Shriram Transport to open 50 automalls

Shriram Automall, a subsidiary of Shriram Transport Finance Company, is planning to open 50 automalls by 2013 with an investment of around Rs 100 crore, a top company official has said. "Automall is a unique platform for the second-hand trucks market. Automall will benefit truckers in promptly replacing their vehicles. We plan to roll out 50 such centres over the next three years," Shriram Transport Finance Deputy Managing Director UG Revankar said. On revenue expectation from this business, he said the company is looking at netting around Rs 30 crore this fiscal. Each Automall will come up on a 3-4 acre plot with an investment of around Rs...

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10 Things Still Made in America

"Today, U.S. manufacturers provide about 75% of the products that Americans consume," the study says. "But that number could soar to 95% within a few years if business and government leaders take the right actions. Conversely, if the sector remains neglected, that output could fall by half, meeting less than 40% of U.S. demand." The report was based on a sector-by-sector analysis of U.S. industrial competitiveness, along with a survey of 200 manufacturing executives and experts. Among the recommendations: The U.S. needs to build a better future with Mexico, shifting less-demanding, labor-intensive processes to that country while helping build a safer consumer economy there and retaining highly skilled work in the U.S. America needs more robust manufacturing-education programs, immigration...

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Banks Killing Jobs?: Poll

Bank of America(BAC_) has grabbed headlines lately for a host of reasons, but one of the most attention-grabbing announcements the bank has made of late was a decision to eliminate 30,000 jobs over the next few years. The bank's struggles and those of the country at large seemed to come together very neatly in that bit of news, and it was not surprising to me to hear it mentioned by at least one of about four Wall Street protesters I spoke to recently outside our offices. None of them seemed to know much about the banking industry, but they were surely aware of the lack of jobs out there and that number got their attention. Many more layoffs...

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IDBI Bank plans to raise $200m from Swiss market

Public sector lender IDBI Bank is planning to raise around USD 200 million from the Switzerland market under its medium-term foreign debt raising programme. "We have a close eye on the Swiss market. Recently, the Korean Exim Bank had raised money from there. As the opportunity comes, we will look at it," Executive Director Melwyn Rego said. He, however, declined to give any specific time-frame for raising this amount. Medium-term-note (MTN) is a debt instrument through which a corporate house or bank raises capital at cheaper rates from overseas market. Usually, there is a fixed coupon or interest rate that is paid by the issuer to the subscriber...

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NTIPL closes its Chennai unit

NETZSCH Technologies India Pvt Ltd (NTIPL) has shifted its pump manufacturing facility from Chennai to Goa's Verna Industrial estate, a senior official said today. The company has closed the Chennai plant, which had the capacity to manufacture 300 pumps per annum and has shifted in a new facility at Goa, with a capacity to produce 1,500 units per year, NTIPL Managing Director Vivek Norman told reporters. NTIPL is the subsidiary of the Germany-based NETZSCH Group of Companies, which has a global turnover of euros 400 million. It is into progressing cavity pumps, industrial rotary lobe pumps, macerators and griders. Norman said that the India...

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NHB scraps home loan pre-payment

In a Diwali bonanza for thousands of borrowers, housing finance regulator National Housing Bank (NHB) has directed all housing finance companies to desist from imposing a pre-payment penalty on home loan borrowers. The levy of a charge on borrowers for pre-closure of housing loans by housing finance companies (HFCs) has been considered further by the NHB in the light of subsequent developments and it has been decided that hereafter, housing finance companies should not charge a pre-payment levy or a penalty on pre-closure of housing loans, the regulator said in a notification. In addition, the regulator has also directed all HFCs to have uniform...

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TCS recruits 20,349 staff, 'highest-ever', in Jul-Sep period

Country's largest software exporter Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) today said it has added 20,349 people during the July-September 2011 quarter, its highest number of hiring for any three-month period. The number of net additions, however, stood at 12,580 during the reported period. "The recruitment this quarter, 20,349 that is the highest gross that TCS has ever done, so there has been very strong hiring and we continue with our overall plan of hiring 60,000 people this year," TCS Executive Vice-President and Global Head (Human Resources) Ajoy Mukherjee said. The total employee strength of TCS was 2,14,770 on a consolidated basis at the end...

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