Further Pay Revision for PSU Officers

About four lakh officers of central public sector enterprises will benefit from a government decision today giving them a further increase in salary and allowances, over and above the hikes announced last year. The decision to improve the salary structure of officers at board level and below, along with supervisory staff, was taken at the Cabinet meeting presided over by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
The improved pay packages will also include increase in house rent allowance and retirement benefits. The decisions are based on the recommendations of the committee of ministers headed by Home Minister P Chidambaram, which went into the revised salary and allowances notified earlier in November last year by the government. PSU officers, particularly in the oil sector, forced the government to revisit their revised pay scales when they went on strike in January this year.
Briefing reporters after the Cabinet meeting, Chidambaram said the revision in the pay structure would vary from company to company. (Source : PTI News)

Stay tuned for detailed post on above.

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Withdraw Cash from any ATM from Apr.1, Free of charge

Thinking of changing your Bank because the ATM of that Bank is not near to your Office or Home ! Forget it , No more would you be bothered about where is the ATM of your Bank located. Come April 1st,2009 and you can withdraw money and do Balance Enquiry from any ATM irrespective of which Bank you hold you account without any charges being deducted for this service.

Earlier some banks had created their own network where ATM withdrawal of the participating bank customers was not charged. However, there was lack of awareness and clarity on these mechanisms. The customer was not aware of what charges will be deducted on using other bank’s ATM as the charges differed from one bank to another. There was a confusion among the customers as to what will be the charge for withdrawing Cash from their Bank Accounts from some other Bank’s ATM and this facility was being used by customers only in case of extreme emergencies (where charges do not matter!).

RBI had issued a circular on March10,2008 directing all Banks to not charge more than Rs. 20 with effect from March 31,2008 for use of any Bank’s ATM. The circular further mentioned that with effect from Apr1, 2009 all banks should provide these service FREE of cost to the customers.

What will still be Charged ?

Banks may still charge customer for the following Services :

a) cash withdrawal with the use of credit cards
b) cash withdrawal in an ATM located abroad.

If you are interested in reading the Notification of the RBI in this Regard, click the link below

RBI Notification for Customer Charges for Use of ATM’s for Cash Withdrawal & Balance Enquiry

Update : 22nd August ,2009

From Oct 15, only 5 'other bank ATM' transactions a month would be Free

The party is Over for bank cutomers who had been awarded the liberty of Free withdrawal from any ATM just 5 months back. Based on the demand from Indian Bank's Assocation, RBI has agreed to limit the numbers of free withdrawal from "Third Party" ATM to 5 per month. If you withdraw more than 5 times from other Bank's ATM, you may have to pay a fee ranging from Rs 12 -Rs 20 for this. However, banks have been given the liberty not to charge any fee for more than 5 transaction per month in case they wish to do so.

RBI is also limiting the amount of cash that can be withdrawn from "Other Bank's" ATM to Rs. 10,000 per transaction.

(This post has been updated on 22nd August, 2009 in view of new development which impacts the relevance of this post)

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IPO’s continue to haunt Investors

The heartthrobs of Year 2007 and some part of 2008, IPO’s are no longer common Investor’s attractive hub. IPO’s that have listed in Year 2009 have the same story to tell. See for yourself. 

There are companies who have deferred their plan to float IPO’s due to the current turmoil in the market. Bharat Oman Refineries, Photon Infotech and NHPC are among the companies who have deferred their IPO plans. Other companies who have filed the DRHP include Mayajaal Entertainment, Pradip Overseas, Sea TV Network, Great Eastern Energy Corporation & Texmo Pipes and products.

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Only Buyers in Matrix Labs on Delisting plans

The share price of Matrix Labs has been soaring high on news that Mylan Laboratories (the majority shareholder in Matrix) is proposing to delist the company from stock markets at an indicative price of upto Rs.150. This is part of strategic move by Mylan to consolidate its holding in the company. The stock was quoting at Rs.141 up by 20% with no sellers and pending buy orders of more than 8 Lac shares. The stock has nearly doubled in last three months.

Mylan Laboratories had acquired 71.16% Controlling Interest in Matrix Laboratories in Jan 2007. As per the latest Shareholding pattern the Foreign Institutional Investors (FII’s) hold 16% stake in the company.

