News Roundup: R-Power in Talks to Sell 15% to Foreign Investor

R-Power in Talks to Sell 15% to Foreign Investor - Reliance Power Ltd (R-Power), part of the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani (ADA) group, is in talks with five leading global power companies to sell 15 per cent equity stake in the company. Preliminary talks have started with three Chinese power companies, which include China Light and Power Holdings (CLP), and French and Canadian companies. According to sources, Anil Ambani was in China last week to hold discussions with Chinese power companies for a possible stake sale. The company is willing to place the equity to one or two power companies. (Business Standard) Corporation Bank to Raise Rs 1000 Crore via Bond Issues - Public sector lender, Corporation Bank, is planning to raise Rs 1,000 crore capital through bond issuances in the current financial year. The bank had recently raised Rs 1,000 crore upper tier II capital and it may raise another Rs 1,000 crore this year through tier 1 perpetual bonds or upper tier II capital. (Business Standard) Tech M Open Offer Ends Today, Sees Negligible Response - Tech Mahindra is expected to subscribe to fresh equity shares of Satyam Computer Services (now Mahindra Satyam) through a preferential issue to increase its stake in the troubled company, as the ongoing open offer has failed to enthuse shareholders to tender their shares at Rs 58, the price quoted under the offer that is closing tomorrow. (Business Standard) Vodafone Can Offer ISD, STD Services, Hive Off Tower Business - Vodafone Essar, the country’s second-largest GSM-based mobile operator, has finally received the go-ahead from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) to hive off its towers and related infrastructure to a separate arm called Ortus Infratel. The nodal government agency for clearing foreign investment proposals earlier deferred Vodafone Essar’s plans to create Ortus Infratel twice after the revenue department had raised concerns over the telco’s application. The FIPB has also cleared the company’s applications for national and international long distance (NLD & ILD) and internet service provider (ISP) licence. (The Economic Times) Patni, MphasiS in Race for AIG Unit - Patni Computer and MphasiS are among the potential suitors looking to acquire the Indian software unit of troubled insurance giant AIG.The software unit, AIG Systems Solutions, is on the block as part of the insurance behemoth’s plans to divest assets globally and focus on its core business. Deloitte is running a sale process for the unit. (The Economic Times) Old Lane to Raise Stake in KVK Energy - Citigroup-owned hedge fund Old Lane is increasing its stake in KVK Energy & Infrastructure in a deal worth Rs 116 crore. Old Lane will invest by subscribing to compulsorily fully convertible debentures of the Indian infrastructure development company. After conversion into equity, the total foreign direct investment in privately held KVK Energy & Infrastructure will rise to 70% from 33%. (The Economic Times) DLF’s Plan to Buy DE Shaw’s Stake in DAL Hits Roadblock- Plans by the promoters of top real estate company DLF to buy out hedge fund DE Shaw’s investment in family-owned DLF Assets (DAL) could hit a roadblock because of a little known rule in the country’s foreign exchange laws. Under a ‘put’ option signed between DE Shaw and three companies controlled by DLF-promoter KP Singh’s family in May 2007, the US-based fund, which invested $400 million in convertible preference shares of DAL, could exit its investment and get a fixed return of at least 27%. But the rule in the country’s Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) classifies all equity investments that carry a fixed return as debt, which could bring DE Shaw investment under the purview of ECB guidelines. With ECBs not allowed in the real estate sector, investors holding convertible stock with fixed returns could find their exit option blocked. (The Economic Times)  

Tata Photon Plus takes forward the ‘speed’ factor

Catering to an impatient generation that doesn’t like to wait, Tata Indicom has introduced Tata Photon Plus, a wireless Internet product that offers speeds of up to 3.1 mbps. The company has come up with a new campaign that breaks on July 1 across GECs to support the product. Contract Advertising is the agency behind the campaign.

