Railways’ registers 8.5% rise in earnings

New Delhi: The Indian Railways posted earnings of Rs70,501 crore in the 10 months from 1 April 2009 to 31 January 2010, an 8.5% increase over the Rs64,943.32 crore it recorded during the same period the previous year.

Goods earnings went up from Rs44,035 crore during to Rs47,763 crore while passenger revenue was Rs19,393 crore compared to Rs18,057 crore.

The national transporter booked approximately 6 billion passengers, a 5% increase over last year, the railways said in an emailed press statement.

Source : Livemint.   09/02/10

 

Average income to rise, fiscal deficit to go down

NEW DELHI: The revival in the economic growth will not only push up average income of people but will also help the government reduce the fiscal deficit.

According to CSO data, the average income of an Indian will rise by 9% to Rs 43,749 during 2009-10 at the current price compared to 13.3% in 2008-09. The per capita income, which is an indicator of collective prosperity, was Rs 40,141 in 2008-09.

The lower growth rate in 2009-10 is partly because of poor exports as outward shipments add to the net national income while imports reduce it. Contribution of exports to the economy during 2009-10 is estimated to fall to 18.6% from 23.5% in 2008-09.

Though, the net national income increased by 10.5% in 2009-10, the per capita income expanded by only 9%. This is mainly because of the rise in population from 1.15 billion to 1.17 billion in 2009-10.

The high growth rate will also help the Centre reduce its fiscal deficit as the percentage of GDP even if in the actual term it will be the same. With expansion of GDP at 10.8% at the current price, size of the Indian economy will become Rs 61,64,178 crore. In the last Budget, the size was projected at Rs 58,56,569 crore. As GDP is the denominator in the fraction, while calculating the fiscal deficit in GDP term, any increase in the GDP, lowers the value of fraction itself.

In last Budget, government had pegged the deficit at Rs 4,00,996 crore. It becomes 6.8% of GDP (at Rs 58,56,569 crore). Now GDP will be Rs 61,64,178 crore, the fiscal deficit will be 6.5% of GDP.

Source : TNN. 09/02/10

 

Domestic car sales jump 32%, bikes up 44% in Jan

Domestic passenger car sales have increased 32.28 per cent at 1, 45,905 units in January from 1, 10,300 units in the same month last year.

According to the figures released by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) today, motorcycle sales in the country during the month was also up 43.69 per cent at 6,50,633 units, compared with 4,52,809 units in the corresponding month last year.

Total two-wheeler sales in January grew by 43.43 per cent to 8,34,383 units from 5,81,729 units in January 2009.

Sale of commercial vehicles rose over two-fold during last month to 53,447 units from 23,154 units in the year-ago period, SIAM said.

Total sale of vehicles across all categories increased 44.94 per cent to 11,14,157 units in January, against 7,68,698 units in the same month last year, it added.

Source : Press Trust of India.  09/02/10

Stimulus drawback likely on higher GDP growth

Advance estimates of national income growth released today by the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) project it at 7.2 per cent in 2009-10, pegging it a notch below earlier forecasts of the Reserve Bank of India (7.5 per cent) and finance ministry (7.75 per cent). With economic growth back on track the government may initiate a phased withdrawal of the fiscal stimulus package.

These growth projections for gross domestic product (GDP), however, come on a revised base of 2004-05. One consequence of this statistical change is that the fiscal deficit, calculated on a higher national income base, would be lower.

Further, with nominal GDP expected to grow 10.6 per cent at market prices against the Budget estimate of 10.05 per cent the fiscal deficit could come down by another 30 basis points compared to the 6.8 per cent estimated in the 2009-10 Budget. The fiscal deficit is the difference between the government’s total expenditure and receipts minus its borrowings.

“If market prices are considered the GDP of around 10.6 per cent will provide a cushion of 30 basis points to the fiscal deficit,” said Jyotinder Kaur, economist, HDFC.

The fiscal deficit as a percentage of GDP would then fall to about 6.1 per cent almost touching the 2008-09 level of 6 per cent.

Finance Secretary Ashok Chawla said the economy will outgrow the projection given by the advance estimates and we would be looking at a higher growth in the revised estimates.

“This is an advance estimate. What we normally see when the final numbers come out for the third and the fourth quarter is that there is an upward bias and we are sure that this time also the same thing will happen,” he told reporters.

