Dalal Street

Patel Engineering Ltd., a civil-infrastructure construction company, has reported a 31.87 per cent jump in consolidated net profit at Rs 38.85 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, 2007 as compared to Rs 29.46 crore in the corresponding quarter previous year. Consolidated total income from operations for the quarter rose 33.34 per cent at Rs 378.85 crore as against Rs 284.12 crore during the same period previous year. The earning per share (basic and diluted of face value of Re 1) for the quarter stood at Rs 6.52 as on December 31, 2007 compared to Rs 5.09 in the corresponding quarter last year.

Meanwhile, the company has reported a 35.14 per cent jump in consolidated net profit at Rs 101.42 crore for the nine months ended December 31, 2007 as compared to Rs 75.05 crore in the corresponding quarter previous year. Total consolidated income from operations rose to 34.87 per cent at Rs 1132.87 crore as against Rs 839.95 crore during the same period previous year.

Patel Engineering order book position stood around Rs 5,508 crore as on December 31, 2007.

GMR Infrastructure has informed us that GMR Energy, the company’s 100% subsidiary company has acquired 80% stake of Himtal Hydro Power Co. on 02 January 2008. Himtal have subsisting survey licence issued by the Department of Electricity Development, Govt. of Nepal for undertaking the feasibility study and environmental impact assessment study for setting up a 250 MW upper marsyangdi—2, hydro power project, located in upper marsyangdi, Nepal.

Sun TV Network operates satellite television channels across four languages–Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam.

The company will increase the ad rates on the Tamil channel Sun by 10-21%, Telugu Channel Gemini TV by 15%, Kannada Channel Udaya TV by 10-20%, Malayalam Channel Surya TV 3-13%. The hike in advertisement rates is over 30% for two programmes whose television rating points (TRPs) are high.

For other channels like Sun Music, Sun News, Gemini Music, Gemini News, Teja, Udaya Movies, Udaya Varthagalu, Udaya II, Kiran, the increase in advertisement rates range from 10% to 25%. Simultaneously, the slot fees (broadcast fees) received from the content producers has been increased proportionately from 15 February 2008.

Advanta India has acquired the business of Unicom Seeds (Unicom) by acquiring 100% shares in the company for a consideration that includes deferred payment based on achievement of performance related milestones. Unicom has a strong presence in the domestic and export markets of vegetable seeds. Unicom also undertakes the custom production of vegetable seeds for the customers all around the globe. The Revenue size of the business of Unicom for the last financial year was about Rs 25 crore. The business has the EBITDA earning capacity of about 30%.

With this acquisition, company’s platform in vegetable seeds will become stronger with added crops to its current vegetable product portfolio (golden). With the added products like melons and cucumber from Unicom the combined vegetable portfolio (golden and Unicom) will make company a significant player in the vegetable seed market.