Japanese consumer electronics brand Akai on Wednesday made its re-entry into the Indian market with the launch of a range of products including hi-definition TVs, washing machines, microwave ovens and home theatre systems, priced between Rs.2,490 and Rs.55,000.

“We are re-introducing the latest products from Akai, a brand which is already well-known in India. We have brought innovative products across various categories and plan to introduce new segments like air-conditioners and refrigerators soon. We also plan to enter new segments like mobile handsets, captive power systems and IT peripherals,” Akai India Managing Director Pranay Dhabhai told journalists here.

“We have already established our network, both marketing and sales and after-sales, across India. We will be present in retail stores as well as in modern retail format showrooms. We hope to do a turnover of Rs.435 crore in the current financial year, and as we go forward, we will further push over sales,” he said. Akai’s annual sales last year stood at Rs.275 crore, primarily from the TV business. IT has re-entered India through Global Brands Enterprise Solutions (GBES), set up by Mr. Dhabhai , after its brand licensing agreement with Videocon ended in September last. Apart from selling Akai products in India, GBES will operate in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal.

“Through GBES we are looking at bringing more global brands in the electronics segment in India and neighbouring markets. We will be leveraging our backend network, including logistics and after-sales, for these brands, while dedicated marketing teams will take care of individual products. We have already set up a pan-India service network under brand name ‘Quixerve’ that will not only serve brands being marketed by us but also give after-sales service to other companies,” Mr. Dhabhai said.

Future plans

On future plans, he said the company would introduce microwaves and modular kitchens of Chinese electronics major Haier in India.

“Our aim is to make ourselves a multi-brand company offering a range of products. We are in talks with some consumer electronic firms for bringing into India and also give them after-sales services,” Mr. Dhabhai added.

Counter to the view of its apostles, the market system of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century did not evolve in a state of nature; it evolved with its own peculiar prejudices and rites, writes Roger Lowenstein in ‘The End of Wall Street’ (www.landmarkonthenet.com). The institution of government was nearly absent, and in its place had arisen a system of market-driven models, steeped in the mathematics of the new finance, he adds.

Arguing that the new finance was flawed because its conception of risk was flawed, the author rues that the banks modelled future default rates as though history could provide the odds with scientific certainty, as precisely as the odds in dice or cards. Reminding that ‘the cards in history’s deck keep changing,’ he reasons that prior to 2007-08, the odds of a nationwide mortgage collapse would have been seen as very low because during the previous seventy years it had never happened.

Collapse of intellectual edifice

The book cites a snatch from Alan Greenspan’s presentation at the US House of Representatives, ten days after the first round of TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) investments, where he called for the repeal of ‘the credo by which he had managed the nation’s economy for seventeen years.’

Acknowledging that in recent decades, ‘a vast risk management and pricing system has evolved, combining the best insights of mathematicians and finance experts supported by major advances in computer and communications technology,’ Greenspan conceded that ‘the whole intellectual edifice… collapsed… because the data inputted into the risk management models generally covered only the past two decades, a period of euphoria.’ Instead, if the models had been fitted more appropriately to historic periods of stress, capital requirements would have been much higher and the financial world would be in a far better shape today, he opined.

“Greenspan faulted the modellers for inputting the wrong slice of history. But the future being uncertain, there is no perfect slice, or none so reliable as to warrant the suave assurance of banks that leveraged 30 to 1,” Lowenstein observes. “Greenspan’s faith in the new finance was itself a culprit.”

Regulatory neglect

More serious than keeping interest rates low, what greatly abetted speculation in mortgages was the failure by the banking regulators including the Fed to prohibit inordinately risky mortgages, the author avers. He is of the view that the willingness of government to abide teaser mortgages, ‘liar loans,’ and home mortgages with zero down payments, amounted to staggering case of regulatory neglect.

A section in the book explains how the system of securitising mortgages lay at the heart of ‘Wall Street’s unholy alliance with Main Street,’ with several links in the chain making the process especially risky. “Mortgage issuers, the parties most able to scrutinise borrowers, had no continuing stake in the outcome; the ultimate investors, dispersed around the globe, were too remote to be of any use in evaluating loans; these investors (as well as various government agencies) relied on the credit agencies to serve as a watchdog, and the agencies, being cosy with Wall Street, were abysmally lax.”

Laments Lowenstein that Wall Street’s penchant for complexity was itself a risk, what with abstruse securities being more difficult to value, and multi-tiered pyramids of debt far more susceptible to ruinous collapse.