Analysts see a growth rate of 7.2 per cent as “fair” “We had expected the growth to be 6.9 to 7 per cent for the full year. The good thing is that we expected a deep negative on the agriculture side and a 0.2 per cent decline is less than what we were expecting. On the valuation side, agriculture has not lost much due to high MSP and other factors,” said Indranil Pan, chief economist, Kotak Mahindra Bank.

The advance estimates show that growth in 2009-10 is expected to be led by an 8.9 per cent expansion in the manufacturing sector, which had grown a meagre 3.2 per cent in 2008-09. Agriculture and allied industries are likely to contract 0.2 per cent against a growth of 1.6 per cent in the previous fiscal (2008-09).

“As much of the damage of the drought is expected to be felt in the third quarter , we forecast a decline in agricultural growth of -3 to -4 per cent , however, (in these figures) the CSO has factored in a remarkably strong Rabi harvest,” said a report by HDFC Bank’s economic research team.

Economists state that even as manufacturing growth has help the overall growth rate, most argue that it is still not the right time to withdraw fiscal incentives provided by the government to boost the economy .

“I don’t think the government should withdraw fiscal measures based on these numbers as the demand-side scenario is not yet clear,” added Pan.

However, Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia pitched for a phased withdrawal of stimulus in the budget. “We should say that the stimulus has succeeded and we should begin to phase it down. The fiscal deficit next year will be lower than this year,” Ahluwalia said.

Growth in services, which accounts for more than half India’s GDP, is likely to slow to 8.7 per cent in the current fiscal against 9.8 per cent in the previous fiscal. The fall is due to reduced expansion in financial services and community, social and personal services — the element that typically reflects government spending.

Trade hotels, transport and communications are likely to grow at 8.3 per cent during the fiscal as compared to 7.6 per cent in the previous fiscal. Financing, insurance, real estate and business services are expected to grow at 9.9 per cent while community, social and personal services are expected to grow at 8.2 per cent in 2009-10.

In terms of GDP at market prices, Gross Fixed Capital Formation (GFCS) reflected the slowdown in the current fiscal with growth estimated at 32.3 per cent (at current prices) for the current fiscal against a growth of 33 per cent in the previous fiscal.

The country’s per capita income will see a surge of 9 per cent during the current financial year to Rs 43,749 from Rs 40,141 during the previous fiscal.

Source : Press Trust of India.  09/02/10

 

 

 

Tatas learn to innovate

The Tata Group has instituted a number of mechanisms to encourage its large workforce to innovate.

Scientists in Tata Consultancy Services’ (TCS) material sciences laboratory in Pune had discovered some time back that rice husk ash has properties that can purify water. But it did not take the learning forward. The technology was brought out of the backburner when tsunami struck the southern coast in 2004. TCS quickly made filters with rice husk ash, put it in a shell and distributed the impromptu water filter in the affected areas. It was called Sujal, and was at the time little else than an act of corporate social responsibility.

Was there a commercial opportunity here, the Tata Group began to debate about three years ago. The filter held back 85 per cent impurities but did not kill bacteria. The challenge was to make it remove all impurities. Then scientists in Tata Chemicals’ Innovation Centre, also in Pune, said if silver nanotechnology was used with rice husk ash, the filters could stop bacteria as well. Titan Industries, the watch and jewelry company, said with its precision engineering skills it could make the filter switch off on its own once it reaches the end of its life. Thus was born Swach, the world’s cheapest water purifier which costs less than Rs 1,000. It’s not given free because that would mean no ownership. And Tata Chemicals, which will sell the purifiers, says it will make money on each machine in spite of the low price tag.

Self-discovery
The Tata Group, which has interests in such varied areas as automobile, information technology, steel, chemicals, telephony, watches, jewelry, medicine, fertilisers, retail, hotels, real estate, tea and coffee, has embarked on a journey of self-discovery. A conscious effort has been made to nurture innovative ideas and create the right culture for innovation. “We are trying to see how we can increase the attention paid to innovation, principally by creating a better atmosphere for innovation in our companies,” says Tata Sons Executive Director R Gopalakrishnan who heads the Tata Group Innovation Forum (TGIF), a 16-member think tank set up in 2007. “There is no fatwa or firman from the chairman (Ratan Tata) but he has said that he would like his companies to be more innovative.”

