‘Super-spike’ to lift oil to $200: Goldman

Oil could shoot up to $200 within the next two years as part of a ‘super-spike’ driven by poor growth in oil supplies, investment bank Goldman Sachs said in a research note.

"We believe the current energy crisis may be coming to a head, as a lack of adequate supply growth is becoming apparent," Goldman said in the note made available to Reuters on Tuesday.

Oil hit a new record near $121 a barrel on Tuesday, continuing an advance that has seen it double over the past 12 months.

"The possibility of $150-$200 per barrel seems increasingly likely over the next 6-24 months, though predicting the ultimate peak in oil prices as well as the remaining duration of the upcycle remains a major uncertainty," Goldman said.

Goldman, which was one of the first to point to a triple digit oil price more than two years ago, said it believed the market was approaching the crunch in the ‘super-spike’.

The ‘super-spike’ theory argues that a lack of adequate supply growth along with price-insulated demand growth in non-OECD countries will lead to a dramatic and continuous rise in oil prices that will ultimately lead to a sharp correction in oil demand.

Goldman analysts said the underlying drivers of the rise in oil prices remained firmly in place, noting poor growth in non-OPEC supplies, low OPEC spare capacity, restriction on foreign investment in key oil producing nations and healthy demand growth in non-OECD economies.

"In our view, a gradual rally in prices is likely to be longer lasting than a sharp, sudden spike," the note written by U.S.-based analyst Arjun Murti said.

Goldman said it had raised its spot oil price forecasts for U.S. WTI crude for 2008 through to 2011 to $108 rising to $110 and $120 a barrel, up from from $96 rising to $105 and $110 respectively in its earlier forecast.

"We see risk to our 2008 and 2009 forecasts as distinctly to the upside," it said.

Mumbai is world's 7th largest billionaire city: Forbes

Country’s financial capital Mumbai is the worlds’ seventh largest city in terms of billionaire population, says Forbes, the American business magazine famous for its annual list of richest people on the globe.

Mumbai is ranked seventh ahead of San Francisco, Dallas and Tokyo, according to a list of top 10 cities for billionaires available on the website of Forbes.

In terms of average wealth of resident billionaires, Mumbai comes on top of all the 10 cities with an average net worth of 7.6 billion dollars.

The Russian capital city Moscow has bagged the numero uno position in terms of billionaire population. Moscow houses the largest number of billionaires, as much as 74, while New York and London are home to 71 and 36 billionaires respectively.

"Moscow knocked off New York from its perennial No 1 position since 2001," the magazine said. New York is home to 71 billionaires with an average net worth of 3.3 billion.

The other cities, which find a place for themselves in the league of top 10 billionaire cities in the world, include Istanbul which boasts of 34 billionaires, Hong Kong (30) and Los Angeles (24).

Moscow may be housing the largest number of billionaires, but when it comes to the degree of affluence, the Indian city of Mumbai transcends the Russian capital with an average wealth of around 7.6 billion dollars.

Moscow is home to as many as 74 billionaires with an average net worth of 5.9 billion dollar while Mumbai boasts of 20 billionaires, with an an average worth of 7.6 billion dollar, says Forbes.

Hong Kong is the most popular city for billionaires in Asia. As many as 30 billionaires live in this former British colony. But "Mumbai, earns bragging rights as the city on our list with the richest billionaires," the magazine added.

"Mumbai’s 20 billionaires, including two of the world’s 10 richest (brothers Mukesh and Anil Ambani), are worth an average 7.6 billion dollar, handily besting Moscow’s 5.9 billion dollar average," the magazine added.

The US has more cities in the top 10 than any other country: four including New York, Los Angeles, Dallas and San Francisco.

London houses just 36 billionaires whose primary residence is the UK capital. But interestingly 18 of them are citizens of other countries.

Leading that list is Indian steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, who ranked fourth in our March wealthiest billionaires list (he was worth 45 billion dollar then).

Other notable foreigners calling London home include Iceland’s richest citizen Thor Bjorgolfsson and shipping tycoon John Fredriksen, who switched his citizenship from Norway to Cyprus recently but chooses to live in London.

Meanwhile, New York City has just one foreign billionaire who claims residence there, and Moscow is home only to Russian billionaires.

The attributes that make a city particularly attractive to billionaires include gourmet restaurants, world-class nightclubs, favourable tax breaks and proximity to the world’s financial centres.

Cobra targets 20 mn beer cases in India

In tune with its plan to increase its capacity to 20 million cases per annum by 2012, UK-based Cobra Beer is looking for acquiring three more breweries in the current year.

