STOCK MARKET NEWS & TRENDS

* AUTOS : Tata Motors and M&M have shown interest in taking over the Termini Imerese plant in Italy owned by Fiat
* TATA MOTORS : Egyptian Govt asks co to set up a mfging facility for the local mkts and West Asia.. separately mgt says to grow its mkt share in utility vehicles from 12% to 15% by next yr
* DLF : debt to increase by Rs 22bn & rental income to rise Rs 5bn as a result of integration of its wholly owned subsidiary.. no timeline to list REIT unit
* HCC : bags order worth Rs 3.18bn from Kolkata
* ONGC : media rpts delay on part of govt to allow ONGC and OIL India to hike APM gas pxs in power and fertiliser causes ONGC to lose revs of Rs 47.45bn
* POWER GRID : plans to invest ~ Rs 23bn to add 2,000 circuit kms across 3 states by Mar 31, 2012 and to add substations
* SHREE RENUKA : rpts co has decided not to continue negotiations with Balrampur Chini for a possible deal due to differences in valuations
* JINDAL STEEL & POWER : co plans to boost power capacity 15x.. also the co has completed due diligence on Rocklands Richfield Ltd & has offered $159mn to acquire the Australian coal explorer.
Corporate News – Industry trends
* Indian automobile majors Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra have shown interest in taking over the Termini Imerese plant owned by Italy’s largest car maker Fiat; Fiat has already decided to relocate the Termini Imerese plant, preferably to cost-effective areas of Poland or Germany, in 2011 (BS)
* After being unsuccessful with South African telecom MTN, Bharti Airtel is eyeing Bangladesh to expand its footprint; “We are looking to Bangladesh because we have an interest in the SAARC region,” Bharti Enterprises Deputy Group CEO and Managing Director Akhil Gupta said (BS)
* Power Grid Corporation’s Southern Region-II is planning to invest around Rs 23bn to add 2,000 circuit km across Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala by March 31, 2012, and to add substations (BS)
* HCL Axon, a division of information technology firm HCL Technologies, has signed a five-year global strategic information technology master services agreement with pharmaceutical major GlaxoSmithKline (BS)
* The country’s largest coal miner Coal India Ltd (CIL) will import 4 mn tonnes of coal for state-run power company NTPC. “Earlier, there were no takers for the imported coal (BS)
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* Bhushan Steel Ltd signed a technical collaboration and marketing agreement with Sumitomo Metals, Japan’s third-largest steel producer. The two companies are also exploring the setting up of a joint venture for setting up a six-mn tonne steel plant at Asansol in West Bengal (BS)
* The board of Godrej Consumer Products has okayed a proposal to raise up to Rs 30bn. “The money will be raised in the immediate future to fund acquisitions,” group chairman Adi Godrej said (BS)
* In a bid to give a fillip to infrastructure lending, the India Infrastructure Finance Company Ltd proposes to expand the scope of its refinance scheme to make it attractive not just for banks but also for non-banking finance companies, which currently do not have any refinancing support (BL)
* Real estate company DLF's over all debt will go up by Rs 22bn as a result of integration of its wholly-owned subsidiary DLF Cyber City Developers Ltd with Caraf Builders & Constructions (a KP Singh company that owns DLF Assets Ltd) (BL)
* Bajaj Hindustan has reported a net profit of Rs 690 mn in the quarter ended September 30 against a net loss of Rs 870 mn logged in the same period last year (BS)
* Glenmark Pharma said it has entered into an agreement with Switzerland based drug firm Stratpharma AG, to market and distribute skin care product Stratadem, in India (FE)
* Orchid plans to use the funds that are expected by March 2010 to settle its short-term debts of $110 mn and $150 mn FCCBs that are maturing in 2012. (ET)
Commodity/Money Market News
* The Agriculture Ministry has revised upwards its first advance estimate of rice production for kharif 2009-10 to 71.65 million tones (mt), from the earlier figure of 69.45 mt released on November 3 (BL)
International trends
* The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority is trying to abort an agreement to buy US$7.5 bn of Citigroup Inc stock at eight times Wednesday’s price, saying the bank misled it about the investment (BS)
* The European Central Bank will lend banks more money than economists forecast in its final tender of 12-month funds as some financial institutions try to lock in cash at a record low interest rate. Banks bid for 96.9 bn euros ($141 billion), the Frankfurt based ECB said on Wednesday (BS)