Exim Bank to lend $5 million to Ucal Fuel subsidiary
Chennai: Exim Bank of India will lend $5 million to Amtec Precision Products of USA, now a wholly owned subsidiary of Ucal Fuel Systems.

The bank earlier lent Rs77 crore to Ucal for the purpose of the buy-out. It also picked up a 20 per cent equity stake in Amtec for $4.4 million (Rs20 crore).

In all, Exim Bank has an exposure of Rs120 crore to Ucal-Amtec combine, one of the larger acquisition fundings done by the bank.

US company Amtec Precision, taken over by Ucal Fuel Systems last year, produces machined and injection-moulded products to OEMs such as Siemens and Cummins. Amtec was making losses, but is said to be on the turnaround path.

Exim Bank, a pioneer in overseas acquisition funding, has funded over a hundred takeovers, including Tata Tea's 275-million takeover of Tetley of UK.
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Bank unions plan campaign against outsourcing
Chennai: The All-India Banks Employees Association (AIBEA) and All-India Bank officers association (AIBOC) have planned a massive movement including strikes to protest the outsourcing of normal banking services by banks.

The AIBEA in a circular to its member units said that massive outsourcing to private agencies in the guise of business correspondents and business facilitators was being done. It said that if outsourcing were done, there would hardly be any work in the branches for employees and there would be redundancies and surplus. The circular also mentioned the possibility of an all India strike in the 3rd or last week of May.
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StanChart arms acquire stake in GTL
Mumbai: Standard Chartered Investments and Loans has acquired 16.06 per cent of the total share capital of GTL Ltd. Standard Chartered Investments is a non-banking financial company, set up as a 100 per cent subsidiary by StanChart in 2004.

GTL Ltd also informed the exchanges that Global Assets Holding Corporation Pvt Ltd (formerly known as GECS Holdings Pvt Ltd) has acquired 18,50,000 shares or 2.2532 per cent of the total issued capital of GTL Ltd on March 13.

GTL is undergoing restructuring, details of which the company will announce on March 20.
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PNB opts to continue with RBI appointed auditors
New Delhi: Punjab National Bank (PNB) has decided to forego the option of appointing statutory auditors independently. The bank has written to the Reserve Bank of India stating that it would prefer the continuation of the previous system where the central bank appointed the SCAs.

It is possible that several other public sector banks will send similar letters to the RBI. In line with the plans to grant greater autonomy to public sector banks, the government had in December allowed their boards the freedom to appoint SCAs and branch auditors. The move was intended to create a level-paying field between private and public sector banks.

However, the government had also said that if the banks were uncomfortable with the new situation they could request the RBI to make the appointments as before.

The new autonomy granted to PSU banks had also come for severe criticism from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. It had said that such a move was against the principle of good governance that required either the regulator or the shareholders (and not the Board of Directors) to appoint SCAs and branch auditors.
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