The company has earmarked around 100 million dollars for its expansion plans in India and a major portion of this would be spent on acquisitions.

"In order to achieve the target of 20 million cases in the next four years, we are looking for acquiring three more breweries in India," Cobra Beer Chairman Karan Bilimoria said.

Presently, the company has around nine breweries in the country with the capacity of about five million cases per annum. It has chalked out plans to double the capacity to 10 million cases in the next four years.

However, It is planning to add another 10 million cases through these acquisitions by the end of the year. "Currently, talks are in the advance stage with local brewers for the acquisition and in the next three months, we may be able to complete the whole process," he added.

Although, the company has also prepared the plans for green field plants in case it is not able to acquire these breweries. These acquisitions will be similar to the one it has acquired in Bihar, Billimoria said.

Cobra Beer would also add to its range from the current offerings of two products, King Cobra and normal Cobra.

The company is also going to introduce cane-beer in the next two months and diet and flavoured beer by the end of current year.

Cobra would manufacture these cane-beers in its ’Som Brewery’ located in Madhya Pradesh and Bihar-based Iceberg brewery, which the company has recently acquired. Besides this, it is also looking for the listing its subsidiary in the country.

"We have plans to tap capital market and we are looking for listing in both India as well as in UK," Billimoria said while adding, "Listing of Indian subsidiary will be done first and after that it may list the parent company in London."

Besides this, the company is also in the process of revamping its UK business as it plans to shift its manufacturing to UK from Poland which allows it save more than 10 million dollars in two years time.

Reliance shuts all of its 1,432 petrol pumps

Reliance Industries has shut all of its 1,432 petrol pumps in the country after sales dropped to almost nil as it could not match the subsidised price offered by public sector competition.

The company owned less than three per cent of the 36,936 petrol pumps in the country. Of the total retail outlets, state run Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum own 34,304 pumps, while the remaining belong to private sector Essar Oil and Shell India.

"Reliance has informed that sales at their retail outlets was negligible due to selling price differential between private and public sector Ros, leading to the closure of all their 1,432 pumps in the country with effect from March 15," Petroleum Minister Murli Deora informed the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.

Public sector currently sell petrol at a loss of Rs 13.97 a litre and diesel at a discount of Rs 20.97 per litre. This revenue loss is made up by the Government through issue of oil bonds and subsidy share from upstream firms like ONGC and GAIL.

Private firms such as Reliance were not entitled for the subsidy and priced fuel from their pumps at Rs 8-10 a litre higher than public sector competition, leading to fall in market share.

"The price of sensitive petroleum products are fixed by the public sector oil marketing Companies in consultation with the Government," Deora said. "Private oil Companies are not subject to pricing restrictions by the Government and are free to take their pricing decisions on commercial considerations."

However, Essar Oil and Shell India have not closed their petrol pumps, he said.

Reliance had highest number of petrol pumps in Gujarat with 246 outlets, followed by Maharashtra (160), Uttar Pradesh (132), Andhra Pradesh (129) and Rajasthan (107).

Deora said IOC, BPCL and HPCL plan to set up 1,830 more petrol pumps in the country during 2008-09 fiscal.

The gross under-recoveries of the state-run retailers on sale of petrol, diesel, domestic LPG and kerosene in 2007-08 are estimated at Rs 77,303 crore, he said.

The Government issued oil bonds to IOC, BPCL and HPCL worth Rs 20,333 crore and upstream oil Companies contributed Rs 15,873 crore to partially compensate the under-realisation for April-December period.

"For the same period, the impact absorbed by the oil Companies after the issue of bonds and subsidised by the upstream oil Companies, is likely to be Rs 11,413 crore," he added.

No Yahoo, Microsoft remains alone on the web

Now that Microsoft Corp has shelved its bid for Yahoo Inc, it must convince investors it has a viable ‘Plan B’ to fix an online business that has racked up nine straight quarters of losses.

That may be difficult for investors with long memories.

Six months ago, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer told a who’s who of Silicon Valley that the software company was prepared to take an ‘independent’ path in its challenge of Google Inc.

Ballmer said at the Web 2.0 summit in San Francisco that while a combination with Yahoo might make sense in the future, Microsoft believed the independent steps it was taking -- capital investment, research and development and smaller acquisitions -- would, ultimately, lead to success.

When Microsoft then offered $44.6 billion for Yahoo a few months later, and said it had been pursuing Yahoo for more than a year, many wondered whether Microsoft ever believed its ‘go it alone’ strategy. After ending talks with Yahoo over the weekend, that strategy’s viability could be tested.

"It is imperative that in relatively short order Microsoft’s management articulates a viable and credible new strategy for the online services business in the absence of Yahoo," Bernstein Research analyst Charles Di Bona wrote in a note to clients on Monday.

