Central Bank’s follow-on equity offer in July ‘08

Central Bank of India, on Thursday, said it may consider tapping the capital market with a follow-on public offering (FPO) to mope up funds to pursue its growth plans. Bank's Chairperson & Managing Director,  H A Daruwalla said the bank has fully met the Accounting Standard 15 (AS-15) requirement of Rs 875 crore and as such may consider many options to mobilise funds and FPO is one of them.

For the quarter ended March 31, 2008, Central Bank has posted 15 per cent decline in the net profit to Rs 127.20 crore as against Rs 149.13 crore in the quarter ended March 31, 2007. Its total income has increased from Rs 1993.54 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2007 to Rs 2598.92 crore for same quarter last year. The Bank has posted a net profit of Rs 487.50 crore in 2007-08 as compared to Rs 498.01 crore in  last fiscal.

TATA Indicom introduces new lifetime schemes

Tata Teleservices, on Thursday, introduced two new schemes with lifetime validity for its prepaid customers. As per the new lifetime validity schemes, pre-paid customers can choose between an option with local calls at 49 paise per minute for lifetime and base call rates with lifetime incoming.

The first scheme, Go Speak - Life offers starter pack at Rs. 299 with lifetime validity. Customers can make local calls to all non - Tata mobile phones for 49 paisa per minute while local calls to any Tata phone will be charged at 39 paisa per minute during the daytime and 29 paisa per minute at night (for calls made between 10 pm to 8 am).     Under this offer, customers can also make local calls to other fixed landlines for only 99 paisa per minute and STD calls at Rs. 2.49 per minute. This pack will charge a daily debit of Rs.1.50. The second scheme, Go Life also offers starter pack at Rs 299 with lifetime validity, but with base call rates and no daily debit charge.

Hero Honda Q4 net up 53.17 pc to Rs 298.7 cr

Hero Honda Motors Ltd, on Thursday, said its net profit has surged 53.17 per cent to Rs 298.7 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2008 as compared to Rs 195 crore for the same quarter a year ago. Its total income also registered an increase of 5.94 per cent to Rs 2,843.79 crore for Q4 FY08 from Rs 2,684.09 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2007.

It posted a net profit of Rs 967.88 crore for FY08 as compared to Rs 857.89 crore for the year ended March 31, 2007, a hike of 12.82 per cent. Total income surged 4.23 per cent to Rs 10,517.22 crore for the year ended March 31, 2008 from Rs 10,089.81 crore last fiscal.

Dell to reach out to over 100 Cities in India

Dell, on Thursday, announced the launch of its commercial partner program - ‘PartnerDirect’ – to make its products available to an even-greater number of customers across the Indian market. It is Dell’s global program to strengthen relationships with channel partners and expand Dell’s accessibility to customers, especially SMEs.  Dell also announced it will extend its outreach to customers beyond the metros into the country’s Tier-1 and Tier-2 towns and cities. The PartnerDirect program gives solution providers the ability to provide their customers differentiated technology offerings, build to order custom configuration, custom factory integration, drop-ship capability and the latest technology.