MT Educare IPO fully subscribed on Day 2

Coaching services provider MT Educare 's IPO has been subscribed 1.25 times on Day 2, supported by qualified institutional buyers (QIBs) and high networth investors.

The issue has received bids for 1.38 crore equity shares as against issue size of 1.099 crore shares (excluding anchor book), as per exchange data.

The reserved portion of QIBs has subscribed 1.35 times and non-institutional investors 3.6 times. All bids were at higher end of price band of Rs 74-80 a share.

The issue will close for subscription on March 29, which consists of fresh issue of Rs 35 crore and an offer for sale of up to 80 lakh equity shares by Helix Investments Company.

MT Educare, popularly known as Mahesh Tutorials provides coaching services to students in the secondary, higher secondary school and pursuing graduation degree in commerce, preparing for various competitive examinations and undertaking chartered accountancy examinations.

Heineken in talks for control of United Breweries

Vijay Mallya, scrambling to raise funds to rescue his ailing Kingfisher Airlines, is considering selling part of his stake in his flagship liquor business to Dutch brewery giant Heineken, media reports said.

The Financial Times, citing a person familiar with the matter, said Mallya was close to selling 13% of United Breweries Ltd, worth about USD 370 million at current market prices, to Heineken.

That could give control of United Breweries to Heineken, which already held 37.38% of India's largest beverages group as of the end of 2011.

A spokesman at UB Group did not answer calls or reply to text messages from Reuters. A spokesman for Heineken declined to comment.

Mallya owns about 19% in United Breweries and may be looking to sell part of his holding and inject some of the proceeds into Kingfisher, the Business Standard newspaper reported on Thursday.

Mallya is under pressure from his airline's lenders to inject equity into Kingfisher, which has debt of USD 1.3 billion and has slashed its flight schedule and grounded most of its fleet as it has been unable to pay staff.

Shares in United Spirits, United Breweries and UB Holding, all part of Mallya's UB Group, ended 1.5%-4.8% higher on Wednesday after news channel CNBC TV18 reported a possible Heineken deal.

H-1B visa applications to be accepted from April 2

Applications for the most sought after H-1B work visa - used extensively by Indian IT professionals - for the fiscal beginning October 1, would be accepted beginning April 2, a federal immigration agency announced Tuesday.

The congressionally mandated numerical limitation on H-1B petitions for the fiscal year 2012-13 is 65,000, as has been in the previous years. Additionally, the first 20,000 H-1B petitions filed on behalf of individuals who have earned a US master's degree or higher are exempt from the fiscal year cap.

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said H1B applications will be considered accepted on the date it takes possession of a properly filed petition with correct fee and not the date on which it was sent.

"If the number of applications received exceeds the numerical cap, USCIS will randomly select the number of petitions required to reach the numerical limit from the pool of petitions received on the final receipt date," USCIS said in a statement, adding that it will reject cap-subject petitions that are not selected, as well as those received after the final receipt date.

Petitions for new H-1B employment are exempt from the annual cap if the beneficiaries will work at institutions of higher education or related or affiliated non-profit entities, non-profit research organisations or governmental research organisations, USCIS said.

IOC in talks with BG, others to secure LNG supplies

State-run Indian Oil Corporation is in talks with BG Group, Qatar and Gazprom to secure long-term liquefied natural gas supplies for an import terminal it is building to feed its rising energy demand.

But while it talks to potential suppliers, the company is also keeping its options open to initially import LNG through spot or shorter-term contracts on expectations that India may lift price controls on the power and fertiliser sectors and allow them to pass on feedstock costs to consumers.

"It is not proper to assume that long-term contracts are the only way out," said A.M.K. Sinha, director of business development, on the sidelines of an LNG conference.

"It may be prudent to see how the deregulation of the power and fertiliser sectors proceed."

Indian oil is building a 5 million tonnes per year LNG terminal at Ennore in southern India, which is expected to come online by 2014.

Controls on what power and fertiliser companies charge consumers have hampered their ability to pay market prices for natural gas and other feedstocks.

