Sensex up for 13th week, best run in 4 yrs
The BSE Sensex rose 0.6 percent on Friday, extending its weekly run of gains to 13 in a row for the first time in four years, as signals the global economic turmoil was abating boosted risk-appetite across Asia and Europe.
The 30-share BSE index, which climbed to its highest close in almost 10 months, rallied 3.3 percent on the week and boosted its rise to 88 percent from a 2009 low in early March.
Hefty foreign portfolio inflows of more than $6 billion since mid-March and expectations the ruling coalition will pursue investor-friendly reforms to boost growth after it won a second five-year term in May have underpinned the market.


(Source: Economic times)


Humbled GM files for bankruptcy protection
General Motors filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday as part of the Obama administration’s plan to shrink the automaker to a sustainable size and give a majority ownership stake to the federal government.
GM’s bankruptcy filing is the fourth-largest in U.S. history and the largest for an industrial company. The company said it has $172.81 billion in debt and $82.29 billion in assets.
“The General Motors board of directors authorized the filing of a Chapter 11 case with regret that this path proved necessary despite the best efforts of so many,” GM Chairman Kent Kresa said in a written statement. “Today marks a new beginning for General Motors. ... The board is confident that this New GM can operate successfully in the intensely competitive U.S. market and around the world.”


(Source: MSNBC)


Hug, hug, kiss, kiss: multiplex war ends
As with all good arguments, it featured icy silences and bruised egos, power struggles and temper tantrums. And as in all happy endings, the warring parties made up with a hug and a kiss.
In a grand finale that lasted about 14 hours and culminated in a nail-biting finish, the film fraternity resolved its two-month-long stand-off with multiplex owners in the early hours of Friday morning, opening the floodgates for a backlog of cinematic releases, starting with Star Trek, which released on Friday.
“We have agreed, on good terms,” said Mukesh Bhatt, spokesman for the Producers Distributors Forum, whose film Jashn has been slated for a 3 July release, following a sleepless night of talks at Yash Raj studios in the Mumbai suburb of Andheri. “The strike has been called off and we are very happy with the outcome.”
Up to 40 films, including Vishal Bhardwaj’s Kaminey, starring Priyanka Chopra and Shahid Kapoor, as well as Sajid Nadiadwala’s Kambakkht Ishq, with Kareena Kapoor and Akshay Kumar, which had been put on hold since the start of the dispute over revenue-sharing terms on 4 April, are now being lined up for release in the coming months.


(Source: Economic Times)


Fortis Health Leads Race for Wockhardt Hospitals
Fortis Healthcare Ltd. is a front runner to buy rival Indian hospital-chain operator Wockhardt Hospitals Ltd., a person close to the development said Friday.
"Fortis will buy Wockhardt Hospitals sooner rather than later," the person, who declined to be named, told Dow Jones Newswires. He wouldn't say how much stake Fortis Healthcare will buy or at what price.
Television channel CNBC-TV18 reported earlier, citing unnamed persons, Fortis Healthcare would acquire Wockhardt Hospitals for 9.70 billion rupees ($206 million).
Fortis Healthcare, in a notice to India's stock exchanges, however said the report was "speculative," adding, "at this stage the company has not entered into any definitive agreement for the acquisition."
A spokesman for Wockhardt Ltd. said the drug maker's founders, who own Wockhardt Hospitals, aren't selling their entire stake in the hospital operator. He refused to elaborate or comment further.
(Source: Wall Street Journal)


Air France jet missing over Atlantic
An Air France jet disappeared after hitting stormy weather over the Atlantic Ocean on Monday and all 228 people on board were feared dead.
France and Brazil sent military planes and ships to scour a vast area of ocean where the Airbus A330 jet may have come down during the flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. But officials said there was little chance that anyone could have survived.
"It's a tragic accident. The chances of finding survivors are tiny," French President Nicolas Sarkozy said at Paris's Charles de Gaulle airport after meeting passengers' relatives.
If no survivors are found, it would be the worst loss of life involving an Air France plane in the carrier's 75-year history. An Airbus A330 has never been lost during a commercial airline flight and it is extremely unusual for an airliner to be brought down by storms.


(Source: Rediff.com)




FDA Is Reviewing Ranbaxy’s Corrective Plan on Drugs to the U.S.
The US drug regulator is reviewing a corrective action plan from Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd after some medicines from its plants in the nation were barred from being exported to the US. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is working very closely with the firm to ensure that all the Ranbaxy products currently in the US market are safe and effective, FDA spokesman Christopher Kelly said in an email on Wednesday. The next steps will be dependent on the actions identified in the plan, he said.


US sales of Ranbaxy, the country’s biggest drug maker, fell for two straight quarters after the US FDA on 16 September blocked the import of 30 medicines produced at two of its factories. The FDA decision to block the products in the US, the world’s largest drug market, led Ranbaxy’s stock to plunge 45% until chief executive officer Atul Sobti said earlier this week that the company had submitted the plan.


(Source: Bloomberg)