Worms Digest 11 June 2013

Good Morning !!!

Sensex - 19441 (+0.06%), Nifty - 5878 (-0.05%)

Dow -15239 (-0.06%), S&P - 1643 (-0.03%)

Nikkei - 13513 (-0.01%)

RBI buries Cobrapost with minor fines to Top 3 private banks 

• RBI levied penalty of Rs 1 crore, Rs 4.5 crore and Rs 5 crore on ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank, respectively for violation of KYC norms in its finding from investigations carried post Caobrapost allegations.
• However the central bank didnt find any gross violations or any prima facie evidence of money-laundering
• Effectively  RBI has burried the Cobrapost sting operations with minor fines to these banks

Advaniji plays the Last card - resigns for the third time in eight years

• Indian politics took a major turn today as Mr. L K Advani, last of the stallions who founded the country second largest political party resigned from three of the key posts apparently in protest of Mr. Narendra Modi being appointed as Chief to lead the party in 2014 elections. 
• The party is trying to pacify the senior leader but its unlikely to go back on its decision to make Modi the leader.
• Advaniji never had a great relationship with RSS which though reluctant earlier has now thrown its support behind Modi.

ITC is looking at entering Tea and Coffee market

• ITC is reportedly looking at strengthening its FMCG basket with addition of Tea and Coffee segments
• ITC has a commodity trading business which has helped the company gained immense understanding of commodity markets in general and believes its strong strong sourcing skills should be capitalized through forward integration

Race for WB's 31% stake in Haldia Petrochemicals

• RIL and IOC is locked in race to acquire 31% stake of West Bengal govt in India's second largest petchem company, Haldia Petrochemicals.
• The battle will be tough as many more private (Vedanta group, Jindals and Ruias) as well public sector undertakings like ONGC and GAIL are also interested in the assets
• The Chatterjee Group, co-promoters of HPL will have the first right of refusal 
• HPL has a capacity of 0.7 mtpa of ethylene and 0.35 mtpa of polymers