The Tata Group is no stranger to innovation. In 1907, Tata Steel became the first Indian company to raise capital in India. JRD Tata set up Tata Airlines in 1932 and TCS in 1968. Tata Motors made India’s first indigenous light commercial vehicle, the Tata 407, in 1986 and the first indigenous car, the Indica, 13 years later. Ginger budget hotels came up in 2002, small truck Ace in 2005, super-computer Eka in 2005 and the world’s smallest car, the Nano, in 2008.

Then there has been innovation within companies. Tata Chemicals Managing Director R Mukundan says his company, for instance, has run on innovation from day one. “The company had converted processes that ran on sweet water to sea water. Waste of soda ash was used to make cement. Iodised salt is a movement that Tata Chemicals started. Finally, it got promulgated as a law by the government,” says he. A premium has always been attached to newness in the group. Rallis, for instance, has run a Freshness Index for some years — the percentage of products in its portfolio less than three years old. Yet the need was felt to raise the bar. And this could happen only when creative ideas within the group were nurtured and taken to their logical conclusion.

Not that the Tata Group had closed itself to change. When the economy first opened up in the early 1990s, the group realised that its business processes were weak. So, in 1995, it instituted the Tata Business Excellence Model. Any company that uses the Tata brand name or logo has to abide by the model. Under this, companies are given scores out of 1,000 every year. “Companies like Tata Steel,” says Tata Quality Management Services (a division of Tata Sons) CEO Sunil Sinha, “started with 200 some 15 years ago but are now at around 700. Around 100 companies have signed up for this.” The acquisition of Corus and Jaguar-Land Rover has brought the average score down, Sinha adds.

Democratising innovation
Still, it was felt that innovation within the group was sporadic, though it was there in its DNA. “If only the Tata Group knew what it knows,” executives across Tata companies can these days be heard saying. “Innovation needs a different culture and mindset.

We had to accelerate and create urgency for the democratisation of innovation. This had become more important with the Tata Group going global and the Indian economy getting globalised,” says Sinha.

In 2006, an InnoMission (Innovation Mission) of 10 Tata Group CEOs went to the United States and saw innovation at work in companies like 3M, Microsoft, Intel, Hewlett-Packard and Raytheon. The next year, another mission was launched, this time in the other direction, to Japanese companies like Fuji, Olympus, Toshiba, Nissan and Hitachi. A third mission went to Cambridge to study the eco-system for innovation there. The first result was the formation of TGIF which was mandated to act as a catalyst for innovation. It meets every two months (in a different location so that local companies can participate) to take stock of the situation and remove hurdles.

The next step was to recognise and reward innovation within the group: InnoVista. These awards are regional as well as national. Ratan Tata gives the national awards once a year. There are two categories here: Promising Innovations and The Leading Edge which is the top honour. An independent jury judges the entries. From 101 from 31 companies in 2006, entries went up to 117 from 39 companies in 2007, 289 from 47 companies in 2008 and 1,552 from 62 companies in 2009. The jump in 2009 had a lot to do with the successful launch of the Nano. That, says Gopalakrishnan, has fired the imagination of the people in the Tata Group. Winners in 2009 included two proposals from Tata Steel: One, how to use nanotechnology to cool hot metal with lesser water; and two, how to harvest hydrogen from the blast furnace. The ideas could soon see the light of day.

There is a third category of awards in InnoVista: Dare to Try. This unconventional award is given to those ideas which did not work out and is meant to encourage intelligent failures. The idea is to remove the shame of failure from trying out something new at work. The trick seems to be working. From just 12 in 2007, entries rose to 17 in 2008 and 113 in 2009. There is a careful diagnosis of why the idea didn’t work, and the learning is used in subsequent innovations. Analysis done by TGIF shows the biggest reason for failure is technological barriers (50 per cent cases), followed by non-acceptance by the user (26 per cent) and commercial non-viability (24 per cent.)

The 2009 entries in this category included a proposal from Tetley to create a flavour in a pill or a capsule that could be put in any drink. But the idea failed because of technology limitations and a lack of buy-in. There was also a proposal from Taco for a plastic door for the Nano. But the concept was unacceptable to Tata Motors, though a successful prototype was ready. Other projects were Titan’s idea to build a wristwatch with a keyless entry system for automobiles, Tata Teleservices’ offer to locate calling booths in Mumbai public buses, and TCS’ proposal for a biometric voting system.

