Browsing Category: "Corporate News"
PEQ Consulting Inc PEQ is an Infrastructure management company rendering technology services in the managed services space. In simple terms, it replaces the IT Dept of the businesses. Its Core focus is Automotive Industry and derives 85% of its revenue from that vertical. It is uniquely positioned and a national service provider spread across USA & Canada. It currently supports multiple local, regional and enterprise automotive dealership groups it supports automotive DMS providers, OEMs & s/w application companies in the automotive space.
Portfolio services offered by them includes, Cabling services, Network services, installation and support - Switches, Routers & T1 / T3 Installation Network topology discovery and documentation, WAP Consulting and Installation, Network Troubleshooting Diagnostic testing, Network Engineering, New environments or re-engineering of current configuration, LAN and WAN implementation.
For over 12 years, Zylog has been partnering with a loyal following of clients seeking to leverage Zylog’s proven delivery methodology, as well as 24/7 access to the very best technical resources and development tools available anywhere.
Zylog provides complete Product Lifecycle Management services, ranging from new product development and product advancement to product migration, re engineering, sustenance and support. By leveraging Zylog’s experience in product engineering, the company brings products to market faster, with high quality and reduced costs.
Zylog’s customer base includes large corporate organizations as well as medium size businesses across a broad range of verticals, as well as respected leaders in finance and banking, insurance, telecommunications and life sciences. Zylog ranked #238 for the year 2008 in the VAR Business 500 and won Top Technology Practices’ award for the “Greenware Computing” initiative and also recognized as one of the 10 Fast Growth VARs to watch.
Zylog US headquarters is in Edison, New Jersey, with offices that span the globe (North America, Europe and Asia). Zylog has their state-of-the-art offshore development center in Chennai, India with more than 1200 employees world wide, The company has recorded revenue of USD 150 million for the year 2007- 08 and is listed in major Indian Stock Exchanges.
Infosys have come up with Q2FY09 numbers, which are above expectations. Infosys Q2FY09 net profit stood at Rs 1432 crore Vs Rs 1302 crore (QoQ), up 10%. CNBC-TV18 poll saw net profit up 9.6% to Rs 1,427.5 crore Vs Rs 1,302 crore.
Infosys Q2FY09 revenues (QoQ) stood up 11.6% at Rs 5418 crore Vs Rs 4854 crore. CNBC-TV18 poll saw revenues up 9.7% at Rs 5327.3 crore Vs Rs 4854 crore.
For Q3FY09, Infosys has given guidance for revenues of $ 1.175 billion. Guidance for FY09 revenues is at 13-15%, scaled down from 19-21%. FY09 EPS seen at $ 2.24/ADR, revised down from $ 2.32/ADR. Q3FY09 EPS is seen at $ 0.57/ADR. Infosys is not revising the bid for Axon.
Nilesh Shah of Envision Capital said that lower Infosys’ guidance does not augur well for the company and the sector both. End markets places like US & Europe for Infosys continue to struggle. We may even see the tech sector getting de-rated now.
He said that Q3 guidance of Infosys is $ 1175 - 1220 million Which is a degrowth of 3.4% to growth of 0.3% vs Q2 revenues of $ 1216 million. If they achieve Q3 guidance, then they are implying flat growth Q4 over Q3 to achieve this FY09 guidance.
Moshe Katri, MD at Cowen & Co said that it is difficult to decide target for Infosys, which is not changing it now. We need to see if funds start reducing exposure to Infosys in portfolio.
He is not changing price target for Infosys. Markets have already factored in some of the changes in the environment. Q2 EBIDTA margins are at 33.1% vs 30.5% (Indian GAAP).
With the markets seeing consistent selling by overseas investors and the benchmark indices taking a tumble, many stocks have retreated, and are now quoting below their book value. A study by FE indicates that as many as 49% stocks from the 2,699 listed companies traded below their book value at the end of September, sharply down from the 22% on January 8, this year.
And this is not just about a large sample size, including many trashy companies and penny stocks. Around 7% companies on the BSE 500 were quoting below their book value in January and now the share has swollen to 20%. Clearly, the pounding has been severe as the Sensex has fallen by 38.39% (-8,012.90 points) to 12,860.43 on September 30, from the peak of 20,873.33 on January 8,2008.
Out of 2,699 quoted companies, 1,319(49%) quoted below of their book value as on Sep 30. But on January 8, the number was 584 (22%).
