Abhishek Securities

Equity investment from UK DFI will support expansion strategy and take agribusiness, financial inclusion and SME lending activities to underserved states - CDC Group plc (‘CDC’), the UK’s development finance institution, has announced a US$28m equity investment in Ratnakar Bank (‘RBL Bank’) in India. The investment, which sees CDC take a 4.8% stake in the bank, will support RBL Bank’s expansion into new regions of India and is CDC’s first direct equity investment into a bank in India under its new strategy. Founded in 1943, RBL Bank was traditionally concentrated in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Goa. In 2010, however, a new management team was brought in to pursue an expansion strategy focusing on financial inclusion, agribusiness financing and lending to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), as well as increasing the bank’s geographic footprint. Today the bank has a total business size of over US$3.5bn and offers its services to over 500,000 customers. CDC’s investment will ...

Odisha -based Mideast Integrated Steel Ltd is planning to treble its capacity to 3.5 million tonnes in the state with an investment of about Rs 8,000 crore, a top company official said.  The company, also known as Mesco Steel, has a hot metal production capacity of about 1.2 MT, through which it makes pig iron.  "3.5 MT capacity includes existing 1.2 MT capacity. It will take 3-4 years, we will go step by step. We already have land. We are moving for environment clearance and have submitted all the papers," Mesco's chairperson and managing director Rita Singh said on the sidelines of an  Assocham  event.  She said the company will expand its capacity in two phases and the company has secured approvals for the first phase, which will increase the capacity to 2.25 MT.  "That will require about Rs 7,000-8,000 crore (investment). That will be funded through debt for machinery and some other debt to be raised. So we can go to 2.25 MT first and then to 3.5 MT," ...

Reuters reported that Essar Oil, a key Indian buyer of Iranian crude, imported about 13.8% less oil from the OPEC member in February compared with the previous month. Essar's overall shipments from Tehran in the first 11 months of the contract year beginning April 1st 2013 totalled 94,100 barrels per day, marginally lower than the year earlier. India, Iran's top client after China, imported about 36% less oil from Tehran in February than in January because of efforts to meet US requests to restrict purchases from Tehran to 195,000 barrels per day in the 6 months to July 20. Government sources said earlier this week that billionaire Ruias promoted Essar Group, which also operates steel plants in Canada and the United States, could lift 30% more Iranian oil than the contracted volumes of 80,000 barrel per day for this fiscal year. Sandip Ginodia , Director ABHISHEK SECURITIES We deal in over 60 unlisted companies with 15 years of experience . For latest prices visit :  ...

Otis  Elevator Co., the manufacturer and service provider of elevators, escalators and moving walkways, regained its No. 1 position in the sector in India last year. A unit of  United Technologies Corp.  of the US, it had lost its No. 1 position to Johnson Lifts, a Chennai-based company, six years ago. Going down In India, Otis’s legacy began with the installation of the nation’s first elevator at Kolkata’s Raj Bhavan in 1892, which is still running in its original birdcage form. Ever since Otis India’s inception in 1953, the company has enjoyed a high market share and top-of-mind brand awareness. However, as competition (both local and global companies) entered the market, with faster deliveries and cheaper products, Otis India started losing its market share. In 2008, the company lost its No. 1 position. One of the reasons for slower response at Otis India was that operations were centralized and, therefore, a lot of activities went under the scanner of the head o...

State-owned MSTC Ltd was hopeful of recovering Rs 600 crore unrealised from overseas buyers for gold jewellery sales in 2008-09.  "We are making progress on the recovery process. We are winning some of the cases and most of the verdicts are in our favour," MSTC Chairman and Managing Director S K Tripathi said here today.  Speaking on the sidelines of a session of the  Bharat  Chamber of Commerce he said that though the legal process was time consuming recovery was expected to take place.  A parliamentary committee in its report had said that MSTC sold Rs 638 crore in gold jewellery to 47 foreign buyers through six  Mumbai -based sellers in 2008-09.  Of this, Rs 599 crore remained outstanding from 46 foreign buyers in  UAE , Kuwait and  Singapore  who had cited economic slowdown as a cause of failure to repay, the panel noted. Sandip Ginodia , Director ABHISHEK SECURITIES We deal in over 60 unlisted companies with 15 years of expe...

Tuticorin-based lender Tamilnad Mercantile Bank (TMB) is following up on the rebranding initiatives it had embarked on some two years ago. The bank, conventionally known as a small traders’ bank, continues to focus on retail lending while targeting new-generation customers. It is awaiting court clearances to hit the IPO market. KB Nagendra Murthy, managing director & chief executive officer of the bank, tells Sajan C Kumar that TMB wants to grow profitably. Excerpts: What has been the impact of the new rebranding initiative? We are continuing to upgrade our technology platform and trying to implement paperless transactions as far as possible. By March 2014, we want to have 1,000 business centres — branches and ATMs. Today, we have 962 business centres, which include 362 branches and 600-plus ATMs. We are focusing on the retail segment and are reasonably doing well. We have already hit our target for agricultural advances, which is 21% of the total portfolio. What are the pl...