Lifting inhibitions
While this is aimed to lift the inhibitions that failure can cause, TGIF realised that several employees are afraid to question conventional wisdom. Thus in the works is a series of seminars called Courage to be Curious and Question. “The Tata Management Training Centre is working on it. This is to tell people how to ask questions without being intrusive and offensive. We will do the pilot in the next two or three months,” says Gopalakrishnan.

Before any effort to boost innovation, it is essential to know the state of innovation in the company. The treatment will emanate from this. After much deliberation, TGIF has adopted the Innometer developed by Julian Birkinshaw of the London Business School. It measures the innovation process and culture on a scale of zero to five, and can be run on the whole company, a unit or even a small team. So far, about ten Tata Group companies have gone through it. The scores, of course, are confidential. “We are medium to upper-medium. We are not on top. It’s a 5-point scale, and I haven’t seen a 4.9 score. But I have seen scores between 3.6 and 4.3,” says Gopalakrishnan.

Another barrier to innovation was that the various Tata companies wouldn’t talk to each other. There was always scope for collaboration, but seldom was it exploited. This was because large group companies like Tata Steel, Tata Chemicals and Indian Hotels Company were run like independent fiefdoms. Ratan Tata, when he became chairman in the early 1990s, eased out powerful chieftains like Rusi Modi, Ajit Kerkar and Darbari Seth. A cohesive group identity was forged, but collaboration still did not happen. So, TGIF decided to set up InnoClusters — groups of companies that could work together in different areas. There are four such clusters: Nanotechnology, plastics & composites, information technology and water. At the moment, the biggest cluster, of ten companies, is around nanotechnology. “The Swach water purifier is a good example where TCS, Tata Chemicals and Titan came together,” says Gopalakrishnan. “This is a far cry from the days of the satrapies.”

The unfinished task is to take innovation down the Tata Group. To do that, TGIF has come out with a web-based open innovation initiative called InnoVerse. Employees can post a problem on the intranet, to which anybody can provide a solution. People can bet on ideas with the 1,000 karma points they get. If the idea is accepted, your pile of points goes up. More than that, this will show which solutions are popular. A pilot is being run at the moment. Can all 300,000-odd Tata Group employees access it? “Not all, but most can,” says Tata Quality Management Services Vice-president Ravi Arora. “You must remember that a large chunk of these employees (almost 40 per cent) are from TCS, who are all net-savvy.”

So, has the Tata Group changed? It is, says Gopalakrishnan, still early days. “It’s not as if there is a storm gathering; it’s just some rain here and there.” But whatever change has happened makes him happy. An employee of Tata Chemicals, for example, has come out with microbes which help plants grow in saline soil. The company has run a pilot on 25 acres, and recently sent brinjal grown there to senior group functionaries in baskets. Mukundan says it could go commercial one day. “I don’t know the innovator’s name. And that is the ideal situation, a state of paradise for me,” says Gopalakrishnan.

Source : Business Standard.   09/02/10

Ford India starts new plant in Chennai

Chennai: Ford India commenced commercial production of its compact car Figo, and diesel and petrol engines at a new factory here.

Ford signed a MoU with the Tamil Nadu government in September 2009, under which it had committed to invest an additional Rs 1,500 crore in ramping up operations to make new engines for Figo. The plant will have a capacity to manufacture 250,000 diesel and gasoline engines a year.

“Figo will be built exclusively in India and exported to Asian countries and South Africa,” said Ford India president and managing director Michael Boneham. He, however, declined to comment on the expected domestic sales and export figures. Last year, the company’s total production was 30,000 vehicles, he added.

“Our expanded investments in Tamil Nadu will benefit the region in the form of additional employment, both at the plant and at the growing local supply base,” Boneham said, adding the company would add 1,000 employees to the existing 2,100 at the facility post the expansion.

Source : Business Standard. 09/02/10

 

Durables companies upbeat on semi-urban markets

New Delhi: Major consumer durables companies like Godrej, Whirlpool, LG and Samsung are sharpening their focus on semi-urban markets. Given that Tier-II and Tier-III cities and towns account for over half their turnover, they are luring consumers by pricing their products below Rs 10,000 across categories. The products include air-conditioners (ACs), refrigerators, TVs, water heaters and washing machines.