To help partly offset costs, the government also caps the price of locally produced natural gas, currently at USD 4.2 per million British thermal units (mmBtu). It also controls who the gas can be sold to.

"India's ability to pay for imported LNG depends on how much the biggest consumers - power and fertilizer sectors - are willing to pay," said Sinha. "Their payment ability hinges how much they can pass on the costs to consumers."

Other consumers, such as petrochemical plants and refineries, can afford to pay more for gas, Sinha said. These customers are paying an average of USD 13-15 per mmBtu and sometimes as much as USD 16 per mmBtu for gas that is imported.

Asian spot LNG prices are currently around USD 16 per mmBtu.

"Who knows, we may get the terminal ready, buy spot and short-term cargoes and then look at a long-term contract," Sinha said, adding that the company is also waiting to see how supply dynamics change if the U.S. starts to export LNG.

Asian buyers have been eagerly eyeing LNG exports from the United States, where a gas glut has depressed prices to around USD 2.20 per mmBtu, a fraction of Asian prices.

In December, state-run GAIL India signed a contract with Cheniere Energy for 3.5 mtpa of LNG for 20 years from its Sabine Pass plant starting in 2017.

Gas accounts for about 10% of India's primary energy basket versus the world average of 24%, and India's gas demand is expected to grow at 14% in the next five years.

India's LNG import capacity will reach 47.5 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) in 2015-16 from 13.5 mtpa now.

Forget Budget! Fuel price hike now..............

It's the high crude price and government's dilly-dallying attitude that may pinch common man's pocket once again this summer. Already combating inflation, common man may be forced upon by another fuel price hike soon. Assembly elections being a history now and the Budget pegging an ambitious fiscal deficit target, experts are worried that fuel price hike is just waiting in the wings.

Not only that, the Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjeehas himself hinted at a fuel price hike soon, saying 'political consensus for it would be built after the session'.

However, it is not time to hit the panic button yet. The market has already factored in a both petrol and diesel price hike. "Our own calculations is that we will see a Rs 2 hike in diesel coming this fiscal year at least and about Rs 4-6 on petrol," Tirthankar Patnaik, Religare Capital Markets says.

There are other experts who think the government may take some more time to hike fuel price. Jyotivardhan Jaipuria, Head Of Research, BofA Merrill Lynch feels that hike will strictly depend on global crude price which may even hit the Indian market.

Jaipuria explains that the finance minister did not want to risk announcing an increase in oil prices because politically it may not have gone down well.  "Probably he is hoping to first pass the Budget and then get down to these issues which will probably be more controversial and where he needs to build much bigger consensus amongst his allies and probably some of the opposition parties," he adds.

Experts warn that the market will raise red flags if crude inches by another USD 10 per barrel.

BPCL views

Whatever said and done, Bharat Petroleum is going to hike petrol price soon.

In an interview to CNBC-TV18, RK Singh, CMD, BPCL said, "We are watching the situation, the movement of the price in the international market. Very soon we will take a call on that. As you know in my view if the subsidy has to be kept at the level that has been provided for by the government I don't think there is any other option other than increasing the price. When and how much is the issue that government will have to decide."

Explaining the situation that under-recovery has gone up to more than Rs 6 per litre and the international price of petrol has gone up to about a USD 135 a barrel, Singh stresses that there is no option but to hike rates.

The quick fix solution he points out that is if crude falls below USD 100 it will be easy for the government to raise the prices not to very high level and yet maintain the subsidy level of Rs 43,000 crore.

'Oily' woes

The government had decontrolled petrol price in June 2010, diesel and domestic LPG are sold at highly subsidised prices.

However, even petrol price have not moved in tandem with cost with state oil firms losing over Rs 5 a litre because of an informal moratorium imposed in view of assembly polls. They currently lose Rs 14.73 a litre on diesel, Rs 30.10 a litre on kerosene and Rs 439.50 per LPG cylinder.

In the current fiscal, the government has provided Rs 65,000 crore in fuel subsidy, which it hopes to trim down to Rs 40,000 crore in 2012-13. It targets to bring down the subsidy bill to below 2% of GDP in FY'13.