Matrix Labs has a book value of Rs. 44 Per share and the stock is currently trading at Price to Book value of 3.22

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Brandhouse Retails Limited to list on March 27, 2009

The shares of  Brandhouse Retails Limited (An entity demerged from S Kumars Nationwide) will get listed on BSE and NSE from Friday, 27th March,2009. Earlier Shareholders of S Kumars Nationwide Limited(SKNL) were allotted 1 Share of Brandhouse Retails for every 5 Shares of SKNL held by them pursuant to demerger of its Retail Business Division as a separate entity(Record date was fixed as 02 May,2008).

The issued, subscribed and paid-up equity capital of the company post arrangement comes to Rs.51.99 Crores consisting of 5,19,94,195 equity shares of Rs.10/- each fully paid up. Out of these, around 1.07 Crore Shares are under lock-in period upto April 30,2012 . The Scrip is expected to list in a price Range of Rs.13-14 and settle around Rs. 12 after initial euphoria.

The Scrip Code is 533059 and the ISIN No. is INE317J01011

Current Shareholding Pattern

Promoters                    55.7%

FII’s                             24.0%

Body Corporates         10.1%

Trusts                           6.9%

Others                          3.3%

About Brandhouse retails (BHRL)

Brand Portfolio

With retail business of Skumars in its pocket, Brandhouse retail boasts of brands like Reid & Taylor, Stephens Brothers, Carmichael House, Belmonte and Dunhill.

Financials

For Year ended 31st March,2008 the company had posted a turnover of Rs. 313 Crore against 55 crore in previous year.

Net Profit after tax stood at Rs. 13.1 Crore against 9 Lacs in previous year.

The Earnings per share stood at Rs. 2.56 Company has minimal Cash of Rs. 42.5 Lacs on its Balance sheet. It has huge Debtors of 77.5 Crore and Inventories of Rs. 63 Crore which is typical of such business.

Some of the major Expense of company includes Rentals (20 Crore), Salaries (7 Crore), Exhibitions (2 Crore), Interest on NCD (3.6 Crore) and Brokerage charges(1.5 Crore)

Recent Developments

BHRL announced its joint venture with Italy’s leading apparel brand ‘Oviesse’. This brand would address young India and provide affordable ‘fast fashion’ for men, women and kids. The total equity investment in the JV will be Rs. 161 crores over 5 years for setting up of 190 stores across Metro/Tier1/Tier2 cities. In the terms of the agreement Brandhouse will hold 62.5% of the total equity while the balance 37.5% of the equity will be in the hands of Oviesse.

Oviesse is a part of Gruppo Coin, Italy’s leading clothing retailer with a turnover of over 1.1 billion Euros. Based in Mestre, Italy, Oviesse is a benchmark in fast fashion with over 11 million customers shopping at their store every year, which amounts to a sale of over 100 million garments at a revenue of over €820 million.

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Skumars Demerger

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Akruti City kicked out of F&O, Stock plummets

NSE vide its circular NSCC/F&O/C&S/932 dated 19th March,2009 has barred trading in shares of Akruti City in the Futures and Options Segment. The stock will continue to trade in Cash Segment. The share prices of Akruti City has skyrocketed by 290% since January 15th,2009. The stock reacted quickly to the news and was down 28% to Rs.1590. The stock had risen continuously despite the sever fall in stock markets and had raised doubts on the trading pattern.

Fallout of NSE Circular
1. All existing contracts in the underlying AKRUTI i.e. contracts with expiry dates 26 March 2009, 30 April 2009 and 28 May 2009 shall expire on 26 March 2009 and shall be finally settled at the relevant settlement price.

2. The settlement price to be reckoned for the purpose of final settlement shall be the closing price of AKRUTI in the Capital Market segment of NSE on 26 March 2009.

3. The details of final settlement in respect of AKRUTI shall be available in the F_PS03 and F_PS04 reports downloaded to members on 26 March 2009.

4. All positions in the existing futures and options contracts on the underlying AKRUTI shall cease to exist pursuant to the final settlement on 26 March 2009.

5. The Pay in/pay out of final settlement of all F&O contracts on AKRUTI shall be on 30 March 2009 (T+1 day). Read More!