Coal India, SBI Bond Offerings in Demand; Tax Collection Up 19%

Chandrasekhar Atreya
20 Oct, 2010
New York City

Stocks in Mumbai closed lower tracking weak sentiment in the international markets after China raised rates. Coal India IPO received 1.71 times subscription on the second day and State Bank of India bond offerings attracted 17 times. Direct tax collections for the six months of the fiscal year soared 19%.

[R]5:00 PM Mumbai – Stocks in Mumbai closed lower tracking weak sentiment in the international markets after China raised rates. Coal India IPO received 1.71 times subscription on the second day and State Bank of India bond offerings attracted 17 times. Direct tax collections for the six months of the fiscal year soared 19%.[/R]

Stocks in Mumbai fell after China rate hike overshadowed the strong interest in the public offering of Coal India. Markets in India closed lower tracking losses in Asia and Australia.

The BSE Sensex dropped 0.56% or 110.98 to close at 19,872.15. The CNX Nifty on the National Stock Exchange dropped below 6,000 after losing 45.20 points.

The rupee rebounded from the weak start on Wednesday as foreign inflows towards a $3.5 billion Coal India IPO gathered momentum.

The dollar dipped against a basket of currencies on Wednesday, trimming the gains it made after a surprise rate hike by China spurred the market to lower risk exposure.

The Indian rupee closed at 44.38 to a U.S. dollar in Mumbai today.

The nation’s biggest share sale from Coal India and the first retail bond offering by the State Bank of India were oversubscribed by the close of the first day of subscription.

Coal India’s 63.16 crore share offering was subscribed 1.71 times on the second day while SBI’s Rs 1,000 crore bond issue was subscribed 17 times.

Oberoi Realty public offering rose 7% on the Bombay Stock Exchange from its issue price of Rs 260 per share.

Direct tax collections increased 19.09% to Rs 181,758 crore in the first six months of the current fiscal, beating the budgetary estimate.

Net direct tax collections during April-September period rose to Rs 181,758 crore as compared to Rs 152,565 crore during the corresponding period last year, according to data released by the Central Board of Direct Taxes Tuesday.

Opto Circuits (India) said Tuesday it signed a definitive agreement to buy all the outstanding shares of U.S.-based Cardiac Science Corp at $2.3 per share. Cardiac Science Corp, which manufactures and markets diagnostics and therapeutic cardiology devices and systems, expects to earn $145 to $150 million in revenue in 2010. The market value of the company based on outstanding shares is near $55 million.

Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd on Tuesday said it made a second natural gas discovery in a block off Mozambique, but did not give the scale of reserves.

“Exploration well Barquentine drilled to about 5,145 meters, encountered a total of more than 127 net meters of natural gas pay in the multiple high quality sands,” the company said in a press statement.

Led by Bharti Airtel, India’s outbound mergers and acquisition deals total rose to $20.76 billion in the first six months of the current fiscal year from a meager $527.8 million in the previous year, a study said.

“The rise in outbound deals provides clear evidence that the Indian industry is consolidating and at the same time aggressively working on global expansion,” the study by Assocham said.

Indian Oil Corp on Tuesday said its Rs 29,777 crore Paradip refinery in Orissa would be commissioned by March 2012 and cater more to the domestic demand as the fuel demands remains high.

An estimated 274.9 million Indians consume tobacco, the first Global Adult Tobacco Survey showed. Nearly 0.9 million tobacco-related deaths occur in India as compared to 5.5 million deaths worldwide. India is also the world’s third largest producer of tobacco, the report added.

The Unique Identity Authority of India finalized nine large IT firms, IBM, Accenture, Wipro, TCS, HP among others, as short listed bidders for selecting a managed service provider, for the project. The contract is likely cost as much as Rs 2,000 crore to the government.

The selected provider will be critical in the rollout of the 600 million unique ID numbers by 2014.