For Godrej and Boyce, for instance, Tier-II and III cities contribute to nearly 60 per cent of overall turnover and the number is expected to increase significantly in the coming year. “Direct-cool (DC) refrigerators and semi-automatic washing machines are two categories where we continuously launch products below Rs 10,000, and these are the highest growth sectors in Tier-II and III towns and cities,” says Kamal Nandi, vice-president, marketing, Godrej and Boyce.

While sales of DC refrigerators at Godrej have grown by 25 per cent in Tier-II and III cities, sales of semi-automatic washing machines are growing by 30 per cent. Godrej plans to introduce a range of DC refrigerators in March, June and the festive season – all priced between Rs 7,500 and Rs 10,000. In semi-automatic washing machines, Godrej plans to introduce a product priced between Rs 6,500 and Rs 10,000 in June-July this year.

“As disposable income increases and more towns convert to urban areas, contribution from Tier-II and III towns and cities to our overall turnover will only increase,” adds Nandi.

LG Electronics (India) has similar plans. It wants to push its mass-market sales by 10 per cent this year and also replace the traditional desert cooler with its A-series of ACs. This line of ACs is already present in South India and is priced between Rs 7,000 and Rs 10,000.

Analysts reason that with the recent Index of Industrial Production (IIP) figures being favourable to the consumer durables sector (growth of 37.3 per cent ), it makes sense for these players to expand their presence in rural and semi-urban markets. They caution, however, that it is important to have the right products in the lower-end category, since a bulk of demand comes from first-time buyers in Tier-II and III towns and cities which have not been directly hit by the recession. They also point out that there’s a big replacement market for small home appliances as consumer lifestyles change, a big opportunity for manufacturers to tap.

“Players are going whole hog in terms of semi-urban markets, as with Godrej and its launch of its ‘chota cool’ refrigerator. At a price of Rs 2,500, it is managing to enter the rural market. We will see this trend take off in a big way by the end of the financial year,” reasons a senior analyst of a brokerage firm who did not wish to be quoted.

Many newer entrants into the consumer durables category have caught on to this trend. Haier India is a case in point. It has products priced below Rs 10,000. These include commercial TVs priced between Rs 4,000 and Rs 10,000; mini bars and DC refrigerators whose prices range from Rs 6,260 to Rs 9,700; washing machines for Rs 6,490 to Rs 9,390 and water heaters priced between Rs 6,500 and Rs 9,500.

Industry experts foresee a reasonable requirement of these products, which are available across the board. Also, there are consumers in metros who are buying these as the second choice.

Samsung India believes there is immense potential that lies in these smaller markets. Ravindra Zutshi, deputy managing director, says: “The potential lies in these also because the existing penetration level in these markets is low and their awareness levels are growing.” Though the company does not have a separate break-up for its sub-Rs 10,000 products, 30-35 per cent of its flat TV sales take place in semi-urban markets. However, the contributions in other categories like DC refrigerators and semi-automatic washing machines are lower.

Source : Business Standard.  09/02/10

Japanese steel giants tie up with Indian firms

Mumbai: Last week, Tata Steel, India’s largest producer, announced a joint venture (JV) with Japan’s Nippon Steel for production and sales of automotive cold-rolled flat products at Jamshedpur. The JV is expected to invest $400 million (Rs 1,850 crore) to set up an automobile venture in India.

For, analysts were told by Koushik Chatterjee, group chief financial officer of Tata Steel, the undisputed world leader in cold-rolled output was Nippon Steel. Unlike European companies, which prefer galvanised steel, cold-rolled steel is used in India.

Tata Steel-Nissan is just one among a slew of such JVs announced recently between Indian and Japanese steel producers.

About three months earlier, Sajjan Jindal-promoted JSW Steel signed an agreement with Japan’s second largest producer, JFE, to collaborate for making automobile steel.

“In autos, the outer panel and bonnet require high quality of annealed products,” said Seshagiri Rao, director, finance, at JSW Steel. “We have been producing cold-rolled coil (CRC) for a number of years but we are not able to do outer panel,” he said. Hence the company collaborated with JFE.

JSW has 1.8 million tonnes (mt) of CRC capacity and is not planning any additional investments. It would use the technological collaboration to produce from the installed capacity.

Currently, India produces 4.5-mt of CRC, of which 1.9-mt is used for auto manufacture and the rest for consumer durable products. This is expected to double, as the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers expects passenger car sales to rise to three million units annually in the next five years from 1.5 million units in the last financial year.

