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Non-Tech ICICI Ltd - (Nyse: IC)

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To: Labrador who wrote (468)	4/2/2000 10:28:00 AM
From: Labrador	of 494

ICICI Web core team quits Hemangi Balse MUMBAI 03/30/2000 Business Standard Page 1 Copyright (c) Business Standard The core team of ICICI Web Trade, the web trading subsidiary of ICICI , has quit. This includes chief operating officer Jaideep Arora, chief content provider Mitesh Kamdar and chief marketing officer Deepak Ravindran. These employees are reportedly setting up their own dotcom ventures.They refused to commented on their future plans. Denial of employee stock options and a plan to merge group company ICICI Capital Services Ltd (formerly SCICI Securities) with ICICI Web Trade, which apparently operates to the latter's disadvantage, reportedly prompted the employees to quit. "No decision has been taken" on merging ICICI Capital Services with ICICI Web Trade, said ICICI Web Trade chief executive officer Madhabi Puri Buch. The merger is likely to be on the lines of top American e-broker Charles Schwab's `online-offline model'. Buch also denied that the mass exit would disrupt the company's projects. "Icicidirect.com, which was so far in a project stage, has reached the stage of public launch and therefore it is now well assimilated as a full-fledged ICICI group company,' she said. A new team of highly talented people had taken over the projects and the transition from project mode to full operations would be smooth, she added. ICICI lined up another team comprising Anoop Bagchi and Abhijit Ghosh within 24 hours of the old team's departure. While Bagchi is a trader with ICICI , Ghosh was in charge of the research team of ICICI Mutual Fund and is the new content manager. "The resignations have not surprised ICICI because in the dotcom world, there is always movement of staff," said Buch. She denied that there was any issue on ESOPs within the company. A member of the old team told Business Standard, "We have been bitten by the entrepreneurial bug. We are professionals and just wanted to understand how the dotcom world feels and operates. We are fairly clued in now, and would like to seek independent futures." The web company claims to have received more than 10,000 registrations for its Net trading product and is the first entity in the country to provide both the broking, cash and share settlement function under one roof on the Internet. ICICI Bank has been providing the cash settlement while ICICI 's depository participant service will enable on-line settlement of shares.

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To: Labrador who wrote (469)	4/2/2000 10:30:00 AM
From: Labrador	of 494

ICICI Bank shares seen firm on NYSE listing. By Anirban Nag 03/29/2000 Reuters English News Service (C) Reuters Limited 2000. BOMBAY, March 29 (Reuters) - Private sector ICICI Bank's American Depositary Shares (ADS), which rose 27 percent on its New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) debut on Tuesday, are expected to rise further in the short-term, analysts said. ICICI Bank , the first Indian bank to tap the U.S market, closed at $14 on its first day of trading against an issue price of $11 each. The bank has been started by India's leading financial services firm ICICI Ltd . "I guess the price should remain firm as demand is huge," Anand Vasudevan, Vice President, corporate research, SG Asia Securities told Reuters. The bank said the ADS issue received bids worth $2.2 billion including $1.5 billion from institutional investors and $700 million from retail investors. ICICI Bank priced its ADS, which comprises of two domestic shares, at a 5.5 premium to the five-day average price on the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange. "It appears to be a good price for the investors. They will see an appreciation of at least 50 percent in the next five days," Vimal Jain of Prime Broking Company said. NO REAL CONCERNS Analysts said although the domestic shares were volatile in the past two days, there were really no concerns about the bank's performance which could affect its overseas price. Shares of ICICI Bank fell over seven percent in Wednesday morning trade to 240.45 rupees before recovering to close at 271.25 rupees, up 9.90 over the previous close. Analysts said the local stock was beaten down in early trade because of worries over additional provisions announced this week by ICICI Bank towards non-performing loans. The bank said this week it was making additional provisions of 135 million rupess under the U.S generally accepted accounting principles in the fourth quarter towards non-performing loans. "Going forward there are really no concerns. They are likely to make large profits and I do not see the bank's asset quality really deteriorating as they are targeting top corporate clients. The profits should take care of the additional provisioning," Vasudevan of SG Asia said. ICICI Bank's third quarter net profit in the current financial year (1999/2000) jumped about 100 percent to 282.6 million from 140.4 million in the same period in the previous year. Analysts said Internet banking will also be the driving force behind surging profits ICICI Bank is likely to post in the long-term. "The private sector banks have done well on the Internet front and are expected to record a fast growth rate," Tabassum Inamdar of Jardine Fleming India Broking said. Bank officials and analysts said the bank will leverage its Internet banking products to generate fee based income in the future. "We expect an exponential growth in the area of Internet. Right now the penetration level is low. There are about 450,000 internet users but going forward the estimates are there will be 20-30 million Internet users in three years," H N Sinor,Managing Director of ICICI Bank told Reuters Television. He said the bank clearly has a first mover advantage when the market for Internet users opens up in India. "The overseas market has taken their future plans and Internet strategy very well," Hemendra Hazari, banking analyst at ASK-Raymond James said. ((Anirban Nag, +91 22 265-9000, fax +91 22 264-1699, bombay.newsroom@reuters.com)).

