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Rupee tad higher; bonds steady
Mumbai: The rupee gained slightly against the dollar on Monday closing at 43.8350, slightly higher than Friday's close at 43.84.

Forwards market: The 12-month premia closed at 0.65 per cent (0.64) and the 6-month at 0.62 per cent (0.55).

G-Secs: The 10.25-16 year-2021 paper closed at Rs126.35 (7.38 per cent YTM), higher than Friday's Rs126.22 (7.40 per cent YTM). The 5.69-13 year-2018 paper closed at Rs87.29 (7.21 per cent YTM). The 7.38-10 year-2015 benchmark paper was dealt at Rs102.55 (7.02 per cent YTM).

Call rates: The inter bank rates closed at 5-5.05 per cent (5-5.05).

Reverse repo: In the one-day auction, the Reserve Bank of India received and accepted 43 bids amounting to Rs41,820 crore.

CBLO market: 225 trades, for Rs9,037 crore in the rate range of 2.01- 4.95 per cent, were realised.
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Purwar: SBI focusing on 'virtual' merger with associates, not legal
Thiruvananthapuram: According to A. K. Purwar, chairman, State Bank Group, the State Bank of India (SBI) is currently not looking at the legal merger of associate banks with itself, but rather focusing on the 'virtual merger' with its associate banks.

Speaking to newspersons after inaugurating the core banking solution network of State Bank of Travancore (SBT) on Monday, he pointed out that banks in the State Bank Group will have a common technology platform and business processes. However a legal merger of the banks would have to wait for "an appropriate time," he added.

With the commissioning of the core banking solution, all 671 branches of SBT are now networked for offering the bank's customers anytime, anywhere banking. By December, all associate banks of SBI will be brought under the core banking network, Purwar said. All banks in the State Bank Group, including SBI's branches, will be on the network by the end of 2006.

With reference to the SBT, Purwar said that the target was to make it one of the top ten banks in the country within the next 12 months.
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Patil: UTI Mutual stake not to be sold to a single entity
Mumbai: Dr R. H. Patil, chairman, UTI AMC, has clarified that the Union Government has decided not to sell the entire stake of UTI Mutual Fund to one single entity. According to Patil, details of the stake sale are likely to be finalised in two months.

It has so far been speculated that State Bank of India (SBI) is likely to buy out the other three sponsors of the fund house. All the four sponsors of UTI AMC - SBI, Life Insurance Corporation of India, Punjab National Bank and Bank of Baroda - had evinced an interest in acquiring the country's largest fund house.

Dr Patil said that UTI Mutual Fund's assets under management have crossed the Rs25,000-crore mark and that they would close this month at Rs26,000 crore.

Dr Patil was speaking to newspersons after announcing a strategic distribution tie-up of UTI MF with Dena Bank. The agreement between the two companies allows Dena Bank to offer the entire bouquet of UTI MF's schemes across the bank's selected branches.
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LIC market share dips to 76.19 per cent
New Delhi: LIC, along with thirteen other private players, have mopped up Rs6,522 crore in premium in the first four months of this fiscal by selling about 62 lakh new policies.

The state-owned life insurer sold 55 lakh new policies and clocked an 8.74 per cent rise in premium income at Rs4,970 crore during April-July this fiscal, according to data released by IRDA.

The insurance behemoth's market share has come down to 76.19 per cent in July compared to 82.72 per cent a year ago. Amongst the private players, Birla Sunlife has shown a decline of over 17 per cent in premium income. Overall the thirteen private players have increased their market share to 23.81 per cent from 17.28 per cent a year ago.

ICICI Prudential still leads the private pack with a market share of 7.12 per cent after logging 49 per cent growth in business at Rs464 crore. Bajaj Allianz was at the second spot with a market share of 4.18 per cent, followed by HDFC Standard (3.05 per cent), Tata AIG (1.75 per cent), Birla Sunlife (1.72 per cent), SBI Life (1.47 per cent), Max New York (1.33 per cent) and Aviva (1.11 per cent).
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IOC garners Rs.1,225 crore through bond issue
Mumbai: The Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOC) Rs1,000 crore book-building issue of secured redeemable non-convertible bonds was oversubscribed 2.5 times garnering Rs2,500 crore, the company said in a release here.

However, the company plans to retain only Rs1,225 crore out of this.

These bonds were launched in two categories - one with a maturity of five years with a 'put & call' option at the end of each year with floating interest rate to be reset semi-annually, and the other with a 10-year maturity with a fixed coupon rate.
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