ICICI forms holding company for non-core portals
Mumbai: Leading financial institution, which is trying hard to convert itself into an universal bank, ICICI has formed the holding company for its non-core portals. The new company, christened ICICI Econet, is understood to have been incorporated few days ago.

The institution is also said to be in negotiations with Compaq India for a minority stake in the holding entity.

ICICI which floated several portals in pursuit of its strategy to attract more customers, is to maintain its distance from this new company. This are basically the non-financial portals floated by the institution like traveljini, cafeMumbai, billjunction and magiccard. But products like ICICIdirect, ICICIcommunities and the personal finance portal set up by the FI will not be controlled by the holding company.

While the specific structure and operational modalities will be finalised over the next few weeks, indications are that the holding entity may be organised as a fund structure and function like an asset management company.
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Pharma bottom lines to be hit by new fiat
New Delhi: In a move that could seriously erode the bottom line of several leading pharmaceutical companies like, Ranbaxy, Wockhardt, IPCA and Bayer, the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has cut the prices of 24 formulations by 65 per cent, besides bringing another 14 formulations under price control.

These formulations include drugs for the treatment of asthma, malaria and allergy. The only case where the price has been increased is IPCA’s Lariago injection, the price of which has been raised by 11.67 per cent. Prices of anti-malarials have been slashed with price cuts going up to 65 per cent in some cases. The anti-malarial drug market in India has of late been flooded by Chinese drugs.
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DoT to seek five year I-T holiday for BSNL
New Delhi: The department of telecommunications, which recently valued its proposed holding company, Bharat Sanchar Nigam, at a whopping Rs. 65,000 crore, has reportedly approached the finance ministry to grant the new company a five-year income-tax holiday.

The department is seeking the exemption on the grounds of level playing field, citing section 80 IA of the Income-Tax Act, 1961. According to this section, all telecom operating companies which started operations after April 1, 1995, and before March 31, 2000, are not required to pay tax for first five years of operations. After this period, they have to pay only 25 per cent tax for next five years. DTO is not a taxable entity and therefore, will not be able to get tax concessions.

The new entity is likely to come into existence on October 1. All officers and employees of department of telecom service and operations would be transferred to BSNL with effect from Sunday. The transferred employees would continue as 'central government employees' till the date of absorption.
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Saudi prince promises to bring oil price below $30
Caracas: As Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Abdallah, told his partners in the oil cartel, Opec, that permanently high oil prices would harm the world economy and economic growth, oil prices cooled off a little. The Saudi prince also vowed to stabilise prices in the latest effort to prevent volatile world petroleum markets from threatening global economic growth.

The Saudi statement is significant because it is the only big Opec oil producer with any significant spare production capacity. Oil prices have fallen steadily since the US announced last Friday that it would release stocks from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve in a bid to damp the speculative fever, which has gripped oil markets.
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