NEWS UPDATES

Tata seeks $3 bln loans for Jaguar, Land Rover

India's Tata Motors is seeking about $3 billion in loans to fund its planned purchase of Ford Motor Co's Jaguar and Land Rover luxury brands, the Financial Times reported on Thursday.
Tata has assigned its advisers, Citigroup and JPMorgan, to arrange the financing with a number of other international and domestic banks, the FT said, quoting people familiar with the matter.
The loan, expected to be mostly short-term bridge financing, is larger than the expected purchase price, estimated at around $2 billion.
A person familiar with the deal said part of the loan could be used for working capital, the newspaper said.

SEBI Board Meeting held on March 05, 2008 at New Delhi

The Hon’ble Union Finance Minister Shri P. Chidambaram addressed all the Board Members and Executive Directors of SEBI today at New Delhi. Highlighting the role of SEBI in the development of the securities market, the Minister, emphasized on the need for greater investor protection, investor education and market development to increase the base of genuine investors, particularly from non-metro cities.

Proceedings in respect of NSDL: A Committee comprising of non Whole Time Members of SEBI headed by Dr. Mohan Gopal, Director, National Judicial Academy, Bhopal has been constituted to oversee the conduct of all proceedings initiated by SEBI against NSDL. The other members of the committee are Shri V. Leeladhar, Deputy Governor, RBI and Shri Anurag Goel, Secretary, Ministry of Corporate Affairs. The Committee may seek the advice of Shri Ravi Kadam, Adovate General of Maharashtra in its work.

Rationalisation of Fees: The Board in its previous meeting formed an internal committee headed by Mr. V K Chopra, Whole Time Member, SEBI to examine the SEBI’s fee structure for rationalization. The Committee submitted its report to the Board and gave a set of wide ranging recommendations for rationalizing the fee structure so as to directly or indirectly benefit common investors. The Board decided to rationalize the following fees:

• The ad valorem fee for filing of an offer document by a mutual fund has been reduced from 0.03 per cent at present to 0.005 per cent subject to a maximum of Rs. 50 lakhs. Further, annual registration fee from custodians has also been reduced from 0.001 per cent to 0.0005 per cent. of asset under custody. This would directly benefit the small investor investing in mutual funds .
• The ad valorem fee for filing of offer document in case of public issue has been reduced from 0.03 per cent , at present, to 0.005 per cent subject to a maximum of Rs. 3 crores.
  The ad valorem fee in respect of filing of offer document for rights issue has been reduced from 0.05 percent, at present, to 0.005 per cent, subject to a maximum of Rs. 5 lakhs.
• The ad valorem filing fee in case of offer documents for buy back of securities and draft letter of offer filed under SEBI Substantial Acquistion and Takeover Regulations, is reduced from 0.5 per cent, at present, to 0.125 per cent subject to maximum of Rs. 3 crores.
• Registration fee in case of venture capital fund has been reduced from Rs. 10 lakh at present to Rs. 5 lakhs.

The above rationalization of fee structure will come into effect from April 1, 2008.

Proposed arrangement between NSE and Madras Stock Exchange (MSE): The Board approved the proposal for granting “in-principle” approval for the proposed arrangement between NSE and MSE subject to suitable safeguards / conditions. As per this arrangement, the members of MSE will be permitted to trade on NSE’s platform subject to certain terms and conditions.

Primary Market: The Board decided that the Primary Market issuance process will be reviewed to reduce the gap between the opening of an issue and the listing of shares.

INCAT-HAL in joint venture

INCAT,a engineering services outsourcing (ESO) and product development IT services company, and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) today announced a joint venture creating INCAT-HAL Aerostructures limited. The new organisation is immediately positioned to establish itself as a global leader in the engineering and design of aero structures, said M Fakruddin, HAL Director - Corporate Planning and Marketing.

"The objective of this joint venture is to undertake work packages related to engineering design services in aerostructures and also the captive offshore and on-site work load of both partners from aerospace OEMs, including offset programes," he said. "HAL and INCAT are set to capitalise on the global aerospace demand by leveraging their combined core strengths - HAL's offset business and INCAT's global offshore/on-site engineering business," said Patrick McGoldrick, Managing Director - Tata Technologies, INCAT's parent company.

The joint venture, based at Bangalore, will be the preferred delivery centre, for both organisations. The JV agreement was signed between HAL and Tata Technologies, INCAT'S parent company. Both HAL and Tata Technologies will contribute 50 per cent to the equity of the JV.

INCAT, a Tata Technologies company, was founded in 1989.