The larger failure, beyond the individual instances of malfunctions, was that of the post-industrial model of capitalism, he notes. “The market’s tools for measuring risk simply did not work. And the most sophisticated minds on Wall Street proved no wiser than country loan officers.”

The 30-share index moved down by 60.38 points, or 0.33 per cent, to 17,916.85 points.

The wide-based National Stock Exchange index Nifty fell by 25.40 points, or 0.47 per cent, to 5,373.95 points.

Brokers said investors sold stocks to book profits after recent gains. Weak trend in the Asian markets following Wednesday’s weakness on the U.S. market also dampened the trading sentiment, they added.

The Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was down 0.14 per cent, while the Japanese fell 0.70 per cent in the morning trade on Thursday. The U.S. Dow Jones Industrial Average ended 1.07 per cent down in Wednesday’s trade.

London/Houston :  BP Plc on Wednesday denied a report its heavily criticized chief executive would soon leave, after the company lined up $ 7 billion in asset sales to help pay for the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

CEO Tony Hayward had the full support of the board and would stay in office, a BP spokesman told Reuters, dismissing a report in the Times newspaper that he would step down within the next 10 weeks.

Hayward has been roundly criticized for a series of PR gaffes and a failure to quickly stem the three-month leak in the Gulf of Mexico, prompting speculation he would be removed.
Hayward would have to step down so that BP could build its defenses against a potential buyout threat by ExxonMobil or Royal Dutch Shell, the Times cited a person close to the matter as saying.

There was a growing expectation that he would announce his departure in late August or September, with Robert Dudley, chief of BP’s Gulf Coast restoration efforts, viewed as the front-runner to replace The Times said.

BP is also selling assets around the world to help shore up its finances after pledging to set aside $ 20 billion to meet the costs of the spill.

The company said on Tuesday it reached a $ 7 billion deal with U.S. firm Apache Corp, a large part of its planned sale of $ 10 billion in assets.

BP said Apache would pay a $ 5 billion cash deposit on July 30 as part of the deal for exploration and production facilities in North America and Egypt. The company said the deal would include assets in New Mexico, natural gas in western Canada and concessions in Egypt.

Earlier, it announced it would sell $ 1.7 billion worth of assets in Vietnam and Pakistan.

BP’s share price ended 1.5 percent lower in New York at $ 35.20, but was up 1.3 percent in afterhours trading.

The stock has fallen 40 percent in the three months since an explosion on an offshore rig killed 11 workers and caused the crude to flow into the Gulf of Mexico.

The continuing disaster remains high on the American and British political agendas and dominated a visit to Washington by British Prime Minister David Cameron.

Cameron praised BP for steps it has taken to plug the leak and pay for damages suffered by Gulf residents. U.S. officials on Tuesday gave BP’s latest effort, a cap that has stopped the flow, another 24 hours for pressure tests on the seal.

The Gulf’s tourism and fishing industries have been devastated by the millions of gallons of oil that have hit coastal beaches and marshes. The spill also has hurt President Barack Obama’s approval ratings.

About 1.6 million barrels of oil remain in the Gulf, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal said, citing U.S. government data.

Rig operator Ensco Plc filed a lawsuit on Tuesday challenging the Obama administration’s new deepwater oil drilling moratorium, saying it was mostly the same as the first ban that a U.S. court already put on hold.

BP, which said on Monday it had spent about $ 3.95 billion so far on the oil spill, agreed under intense U.S. pressure from last month to set up an independently administered $ 20 billion escrow fund for damage claims. The Obama administration has stressed that is not a cap on the company’s liabilities.

During a visit with Obama, Cameron said he understood U.S. anger at BP because of the oil spill. He also said it was important to both the U.S. and British economies that the company stay strong and stable.

Al Troner, president of Asia Pacific Energy Consulting in Houston, said Hayward was not entirely responsible for the disaster, although “he seems to have an unfortunate tendency to put both his feet in his mouth.”

“There is more than enough blame to spread around here, whether it’s BP, the drilling company, or the federal government reaction” he said.

The U.S. government on Tuesday approved another 24-hour extension of a pressure test of the well. The broken well was capped last week — at least temporarily — after spilling up to 60,000 barrels a day of crude for three months.

The well test, which has been extended in 24-hour increments by the U.S. government, will continue until Wednesday afternoon and then be re-evaluated.

Scientists are now weighing another option — a “static kill” to help smother and plug the leak.

The top U.S. oil spill official, retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, said BP could have a plan to proceed with the static kill option within 24 hours. This would involve pumping heavy drilling mud and possibly cement into the well, much like BP’s failed “top kill” in May.