Automakers import the annealed products but as the volume of cars and the raw material demand increases, Japanese steel makers want to cash in on that surge. That also explains why Bhushan Steel signed a technical collaboration and marketing agreement last month with Sumitomo Metals, Japan’s third largest steel producer.

Bhushan is India’s largest (in the secondary sector) cold-rolled steel plant owner to manufacture auto grade-CRC and sheets for automobiles and white goods industries. Bhushan Steel and Sumitomo had first entered into a six-year strategic alliance in 1997, which they renewed in 2003 and then in 2009.

This time, the two companies are also exploring the erection of a six-mt steel plant at Asansol in West Bengal. The company signed two agreements with Sumitomo Metals for technical know-how and marketing for selling products from its Orissa plant.

The first phase of the Orissa plant, with a capacity of 2.2-mt, is scheduled to go on stream in January. In the second phase, the plant’s capacity will go up to 5-mt by October 2012. The company’s current capacity is 1-mt. The Japanese steel major will provide technical expertise to Bhushan’s Orissa plant and market a part of the produce under the Sumitomo brand for its customers in India.

“At least $1 billion (Rs 4,670 crore) of investment is expected in the next three years in auto grade-steel, including those used by component makers,” said Anjani K Agarwal, partner, metals and mining, at global management consultancy Ernst and Young.

Source  :  Business Standard.  09/02/10

Indian IT services will soon see double-digit growth: Gartner

Mumbai: By mid-2011, the Indian information technology services sector will be back to growth in double-digits, according to research and advisory agency, Gartner.

The sector may not touch the 30-40 per cent growth rates it witnessed before the slowdown, but an register above 20 per cent growth as it nears calendar year 2011, says Partha Iyengar, regional research head and Vice President, Gartner India.

Iyengar says while IT budgets would be flat for some time in 2010, there is a sense of urgency among clients to increase their cost efficiencies and hence a push towards outsourcing and offshoring. “This is also evident in the closure of sale cycles. During the slowdown, deal closure time had gone up by a few months but are now back in the range of three to five months. For instance, we had a call from a client in Europe who were asking for at least 100 people in the next two months. They wanted to close the deal as soon as possible,” he says.

IT spending, too, is expected to reach $3.4 trillion in 2010 — a 4.6 per cent increase from 2009, according to a new Gartner report. Although modest, this projected growth represents a significant improvement from 2009, when worldwide IT spending declined 4.6 per cent.

Iyengar says the growth was anticipated. (Software body Nasscom now says the IT industry will grow at 14-17 per cent in FY11). “The key difference during this slowdown and the earlier one is the sense of urgency among clients,” he explains.

Iyengar also feels the demand scenario is not only sustainable but the level for outsourcing will go back to 2008 levels. Deals in the range of $100-300 million are also back on table for discussion, he says. “Unlike in the previous recession, the decision to outsource was on hold, not the projects. It was just put on hold. Now, these projects have been fast-paddled.”

But, Iyengar qualifies this by also saying that while demand is returning, concerns from the supply side remain the same. “How do you ramp up your hiring activity and even if you are able to get the numbers, will they be skilled enough? The only silver lining is that the firms did have some time to get their supply side in order,” he concludes.

On the political climate in the US, Iyengar opines that the decision to offshore work primarily depends on the financial and cost needs. “But, what is commendable is how Indian IT firms are moving up the value chain by expanding into US geographies,” he says.

Source : Business Standard. 09/02/10

Private equity investments double in January 2010

New Delhi: Amid signs of improving liquidity, January 2010 has seen private equity investments in India double, with deals of over US$ 386 million being announced, according to VCEdge, the financial research body. VCEdge stated that the value of private equity deals I India stood at US$ 386 million in January 2010. In January 2009, the figure stood at US$ 191 million.

The financial research provider said that there would be more deals and reduced valuations going forward and that as competition for investment in high-quality portfolio companies increased, there would be a tussle for quality.

The study stated that the real estate, telecom and infrastructure sectors together accounted for more than 45 per cent of total private equity deal value in the month of January 2010.

The report added that the largest private equity deal in the month of January 2010, was the acquisition of a 16 per cent stake in Coastal Projects by Fidelity, Deutsche Bank, Sequoia Capital and Barings Private Equity.

Source : IBEF. 09/02/10