Among the 1,319 companies quoting below their book value as on Sept 30, a few are big companies. Take for example, Arvind Ltd, which was quoting at around Rs 24.30 with its book value pegged at around Rs 63.55. Even the leading tyre manufacturer of the RP Goenka group, CEAT was quoted at around Rs 60.10, while its book value was around Rs 145.97. Then, there are others like Century Enka (Rs 94.15/BV Rs 225.14) and Escorts (Rs 59.10/BV Rs 80.75).
Usually, the price-to-book value ratio very quickly indicates the valuation attractiveness of a company. It is, roughly speaking, the price you would pay for the company’s assets. Hence, lower the price-to-book value, the more attractive the investment opportunity becomes. However, the price-to-book value should not be looked at in isolation, the quality of the assets and profitability, especially the return on equity, should also be considered.
For example, the first quarter profit of Alok Industries, which saw a considerable decline in the price-to-book value, decreased by 48.5% to Rs 28.35 crore during April-June 2008 from the level of Rs 55.01 crore a year ago. Similar, is the case with Bajaj Auto Finance.
However, the average BSE 500 return on equity is estimated to be around 15%, and this compares well with other global peers. Therefore, with so many companies quoting below their book value, does investment in Indian companies become an attractive proposition for overseas investors? According to a Citigroup research report on Asian markets, “We know that markets are a little below average on P/BV at 1.7x. From here we are close to a 50/50 probability of making money.”
The reasoning is that Asian markets are slightly below average but by only a very small margin. “If the last 30 years are any guide, the risk reward of buying the Asian markets at this stage is 51% upside probability vs. 49% downside probability. So, not exactly attractive,” the report concludes
http://www.financialexpress.
The Indo-US civilian nuclear cooperation agreement has gone through a gestation period much longer than a gajagarbh. The abortionists mounted a serious effort but were unsuccessful. To continue with the analogy, the US as the midwife has managed to get the NSG to agree to a waiver for India, equivalent perhaps to bringing the baby’s head out, but its full emergence happened only when the US Congress approved the agreement on Wednesday.
There is some talk of ordering reactors from other interested countries and refraining from implementing the agreement with the US if the terms turn out to be different from what we were given to understand.
If even that were to be thwarted, we would be back to square one and carry on in the autarkic mode as before. There will be progress but at a slow rate.
It is useful, however, to examine whether and how the country could benefit if civilian nuclear cooperation with all countries does become a reality.
One hears voices on both sides of the divide, for and against reliance on weapons. There is no sign that either side has found unlimited support in any of the governments we have had so far, all of whom have taken a middle path.
India has been a reluctant nuclear power as someone once said and probably would continue to be so. It took 10 years from 1964, when Dr Homi J Bhabha first suggested nuclear weapons as a hedge against the more powerful nuclear China, to the demonstration of a nuclear device through a test in 1974.
This was not followed up by efforts towards weaponisation for a long time.
Another 24 years elapsed before a test of what was described as a weaponised version of the device. The slow progress was not out of lack of technical competence but reluctance on the part of the political leaders.
They have, however, resisted signing the NPT and CTBT, instead issuing statements of a voluntary moratorium.
Does the separation plan lead to a cap on the deterrence capability, as some have argued? Considering the number of reactors that are now excluded from safeguards and their potential for fissile material production, the answer is a clear no. But, production has to cease some day when the desired limit is reached. If the limit is modest, that day would perhaps be not too far off.
There is no likelihood of the voluntary moratorium of 1998 on weapon testing being broken in the near future, as the country is not ready to face the repercussions now. It may never have to be broken. New designs would not seem quite necessary, considering that even a single 15 KT weapon would be capable of devastation of the unfortunate target.
Cities of today have become much denser and would seem to contain more inflammable material than Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Multiple warheads on a single missile would have the same effect as a high yield weapon. Should the CTBT be ratified by the US one day, any talk of a nuclear test would be out of question as it would completely isolate India with or without the deal, and that isolation is best avoided.
Attention must be focused on constructive aspects related to energy needs, which go beyond the limits of indigenous coal, hydel, solar and other renewable resources. We cannot afford the luxury of discarding the nuclear energy option, certainly not if the rest of the world finds it inevitable.
Any benefit to security is intangible, while that arising from power generation is very visible. But, how does the deal help in improving the power situation? In at least three ways.
