M&As
Kapoors May Not Buy Star Stake In Balaji: The Kapoor family of Balaji Telefilms is not likely to buy the 26% stake held by the Star group in the company after the sharp erosion in the share price of the company. In August this year, the Kapoors had signed an agreement to buy the Star stake at Rs 190 per share. The agreement expires on January 18, 2009 and After that, Star is free to sell the stake in the open market but not to Balaji Telefilms’ rivals.
Siva To Exit Tata Tele, Temasek Too May Sell: NRI businessman C Sivasankaran has decided to sell his 8% stake in Tata Teleservices (TTSL). Temasek Holdings may also sell a part of its 9.9% stake in the closely-held telecom services operator. He had bought into TTSL for Rs 1,200 crore in 2006 and stands to make as much as Rs 4,021 crore from the sale. Temasek had paid Rs 1,500 crore for 9.9 per cent in the company, also in 2006.
GM Ties Up With BPCL: General Motors India has tied up with Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) for establishing Chevrolet authorised service centres at select BPCL workshops called “V CAREâ€. BPCL has opened service facilities at select fuel retail outlets.
NPCIL Looks To Buy Uranium Mining Assets Abroad: Public sector Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) is eyeing to acquire stakes in foreign companies that own uranium mining assets. This move will offer a guaranteed and uninterrupted supply of the radioactive material to NPCIL.
Hiring & Firing
Avoid Layoffs, PMO Tells Private Airlines: The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) has sent a communication to all the six private airlines in the country, asking them to avoid laying off employees as the bailout package offered by the government-owned oil marketing companies was meant to protect the interests of the employees. India's airline companies are expected to make a combined loss of Rs 10,000 crore in fiscal 2009.
British Telecom Announces 10,000 Lay Offs, India Not Included: UK-based telecom firm British Telecom Group (BTG) has announced plans to axe 10,000 employees in UK and overseas by March and further staff in the future as recession looms in UK, but excluded Indian operations from this move. The group had already cut 4,000 jobs and would slash another 6,000 between now and March. No compulsory redundancies were planned. The job losses account for more than 6% of BT's global headcount of 160,000 staff.
Union Bank Set To Recruit 5,000 People In FY09: Union Bank of India is planning to hire 5,000 people at different levels, including 4,000 as officers to support its branch expansion plans. The bank has recently received RBI’s approval to open 539 new branches by the end of March 2009. Currently, the bank has about 2,600 branches.
Sun Microsystems To Axe 6,000 Jobs: Computer network server maker Sun Microsystems said that it will layoff about 6,000 employees as part of cost cutting measures. Sun's Board of Directors has approved a restructuring plan aimed at reducing costs by about $700-800 m annually. The plan includes a reduction of approximately 5,000 to 6,000 employees, representing 15-18% of the company's global workforce.
KPO Firms Copal, Evalueserve Hiring: Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) companies Copal Partners and Evalueserve are in the hiring mode even as mass hiring in BPOs has taken a back seat with the global financial crisis. Copal has a headcount of 1,000 people including 200 people it hired in last six months. It further plans to hire 200 people in next one year. Evalueserve also has plans to increase the headcount to 3,000 professionals globally from the current 2,400 people.
Dhanalakshmi Bank To Hire 400 People: Kerala-based Dhanalakshmi Bank plans to hire close to 400 employees, almost one-third of its present strength of 1,400, to build up the existing team to tap more business. It has decided to add two persons per branch. The bank has a strong presence in Kerala though the region is saturated with a wide network of private and public sector banks.
People
Former RBI Guv YVR Nominated To UN Task Force: Former RBI governor Y Venugopal Reddy has been nominated by the UN General Assembly president Miguel d'Escoto to a UN task force to examine possible reform of the global financial system. The 10-member Commission of Experts of the President of the General Assembly on Reforms of the International Monetary and Financial System is headed by US's Joseph Stiglitz, the 2001 Nobel Prize winner in economics.
