SEBI approves 'compunding' to settle disputes
Mumbai: The Securities and Exchange Board of India (£) has announced a new system for settling disputes under which penalties can be imposed on defaulters without resorting to litigations in courts.

Defaulters of securities laws can approach SEBI's high powered committee, to be headed by a retired high court judge, for compounding of offences to obtain a 'consent order'.

The order will provide the regulator flexibility of enforcement actions to impose adequate sanction and create sufficient deterrence.

The committee, while approving the consent order sought by a defaulter, will consider factors such as object of the violated law, interest of investors and securities market and also factors like gravity of charge, nature of violation, whether the violation was intentional, party's conduct during investigation, history of non- compliance, benefits accruing for delaying compliance, while approving the consent order, according to SEBI guidelines.

The parties can request for consent orders, which will include remedial action and payment of consent penalties, in cases where the proceedings are pending or are likely to be instituted.
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Fortis IPO oversubscribed 2.78 times
Mumbai: Ranbaxy promoted healthcare firm Fortis Healthcare's IPO, was oversubscribed 2.78 times with bids for over 12.74 crore shares, against about 4.57 crore shares offered in the public issue.

The issue had opened on April 16. Fortis Healthcare expects to raise up to Rs503 crore through the offer, for which the price band has been fixed between Rs92-110 per equity share.

According to the data available with the bourses, the Qualified Institutional Buyers (QIB) portion of the IPO, reserved for FIIs, mutual funds and domestic financial institutions, received 7.47 crore bids against 2.74 crore shares on offer in this category.
The QIB portion was oversubscribed 2.72 times with financial institutional investors putting in bids for 4.78 crore shares while mutual funds bid for 2.58 crore shares.

The portion reserved for retail investors was also oversubscribed 3.25 times with total bids of about 4.46 crore shares against 1.3 crore shares under offer in this segment.

Fortis Healthcare, which runs 11 hospitals in Northern India, has received around Rs153.69 crore through a couple of pre-IPO placements.
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Sterling Bio plans Singapore listing
Mumbai: Sterling Biotech, India's largest gelatin maker, has raised $250 million (about Rs1,049.75 crore) through convertible bonds, to be listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange.

The company has issued foreign currency convertible bonds (FCCBs), carrying a zero per cent coupon rate with a yield to maturity of 6.35 per cent per annum, Sterling Biotech said in a communiqué to the Bombay Stock Exchange.

The bonds are convertible into equity shares at any time after June 18, 2007 at a conversion price of Rs204.576 per share.

Sterling Biotech has posted a net profit of Rs 38.1 crore for the Q1 ended March 31.

The conversion price represents a premium of 25 per cent to the volume weighted average price and the bonds are convertible into the ordinary shares or GDRs of the company.
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ACC to acquire stake in Shiva Cement via pref issue
Mumbai: In a move that will help strengthen its presence in Eastern India, leading cement maker ACC Ltd on Friday said it is going to pick up a significant stake in Rourkela based cement company Shiva Cement for Rs41 crore.

ACC informed BSE that it has entered into a share subscription agreement with Shiva Cement Ltd (SCL) by which it would be inducted as a shareholder in SCL - which operates a mini cement plant with a clinkering capacity of 350 tonnes per day and cement grinding capacity of 130,000 tonnes per year.

ACC's operations are spread throughout the country with 14 modern cement factories and 19 ready mix concrete plants.

As per the agreement, ACC would be subscribing to a preferential allotment of 1.45 crore equity shares of Shiva Cement Ltd with a face value of Rs2 and a premium of Rs9 per share in all aggregating to Rs15.95 crore.

ACC would also be subscribing to another preferential allotment of 2.27 crore warrants of SCL - which has an option to convert into corresponding number of equity shares at a face value of Rs2 and a premium of Rs9 per share within 18 months from the date of allotment.

The preferential allotment of warrants would raise another Rs24.97 crore for Shiva Cement.

The allotment would be subject to compliance with the statutory requirements including the approval of the shareholders of Shiva Cement Ltd, it said.

ACC has a supply agreement with SCL in terms of which the Orissa-based firm would manufacture and supply cement to as per the ACC's quality and other specifications for a period of five years.
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Mahindra to raise funds offshore
Mumbai: Sports utility vehicle maker Mahindra & Mahindra's board has approved raising up to $300 million through the overseas sale of shares or convertible bonds. The company's board has approved a total raising of up to Rs13.5 billion ($320 million) through domestic and foreign means.

As part of that, the board approved raising up to Rs9 billion through a placement to domestic institutional buyers, in one or more tranches.

The company is raising the funds to invest in research and development, new product development, capacity expansion and absorption of new technology, M&M said in a statement.
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