Larsen and Toubro wins 1.18 billion dollars contracts from Oil and Natural Gas Corporation

Larsen & Toubro (L&T) has won two offshore platform contracts worth over Rs 5,300 crore ($1.18 billion) from Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC). The order, the single largest in the Indian hydrocarbons sector, comes to about 13% of L&T's net sales in 2008-09.

The company secured the turn key order for the Mumbai High North process platform & living quarters project, with an additional order to build three process gas compression modules in the same complex. The projects have to be completed within three years.

Hyundai, Samsung and National Projects Construction Corporation were the other bidders for the contracts.

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Consensus on reserve price, 3G auction soo

Finally, the long-awaited auctions of 3G spectrum, the airwaves that enable faster data download and video streaming on mobile phones, is poised to take place within two months.

The way for the auctions has been cleared on Tuesday after the finance ministry and the department of telecommunications (DoT) have buried their differences over what should be the minimum reserve price for the auctions. The two have agreed on a reserve price of Rs 3,510 crore, which is higher than Rs 2,020 crore proposed by DoT earlier and lower than Rs 4,040 crore suggested by the finance ministry.

Another significant development is that a 2% administrative charge, proposed by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), on the successful bidders annually has been dropped.

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Satyam unveils results

Barely days before Tech Mahindra’s open offer for an additional 20% stake, Satyam Computer Services made public the unaudited financial details that it had shared with bidders earlier. In a filing with exchanges, Satyam said soon after founder B Ramalinga Raju confessed to perpetrating a Rs 7,000-crore fraud in early January, the company lost about $183 million in contracts from 56 clients up to March 26.

However, Satyam says it received new business orders from 215 mostly existing customers with contract values totalling $380 million during the same period. The company had a bank balance of Rs 373 crore at the end of March 2009, but outstanding bank loans worth Rs 469 crore.

In the quarter ended December 31, 2008, the company had a PAT of Rs 181 crore on revenues of Rs 2,206 crore. Figures for the same period the previous year were not available for comparison. In January, Satyam had a PAT of Rs 4 crore on revenues of Rs 647 crore, and for February, it had a PAT of Rs 52 crore on revenues of Rs 637 crore.

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Satyam sets no floor price for bids

Satyam Computer Services has announced the bidding modalities for acquiring a majority stake in the company, on a day when CBI got custody of its former chairman and suspected partners in the 7,800crore fraud.

Many interested parties are gearing up to take part in the ‘transparent’ bidding process after the Satyam management issued an expression of interest (EoI) on Monday. The earlier issue of knowing the financial position of Satyam has also been taken care of.

The EoI, issued after getting permission from the Securities & Exchange Board of India, sets no floor price for the bidders, though they will have to furnish proof of fund availability of at least Rs 1,500 crore.

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