Kent Wells, BP’s senior vice president of exploration and production, said the static kill would be different because the well is no longer spewing oil, thanks to the sealed cap. During the top kill effort, drilling mud pumped into the blowout preventer shot out of an uncovered pipe at the top along with leaking crude.

Such containment efforts are keenly eyed by investors as BP’s ultimate costs from the spill may hinge on how much oil is determined to have been spilled into the Gulf.

Louisiana residents remain cautiously optimistic about the seal that has stopped the flow for now, but concerns remain.

“I am happy it’s stopped the flow,” said New Orleans resident Barbara McGuinness. “But do I worry about this thing blowing? Yes. We don’t need any more bad news.”

New Delhi : India’s exports grew by a healthy 30.4 per cent in June to USD 17.75 billion, Commerce Secretary Rahul Khullar said here today.

In June 2009, exports had shrunk by 27.7 per cent to USD 12.81 billion under the impact of global slowdown.

Imports increased by 23 per cent to USD 28.3 billion in June this year and the trade deficit for the month was USD 10.55 billion.

“It is good news but still not great news,” Khullar told reporters, adding that the exports have still not reached the level of the pre-global economic crisis period.

In June 2008, the country’s exports were USD 19.2 billion.

In the first quarter ended June this fiscal, exports stood at USD 50.8 billion showing a growth of 32.2 per cent over the year ago period.

New Delhi : Gold maintained its losing streak for the fourth straight day by falling Rs 85 to Rs 18,500 per ten gram in the national capital today on sustained selling by stockists influenced by a weak global trend.

Trading sentiment remained bearish after gold extended the biggest fall in almost two weeks in global markets, as the dollar gained, curbing demand for the metal.

Marketmen said in addition to a weak trend in global markets, reduced offtake at existing higher levels also pulled down the precious metal prices.

The gold in global markets, which normally sets a price trend at the domestic front, declined by 0.2 per cent to USD 1,191.05 an ounce.

Gold with 99.99 purity and 99.5 purity remained under selling pressure and fell further by Rs 85 each to Rs 18,500 and Rs 18,400 per ten gram, respectively.

Mumbai : The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex today closed 27 points lower following a choppy session amid weak global cues, but a major fall was averted by strong buying in RCom and banking stocks.

Tracking weak Asian sentiment and a weekend decline on Wall Street, the barometer opened on a negative note and fell about 100 points to hit a low of 17,856.

The market, however, was able to recover most of the lost ground on the back of reports that a Sebi panel has suggested sweeping changes in the Takeover Code, following which the barometer touched a high of 18,005 level at mid-session.

The Sebi panel recommended hiking the open offer trigger to 25 per cent from the current 15 per cent and raising the offer size to 100 per cent of the equity in the target company.

Currency volatility and wage hikes have impacted the margins but the increase in revenues has been a positive factor, said Deven Choksey, MD, KR Choksey Securities.

Infosys said that its net profit in quarter ending June 30, 2010, on a consolidated basis declined 7 per cent to Rs 1,488 crore vs Rs 1,600 crore in the previous quarter. Its revenues were however up 4.2 per cent at Rs 6,198 crore vs Rs 5,944 crore in the previous quarter.

estimated Infosys sales at Rs 6,240.14 crore and net profit at Rs 1568.6 crore.
Infosys, which is India’s second-largest software exporter by sales, is the first major domestic technology company to report results every quarter. And its numbers are considered to be an indicator of how its peers in the IT sector are likely to perform.

Indian IT companies are recovering from the impact of the global economic slowdown that led to customers to scraping or delaying projects and seek lower rates.

“While the global economic environment remains uncertain, we continue to see greater demand for services from our clients,” said S. Gopalakrishnan, CEO and managing director. “The challenge for the industry is to enhance the investment to grow the business, given the uncertainty in the environment.”

During the quarter, Infosys and its subsidiaries added 8,859 employees (gross). The net addition during the quarter was 1,026. “With the market opening up, attrition has increased this quarter,” said T.V. Mohandas Pai, member of the board and head – HRD and Education & Research. “We have taken several steps to reduce attrition, including a compensation hike and are enhancing lateral hiring.”

It said that 38 clients were added during the quarter. In terms of guidance, Infosys forecast revenues in the range of Rs 6,563 crore to Rs 6,626 crore, a growth of 17.5 per cent to 18.6 per cent on a yearly basis. It issued a second quarter earnings per share guidance in the range of Rs 27.42 to 27.95, a growth in the range of 1.9 per cent to 3.9 per cent.