As many as 14 companies have expressed an interest to collaborate with the government in the role of transaction and legal advisors for the divestment of national carrier Air India.

The Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) had earlier invited expressions of interest for appointing transaction advisors and law firms in assisting the strategic sale of the carrier. The mammoth deal includes an operating fleet of 142 aircraft comprising 65 A-320 aircraft, 15 B777 aircraft, 24 787 aircraft, 23 737-800 aircraft, 11 ATRs, and four B747 aircraft.

Market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on Thursday revised the framework for 'block deals' by providing two separate trading windows of 15 minutes each and increasing the minimum order size to Rs 10 crore.

The move is aimed at ensuring confidentiality of the large trades and stable prices for such transactions. The block deal window is provided for buyers and sellers to execute trades for a large number of shares. Such deals are usually negotiated before their execution.

In a good news for the SBI customers, the bank has slashed Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) charges up to 80 pct. This latest development by the State Bank of India comes as a huge relief for the SBI customers. If the users are doing an online transaction of money after selecting IMPS option, then they will have to pay 80 pct less charge than what they used to pay earlier. The announcement was made by the State Bank of India on its Twitter handle on Wednesday afternoon. “Go Cashless with SBI: IMPS service charges now slashed up to 80 pct,” SBI tweeted from its official handle.

Infosys' second-quarter results saw former CEO Vishal Sikka's strategy getting a thumbs up and it will continue to drive the country's second-largest software services firm. Further, the company's board led by Nandan Nilekani gave a clean chit to Sikka over allegations of governance failure in the Panaya acquisition, with Infosys co-founder N R Narayana Murthy on Tuesday expressing his disappointment over the development. (Read more here)

While Nilekani, who returned to Infosys in August, has reviewed Sikka's strategy of driving a software plus services model that would bring more non-linear revenue and has retained the former SAP executive's vision, as reported earlier, the company's strategy has seen some changes.

Reliance Industries and its partner BP plc of UK have submitted to the government a $2 -2.5 billion plan to bring to production India's deepest gas discovery by 2021-22.

The partners yesterday submitted to the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) a field development plan (FDP) for the MJ-1 gas find, which is located about 2,000 meters directly below the currently producing Dhirubhai-1 and 3 (D1 and D3) fields in the eastern offshore KG-D6 block, sources with direct knowledge of the development said.

Private lender YES Bank saw a rise in net profit by 25.1 per cent to Rs 1,003 crore for the September quarter as against Rs 802 crore in year ago period.

Gross bad loans as a percentage of total loans stood at 1.82% at end-Sept, compared with 0.97% a quarter earlier and 0.83% in the year-ago period.

Mumbai: State-run Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd (BPCL) will shortly hit the market to raise $500 million to partly fund its planned capital expenditure of Rs8,000 crore for this fiscal, two people aware of the development said.

“We are planning to raise $500 million shortly. We are still working on the timeline and the instrument we would be using to raise the funds,” a senior BPCL official said on condition of anonymity as he is not allowed to speak to reporters.

The list of accounts which the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has recently asked Axis Bank to classify as non-performing exposures includes Essar Power Gujarat, Jindal Steel & Power (JSPL), Jindal Stainless, Shree Renuka Sugars, Lanco Kondapalli Power, Lanco Amarkantak Power and Ballarpur Industries, people familiar with the development told FE. These seven exposures are worth close to Rs 90,000 crore, across all lenders to these companies and special purpose vehicles, data from Capitaline showed. Bankers FE spoke to said most lenders were yet to classify these accounts as non-performing assets (NPAs). An email sent to Axis Bank seeking comments remained unanswered till the time of going to press.

The BSE benchmark fell by over 200 points, pulling back from its record highs, on heavy profit booking in banking, FMCG, oil and gas, pharma and capital goods stocks after a recent rally. Offloading of positions by participants with today being the last trading session of October series contracts in the derivatives segment pulled the index back from record levels, a broker said.

Larsen & Toubro (L&T) was up 3% at Rs 1,243 on the BSE after the company announced that its construction arm has won orders worth Rs 3,551 crore across various segment. The stock had rallied 6% on Wednesday.

“The company’s transportation infrastructure & water effluent treatment business have jointly bagged an order worth Rs 1,123 crore from a prestigious government client for design and construction of smart trunk infrastructure with roads, storm water drains, water supply network, sewerage network and others,” L&T said in a press release.

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