in Tokyo after the news, outperforming other Japanese automakers' shares and the broader market.
20 Oct 2010;business-standard.com:Mumbai: Bajaj Auto, India’s second largest two-wheeler manufacturer, today posted a 69 per cent rise in net profit for the second quarter, beating market expectaions. The festival season also pushed overall sales of two-wheelers. The Pune-based company recorded a net profit of Rs 682 crore for the quarter ended September 30, compared to Rs 402 crore for the same quarter last year. Financial analysts tracking the company had estimated the profit to be in the region of Rs 630-650 crore. Bajaj Auto sold 1,000,570 units of two and three wheelers in the domestic and export markets during the reporting period — a jump of 46 per cent against 686,727 units sold in the corresponding period last year. The company’s net sales rose by 50 per cent to Rs 4,180 crore during the period, compared to Rs 2,793 crore last year. Bajaj markets nine motorcycle models and two three-wheeler models (goods and passenger) having multiple variants. The company has improved its EBITDA margins to 20.7 per cent during the quarter, against 20 per cent reported in the first quarter. This is primarily due to high demand for price efficient bikes like Pulsar and Discover. S Ravikumar, senior V-P (business development and assurance), Bajaj Auto said, “We are on course to sell four million units this financial year. Exports is expected to be at 1.1-1.2 million units. We should be able to log sales growth higher than the industry in the second half of the year.” The four million sales figure will include 3.6 million two-wheelers and 400,000 three wheelers. Although the company has a market share of 34 per cent (close to its record high of 35 per cent four years ago), it is not expecting any substantial increase in the near future. To accommodate further demand, the company is expanding its Pantnagar facility in Uttarakhand to 1.5 million per year by March 2011, from where it rolls out its Pulsar 135, Discover and Platina models. This will take its total capacity to five million units per annum across its plants. Rating agency CARE has warned that the domestic growth seen so far in two-wheeler sales may not sustain in the second half and could dip to 13.5 per cent as compared to 27 per cent now. This is not because of adverse conditions in the market but it because of last year’s high base effect when sales had surged. Bajaj, however, is expecting the industry to grow at 18-20 per cent, targeting its own growth to be higher than that. Bajaj had raised prices of its products by two per cent in early October. Although, according to Ravikumar, the rise has completely off-set the increase of commodity prices till date, it can also withstand the estimated increase in input price over the next few months. He, however, ruled out any further possible price hike
20 Oct 2010;business-standard.com:New Delhi: A failed attempt to go on a strike has not taken the steam out of the trade unions opposing the Coal India IPO. They feel CIL employees should not subscribe to the public issue, as it would be tantamount to supporting disinvestment and privatisation. According to Coal India, the response from its employees has been weak. About 63.10 million shares were available for employees at a 10 per cent discount. The shares, if not subscribed by the employees, will be given to qualified institutional buyers, high net worth individuals and retail investors, the company said. A D Nagpal, secretary of Hind Mazdoor Sangh (HMS), said: “Though the middle class is greedy for money, we are against disinvestment. We have all collectively taken a decision. How can we ask workers to subscribe to it, if we are against disinvestment in principle?” He said the unions had failed to unite on the strike called by HMS and Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh against the IPO on OCtober 18. Dipankar Mukherji, national secretary of CITU, echoed Nagpal’s views. “We strongly believe that the employees should have nothing to do with it. What wealth would they make by helping in chipping off the assets of the company?” AITUC secretary D L Sachdeva said: “When we don’t approve of disinvestment, why would we want workers to subscribe for the shares? They are only getting 10 per cent of it. We would not advocate it even if it was more. For, we are not here to bargain on how many shares workers should get.” CIL has 420,000 employees on their rolls. The company, however, did not offer the shares on discount to its contract workers, who are hired on a low salary. The federations of various trade unions have been negotiating an increase in wages for the contract workers. “Why should I want my assets to be sold and then a share be given to me? There is no logic in what is being done. If the debt equity ratio is 12 :1 for CIL (12 paise and 1 paisa respectively), then shouldn’t I opt for debt rather than capital market to mobilise resources?” reasoned Mukherji.
20 Oct 2010;hindustantimes.com:Paris:Trade unions in the south of France have blocked a major fuel depot supplying both civil and military airports including one used by NATO, the powerful union CGT said on Wednesday. The Trapil depot, which was blocked by tens of strikers overnight, supplies kerosene to the civilian airports of Marseille, Nice and Lyon as well as the military bases of Orange, des Milles and Salon-de-Provence. "The police chief has already warned us that he would use the public authority to clear us out," CGT union representative Rachid Mehdi told Reuters.
20 Oct 2010;dailypioneer.com:New Delhi: Sudhir Vasudeva, head of offshore oil and gas fields of ONGC, was on Tuesday selected to head the company. Public Enterprise Selection Board (PESB) selected Vasudeva, 56, to takeover as CMD of ONGC after interviewing eight candidates, sources in know said.
19 Oct 2010;economictimes.indiatimes.com:NEW DELHI: Coal India Ltd's Rs 15,000-crore mega initial public offer, the country's largest so far, got demands for 1.57 times of shares on offer hours before closure of the second day of the issue today. The issue attracted bids for 99.11 crore shares against 63.1 crore equities on offer, as per the data available till 4:00 PM on the National Stock Exchange. The issue is priced in the range of Rs 225 and Rs 245 a share. The government is divesting 10 per cent of its stake in CIL -- the world's largest coal producer. At the upper end of price range, Coal India public issue is worth Rs 15,475 crore and at the lower end it would fetch about Rs 14,211.81 crore. The offer closes on October 21. For institutional buyers the IPO will close on October 20. Issue price will be decided by a Group of Ministers on October 23. Primary market analysts believe participation from retail investors will pick up in the last two days, as they usually follow the trend of institutional investors . Besides, there is one additional exclusive day reserved for them (October 21). The navratna company is expected to list on the domestic bourses by November 4. Anil Ambani Group company Reliance Power's public issue, which mopped up Rs 11,500 crore in January 2008, was India's biggest IPO before the ongoing CIL public offer. CIL is the largest coal producer and coal reserve holder in the world, contributing 82 per cent of total coal production in India. Citigroup Global Markets India, Deutsche Equities India, DSP Merrill Lynch, Enam Securities, Kotak Mahindra Capital and Morgan Stanley India are book running lead managers to the CIL IPO.
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