Outsourcing the un-outsourcable

Now the western countries and especially the US is looking to outsource many of the unlikely industries – even those industries which were thought to be untouchables or the un-outsourcables! As Thomas Friedman said in his book, there are fungible jobs and non-fungible jobs. Non-fungible jobs are the jobs that cannot be outsourced and fungible jobs [...]

Tweet Your Flickr Images From Flickr Account

Have you ever shared your Flickr photographs with your Tweeple? One way is to create a link to your picture and then use one of those url shortening service and then share it with your twitter account. But now Twitter has taken out all the pain for you. Now you can easily share your Flickr photos with the world using Twitter from within your twitter account.You can go to add new blog and select Twitter. Once you select Twitter as your new blog, Flickr will take you to Twitter for the authorization, once you allow Flickr to access your Twitter, you will be given a unique email address for your Flickr account that has 2Twitter in the username. 

Accentium Web starts internet marketing services division, AdLift.com

Font Size Accentium Web starts internet marketing services d... SunTec launches one-stop-reference website for rel... TERI University receives support to launch new pro... Role of project management in operational and busi... New Delhi: Accentium Web ...

India Mobile Number Portability – Complete Guide

After years of waiting, Mobile Number Portability has arrived in India. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has issued a draft of regulations for introduction of mobile number portability (MNP) in the country. If you are not aware of Mobile Number Portability, it allows subscribers to retain their existing telephone number when they switch from one access service provider to another access service provider irrespective of mobile technology or from one technology to another technology on the same or any other access service provider.So lets say you are currently using Reliance CDMA mobile with a phone number 9332221110. You are tired of your CDMA phones and want to go with some cool GSM phones but those phones are not offered by Reliance GSM. So you can switch to lets say Vodafone. You can still keep your number 9332221110.  

Top 50 Best Managed Outsourcing Vendors of 2009 or are they?

Black Book of Outsourcing has been publishing the top outsourcing companies in world for a few years now and this year was no exception. They have recently published the list for 2009 as well. I am actually not a big fan of Black Book of Outsourcing list, simply because, if you compare 2007, 2008 and this years list, it will be very clear to you. I have been following this BBO best managed Outsourcing vendor list for 3 years in a row now, and the amount of changes in the ranking is just astonishing. I can understand 3-4 changes up and down, but if you compare all 3 years lists – they very different from each other !

Top 500 Marketers Spend Just 5% On Internet; Online Ad spends To Grow 44% In FY10: WebChutney

Leading digital agency Webchutney has released Digital Media Outlook 2009: A Study Of The Indian Digital Marketing Scenario. While the study has the customary projections on ad spends, what we found more interesting was the ‘perception mapping’ exercise that plots the perceptions of brand heads, marketing heads and other senior executives across India’s top 500 marketers. (Click the image for a slideshow of the key slides from the study.) Here are some interesting numbers and findings from the study: 1) Only 82% of the top 500 marketers spend any money online. Together, the top 500 marketers in India spent Rs5,163.26 crore in 2008-09. Of this, only 5.4% (about Rs278 crore) was spent on the Internet. The study estimates that this amounts to 64% of total Internet ad spends—this means the total money spent advertising on the Internet is about Rs435 crore.

RCOM Brings BBC News Radio In Hindi, Tamil, Urdu & Bangla

Reliance Communications (RCOM) has added BBC World to its VAS bouquet. Subscribers can tune into international news by dialing 51235378. Called 24×7 BBC World Service Live Radio, it is powered by Wordwide Records India; the owner of the shortcode 57080. Target: Rural India “Radio is a very popular medium in rural India. Through this service we wanted [...]

Manish Agarwal To Join UTV New Media As COO

Medianama has learned from reliable sources that Manish Agarwal, currently Marketing Director at Microsoft India’s Developer and Platform Evangelism (DPE) division, is being hired as Chief Operating Officer at UTV New Media. He has neither confirmed nor denied the development. Speculation has been rife that Agarwal will be replacing TN Prabhu, the current CEO of [...] (More at MediaNama)