Key Corporate and Industry Developments

Key corporate news

• TATA STEEL will launch a formal sale process for its loss-making UK assets on April 11 and will appoint an investment banker soon after a crucial meeting between UK business secretary Sajid Javid and Tata Group Chairman Cyrus Mistry on Wednesday. (ET)
• Cigarette stocks adequate despite shutting mfg: ITC (PTI)
• ICICI Bank to limit corporate, global loans growth at 10% (BS)
• AXIS BANK, a lender to JAYPEE INFRATECH, has taken possession of the debt-laden company’s headquarters in Noida in lieu of Rs.700 crore owed by the company (Mint)
• HDFC said on Wednesday that it had set aside Rs.450cr as a one-time special provision against unexpected future risks (Mint)
• Tata Motors Ltd’s newly launched compact—Tiago to replace the two-decade-old Indica and is pitted against top-selling models such as Maruti Suzuki Celerio and Wagon R and Hyundai Grand i10, with prices starting at Rs.3.20 lakh for the petrol version and Rs.3.94 lakh for the diesel variant (ex-showroom, Delhi). (ET)
• The Cabinet has approved liberalising 800 MHz spectrum in Rajasthan, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, clearing the air on their provisional market price and paving the way for RCOM to share or trade bandwidth in these areas. (ET)

Key Industry news

• SBI chairman says transmission only after deposit rates come down (BS)
• RBI sold treasury bills at their lowest yields in more than five years at a weekly auction on Wednesday. The RBI set a cut-off of 6.85% for the 91-day t-bills, the lowest since November 2010, and 6.93% for the 182-day t-bills, the lowest since October 2010. Today the RBI will buy up to Rs150b ($2.25 billion) of bonds through OMOs, taking the total amount of purchases since December 2015 to Rs870b, more than in the two previous years combined. (Reuters)
• Firms raised record Rs4.58tn via debt placement in FY16 on benign rates in debt markets (FE)
• The cabinet on Wednesday approved the fiscal deficit target of 3% for states, as recommended by the 14th Finance Commission for 2015-20. The panel has provided additional flexibility to a maximum of 0.5% over and above the normal limit of 3% in any given year to states that have had a favourable debt-gross state domestic product (GSDP) ratio and interest payments-revenue receipts ratio in the previous two years. (IANS)
• The cabinet allowed Oil Marketing Companies to evolve their own policies to source crude oil instead of time-consuming tendering process (Mint)
• The cabinet enhanced the scope of a framework agreement between EXIM Bank and a consortium of Iranian banks led by the Central Bank of Iran for export of goods and services from India to Rs.3,000 crore from Rs.900 crore. This will enable Exim bank to provide a buyer’s credit facility to Iran, secured via sovereign guarantee from Iran. (Mint)
• The cabinet allowed telecom companies to use spectrum allocated to them without auction to offer new services to consumers at a provisional price recommended by TRAI (Mint)
• GDP calculation method imprecise, India to grow at 8%: CII (PTI)
• Steel imports rose 18% in March, snapping 4 straight months of falls on the back of deals struck before the government imposed a floor price in February to curb cheap imports. (Reuters)
• A demographic dividend is very unlikely to accrue to India anytime soon, as a large share of the countrys youth lacks education as well as jobs to deliver this productivity, says a Ambit Capital  report. (PTI)
• Office space absorption for Jan-Mar2016 fell 26.5% y/y to ~5 million sq ft (6.8msft) across seven major cities, as companies are yet to finalise real estate plans for the year, according to a report by CBRE. (BS)
• BIOCON chief seeks 5-yr exemption from price control for pharma sector (FE)
• NITI Aayog wants reforms to boost electronics manufacturing (ET)
• Nabard set to raise Rs 50,000 crore in FY17 (31% higher than FY16) (ET)
• India to adopt Israeli technology in agriculture: Minister (IANS)
• Govt keeps cane FRP unchanged at Rs230/qtl for 2016-17 season (FE)
• Debt-laden Essar Steel has recorded highest ever monthly production of flat steel in March and has achieved a capacity utilisation rate of 70% (PTI)
• The GVK Reddy family, which took over the Hancock coal mines in Australia for $ 1.26 billion in 2011, has failed to pay the final tranche of $ 560 million (BS)
• U.S. drug maker Pfizer Inc agreed on Tuesday to terminate its $160 billion agreement to acquire Botox maker Allergan Plc, in a major victory to U.S. President Barack Obama's drive to stop tax-dodging corporate mergers. (Reuters)