"With the caveat that returning to the prior, pre-Yahoo plan is likely to be neither credible nor well received."

Microsoft’s online unit, which accounts for 5 percent of revenue, is central to the company’s future. It expects online advertising generated by the business to one-day rival its bread-and-butter licensing revenue.

The division will also guide Microsoft’s transition in offering software that is delivered over the Web as a service instead of running locally on a computer’s hard drive.

On Monday, the first trading day after it yanked its $47.5 billion offer for Yahoo, Microsoft shares fell 16 cents, or 0.55 percent, to $29.08. The stock rose 3 percent in early trading before giving back those gains.

Analysts attributed the fall to a view that Microsoft was playing hardball with Yahoo and the deal was not actually dead, but others suggested the collapse of the Yahoo deal shed light on the challenges facing its online business.

Windows live vs MSN

So far, Microsoft’s rebranded Windows Live platform of Web services including e-mail and online photos has left some users confused about how it fits with existing MSN properties. Its Web search continues to lose market shareto Google, even after a revamp.

"A future without Yahoo is a negative for Microsoft’s online unit, as we have long believed that Microsoft needs to get more aggressive in order to close the gap with Google," FBR Capital Markets analyst David Hilal said in a research note.

Meanwhile, in an e-mail to employees, Ballmer argued that Microsoft can achieve its goals without Yahoo. "We have a strategy in place to do so and we will continue to expand on this strategy and accelerate our progress."

In advocating the Yahoo deal, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and Ballmer had said Yahoo was the best and fastest way to gain the necessary scale for its online business to compete.

In the last few years, Microsoft has worked to build and refine a Web search engine of its own, creating a new search advertising system called adCenter. More recently, it bought aQuantive, an online ad company, for $6 billion.

Those steps have yet to deliver significant progress toward its goal, building an advertising powerhouse to rival Google.

The company was prepared to spend as much as $47.5 billion on Yahoo and it may choose to use that money to go on an Internet shopping spree instead.

Time Warner Inc’s AOL unit could give Microsoft a stronger position in online display advertising, while social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, owned by News Corp, may supply a large and loyal audience.

But putting all those pieces together would require focused execution on a clear vision, something Microsoft’s online business unit hasn’t demonstrated in the past.

Since the start of 2006, Microsoft’s Web business has racked up losses totaling nearly $1.7 billion.

Meanwhile, it has spent billions of dollars on massive data centers to provide the computing and storage infrastructure for services ranging from free e-mail to hosting business management software.

"Microsoft has tried for a long time and it hasn’t really gotten anywhere with its online initiatives," said Morningstar analyst Toan Tran. "If it’s going to catch Google, it’s got to get big, quick. Every day, Google gets stronger and stronger."...

Source: Reuters

HDFC Bank launches fund transfer on mobile network NGPAY

DFC Bank on Tuesday launched fund transfer on mobile commerce network, NGPAY.

With this launch, HDFC Bank said it has become the first bank in India to offer, on one single platform, a full suite of banking and commerce services over the mobile including accessing bank accounts, shopping, ticketing, and payments.

HDFC Bank customers who are registered for fund transfer facility under the Bank’s NetBanking services can download the NGPAY application on their mobile handsets and begin transferring funds immediately.

"Fund transfer will happen in real-time between two HDFC Bank accounts and within 48 hours when transferring to a non-HDFC Bank account", Rahul Bhagat, Country Head – Retail Liabilities, Marketing & Direct Banking Channels, HDFC Bank, said.

ngpay CEO Sourabh Jain, said starting next month, HDFC Bank customers will also be able to buy and sell units of different HDFC Mutual Fund schemes through NGPAY.

Fidelity ties up with Federal Bank

Fidelity Fund Management has tied up with Kerala-based Federal Bank for distributing its various financial products.

Fidelity’s entire suite of mutual funds would now be available at more than 600 branches of the bank throughout the country, Federal bank Chairman M Venugopalan said in Kochi.

An MOU in this regard was signed between Federal bank and Fidelity Fund Management Managing Director and Country head Ashu Suyash.

With this partnership, customers would have easier access to Fidelity’s range of funds. This is another step towards offering customers holistic financial solutions of Fidelity Fund’s mutual funds for retail investors to participate in the equity Markets, Venugopalan said.

Suyash said the tie up would enable Fidelity to reach out to more customers across India.

Distribution holds the key to the growth of Indian mutual fund industry and banks with their extensive branch networks and close relationships with customers have a key role to play in popularising mutual funds as a preferred investment option, she said.