First, it makes it possible to procure uranium from the world market. But, according to the separation plan indicated by the PM in Parliament, only four reactors with a total capacity of 740 MW out of a total of 4,120 MW come under safeguards this year. Any natural uranium that we buy right now, if we can, would help fuel only these. The relief that would bring for the other operating reactors would be quite small.
More reactors would be placed under safeguards in 2010, 2012 and 2014, taking the total in this category to 2060 MW with an annual fuel requirement of about 330 tonnes, which could be met by imports. No significant improvement in power generation from imported uranium can be expected for the next few years. Thereafter, annual import of uranium could rise to 1200 tonnes when the total capacity of the safeguarded heavy water reactors reaches 7,660 MW, so as to maximise electricity output.
Very little of it is likely to come from the US because the US itself relies on imports to meet over 75 per cent of its needs.
Second, building several light water reactors with outside help could lead to a rapid rise in the share of nuclear electricity. Needless to say, all of these would be under safeguards. The rise would be limited primarily by the size of the investment the country can make given the prevailing capital cost of the reactors — which seems to range between Rs 9 crore and Rs 13 crores per megawatt — and the number of teams that could be deployed to build them. To expect around 30 new reactors by 2020 does not seem unrealistic if capital is available. Rather than rush to place orders, it would be wise to negotiate with the different interested suppliers to bring the prices within an affordable range. The Chinese have set a good precedent here.
Third, new plants are needed for recovery of plutonium in the spent fuel from the heavy water reactors to launch a sizable fast breeder programme. Some thought should be given to establishing quickly a large national reprocessing facility under safeguards. Procurement of some equipment, components and instruments from foreign suppliers might hasten the process. The prototype fast breeder reactor now under construction seems to be making good progress. But, it is not under safeguards. Future breeders could be built in a shorter time, if they were to be placed under safeguards.
Currently, few other countries have interests similar to that of India. Most are not too keen to reprocess spent fuel, being content to store it away, though this is likely to change some time in the future. They do not also have plans for an early fast breeder programme as India does, being more keen to burn plutonium than breed. Nor do they have a thorium programme. If we pursue our interests unmindful of what others may do, there could come a time when they choose a similar path and follow us.
Investment on a national enrichment facility to support imported light water reactors needs careful consideration. It may not seem necessary as long as lifetime fuel supply is assured. Such a facility would still depend on uranium supply from external sources, and therefore subject to disruption in operation in the event of a supply cut off.
Between 1990 and 2007, power generation in the country through use of coal rose by about 75 per cent, from 40,000 MW to 70,000 MW. Assume for a moment that over the next 23 years it trebles to reach 210,000 MW — that is, coal output increases by over threefold to 1,200 million tones. This is far less than what some think is needed to support continued 8 per cent GDP growth but still no mean achievement, if it happens.
According to a study by the Centre for the Study of Science, Technology and Policy based in Bangalore, there is a good chance of nuclear power contributing about 57,000 MW by 2030 through LWRs and FBRs. By building more PHWRs too — with totally indigenous technology, but run on imported uranium fuel — the level could touch 70,000 MW or higher.
In effect, the nuclear share could jump in about two decades from six per cent as of now to anywhere between 20 pc and 30 pc of the contribution from coal. That is the growth potential that seems within reach now. But that can be realised only if there is no adverse political implication of the nuclear deal.
Nuclear scientist L V Krishnan has served as director of the Safety Research and Health Physics Group at Kalpakkam. He has co-authored with C V Sundaram and T S Iyengar the book titled Atomic Energy in India — Fifty Years. He has also co-authored the book Elements of Nuclear Power with Raja Ramanna
LIC bought 97,34,113 shares of Siemens between February 6 and September 5, 2008, resulting in a hike in its stake from 7.7% as on December 31, 2007 to the current 11.3%. The company’s shares have tanked nearly 30% in the past one month.
PTC India and Tata Power are the two other notable examples where LIC now holds a little over 10% after acquiring additional shares in September. The stocks of these companies have lost 18% and 12% respectively in one month.
With these latest acquisitions, the number of companies where LIC holds 10%-plus stake has gone up. There are many other blue chip companies, including Tata Motors, Tata Steel, Corporation Bank, Ranbaxy, Cipla, M&M, Maruti Suzuki, Dr Reddy’s Labs, MTNL, HPCL Oriental Bank and Reliance Infrastructure where the insurance major holds more than 10% stake over a period of time. LIC would have to eventually reduce its stake in these companies to comply with IRDA guidelines.
