HFCL: The company’s board has approved a strategic expansion of the company into Europe. In that course, it will set up a state-of-the-art optical fiber cable manufacturing facility in Poland, with an investment of up to ₹144 crore. The facility will have an initial capacity of 3.25 MFkm, with a potential to scale it higher to 7 MFkm per annum.
Indian Energy Exchange: The Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) has ordered an audit of the processes and software deployed by the country’s three power exchanges in the next six months and barred the bourses from manually registering bids after trading hours, after detecting “increasing instances” of violation of rules. The regulator said suitable audit agencies will be appointed for the audit.
Bank of Baroda: The bank on Wednesday raised ₹2,500 crore through its second tranche of Basel III compliant Tier 2 Bond at a coupon rate of 7.57%, surpassing market expectations of 7.63% to 7.65%. The bonds are issued for a tenor of 10 years, with the first call option after 5 years. The issue attracted an overwhelming response from the investors with total bids reaching more than six times the base issue size of ₹1,000 crore, totalling ₹6,237 crores, and 2.5 times the total issue size of Rs. 2,500 crore.
JSW Steel: Steel tycoon Sajjan Jindal plans to borrow $750 million for capital expenditure purposes as India’s largest steel mill targets a major capacity expansion, according to people in the know. JSW Steel, part of the $23-billion JSW Group, is sounding out lenders and a mandate is likely in the coming days, the people said, asking not to be identified as the information is private.
Wipro: The IT services giant on Wednesday disclosed a new deal with US chipmaker, Intel Foundry. The deal with the chip development division of Intel will see Wipro engineers work on Intel’s latest ‘18A’ chip node that will be used in cutting-edge consumer electronics devices next year onward. In an exchange filing, Wipro said the deal will cater to chip designs for clients across automotive, industrial and telecommunications verticals, and be used for “generative AI-driven designs”.
Eureka Forbes: Lunolux, the promoter of Eureka Forbes, will sell up to a 12% stake in the household appliances maker for $138.6 million ( ₹1,148.7crore) through a block deal on Thursday, people with knowledge of the deal said. Advent International, which owns Lunolux, had bought a majority stake in Eureka Forbes from Shapoorji Pallonji Group for ₹4,400 crore in 2021. As on December 2023, it held around 72.56% stake in the company.
Vedanta: The Tamil Nadu government told the Supreme Court that Vedanta’s Sterlite Copper plant should not be considered a national asset or deemed necessary to reopen to fulfill the country’s copper demand. The state instead pointed to Adani Group’s forthcoming copper smelter plant in Gujarat as capable of fulfilling India’s copper demand. .
Zee Entertainment Enterprises: The Securities and Exchange Board of India will question the top management of Zee, two people close to the development said. Sebi’s initial findings in June last year said ₹200 crore from the company was diverted through related party transactions. This was contested by the father-son duo before the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT). However, Sebi later informed the tribunal that it was conducting a wider investigation as there were several layers to the transactions.
Tata Power: Electric mobility ride hailing service provider BluSmart on Wednesday said it has signed a multi-year power purchase agreement with Tata Power Trading Company to source green power. Under the power purchase agreement (PPA), 30 MW capacity will be sourced by Tata Power Trading Company (TPTCL) from Tata Power’s 200 MW solar PV power plant in Bikaner district of Rajasthan, BluSmart.