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To: Labrador who wrote (470)	4/2/2000 10:33:00 AM
From: Labrador	of 494

ICICI in race for capturing Web domains Vivek Law & Sangita Mehta MUMBAI 03/25/2000 Business Standard Page 8 Copyright (c) Business Standard ICICI Ltd, which has identified itself as a major player in the Internet age, is in no mood to let go of any opportunity to cash in on registering domain names. ICICI has over 100 domain names registered, although its Investmartindia.com and jeevanbeema.com have rankled those who thought that the sites were near similar to their generic products. The reason: The right domain name is often half the battle won in the Net age. Among the sites registered is a complete `oye' series. According to sources, the domain names have been registered for B2B and B2C city-wise portal. "However, it is not yet clear whether it would eventually do business through these domains," sources said. The list of ICICI domains of the `oye' series are oyedilli.com, oyeahmedabad.com, oyevaranasi.com, oyeindore.com, oyepune.com, oyemumbai.com, oyeicici.com, oyeindiacities.com, oyeamritsar.com, oyebaroda.com, oyemangal-ore.com, oyebombay.com, oyekanpur.com, oyecochin.com, oyecalcutta.com, oyekolkata.com, oyechennai.com, oyepatna.com, oyebhopal.com, oyeludhiana.com, oyelucknow.com, oyepoona.com, oyehyderabad.com, oyebhubhaneshwar.com, oyebangal-ore.com, oyemadurai.com, oyeallahabad.com, oyetrivandrum.com, oyevadodara.com, oyebanar-as.com, oyeudaipur.com, oyenashik.com, oyenagpur.com, oyejamshedpur.com, oyejammu.com, oyecal.com and oyemadras.com. But this is not all. There are key2bank.com, speedbanx.com, icicistore.com, indiahomeguide.com, bondsindia.com, savingsindia.com, icici .net, chardiwar.com, indiahomesearch.com, propertiesforu.com, icici .org, awaara2.com, awaara.com, 4deewar.com, fixeddeposits.com, dematindia.com, jeevanbeema.com, chardeewar.com, hamaraghar.com, What's more: icicinetaidindia.com, netcharityindia.org, e- icici .com, netindiacharity.com, icici -bank.com, antumoptima.com, iciciloans.com, icicibanknet.com, indiamfseek.com, etindiacharity.org, icicidepositary.com, icicibrokerage.com, icicibonds2.com, icici -bonds.com, indiainvestmentsee-k.com, icicitech.com, indiadematseek.com, icici .com, eicicibank.com, iciciprudent-ial.com, indiainsuranceseek.com, indiadurableseek.com, icicinet.co-m, icici -online.com, iciciweb.com, icicimall.com, iciciemall.com, iciciinfotech.com, eicici.com, iciciebank.com, icicieloans.com, icici -brokerage.com, homesindia.com, icici -securities.com, indialoan-seek.com, icici -loans.com, icicidemat.com, icicisecurities.com and icicimall.com. safetybonds.com, icicinetbank.com and icicieinvest.com.

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To: Labrador who wrote (471)	4/2/2000 10:36:00 AM
From: Labrador	of 494

I've spend about 6 hours this weekend reading about IC (and ICICI Bank). I feel very comfortable in saying that IC is misunderstood in the U.S., and that its many ventures could prove IC to be a highly successful new age model for an India-based Softbank or CMGI-type company. The question is how does one value its many net ventures? It is too bad there does not seem to be active coverage by a major investment house; if there were....

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To: Mohan Marette who wrote ()	4/4/2000 8:09:00 AM
From: Labrador	of 494

FINALLY A U.S. press release on Yahoo -- We're finally getting some coverage.http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/000404/gp.html Tuesday April 4, 7:47 am Eastern Time ICICI unit ties up with Sun BOMBAY, April 4 (Reuters) - India's ICICI Infotech and Sun Microsystems (NasdaqNM:SUNW - news) on Tuesday signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for jointly incubating dotcom startups and for creating a data centre. The data centre will allow dotcom companies to test and evaluate new technologies and will also serve as an application service provider, a statement from ICICI Infotech said. A proposed disaster recovery centre will act as a backup to the data centre, it said. ICICI Infotech, which is a fully owned subsidiary of financial services firm ICICI Ltd (NYSE:ICd - news), is planning to get its shares listed shortly either on the Nasdaq or on Indian bourses, ICICI's Managing Director K.V.Kamath said. ``ICICI Infotech will list...I guess it will be sometime this year,' he said. Shares of ICICI ended 10.75 rupees lower at 124.25 at the Bombay Stock Exchange on Tuesday.

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To: Mohan Marette who wrote (463)	4/6/2000 6:01:00 AM
From: Labrador	of 494

Thursday April 6, 1:23 am Eastern Time RESEARCH ALERT-ICICI price target raised BOMBAY, April 6 (Reuters) - Morgan Stanley Dean Witter said in a recent reserach report it had raised its 12-month price target for Indian financial services firm ICICI Ltd (NYSE:ICd - news) to 207 rupees per share from 164 factoring in an upside from its e-business initiatives. The firm said that it had valued ICICI's core financial services business at 164 rupees per share for March 2001 and its e-business initiatives at 43 rupees. ``The sum total of the two implies a 12-month price target of 207 rupees a share...,' Morgan Stanley said. The broking firm added that ICICI had significant value in its e-business initiatives, and estimated its worth at $1.04 billion . ``We believe a significant chunk of the incremental value added from ICICI's move into e-commerce is in new businesses. These businesses include a payment gateway, incubation facilities, online trading, a real estate portal and proprietary investment in e-commerce-related fields,' Morgan Stanley said. It said the key catalyst for recognition of value would come from the spin off or listing of some these businesses. In late morning trade on Thursday, ICICI shares were traded 2.70 rupees higher at 126.70. biz.yahoo.com

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To: Mohan Marette who wrote ()	4/8/2000 1:13:00 PM
From: Labrador	of 494

INDIA: ICICI shrs jump on e-business valuations. 04/07/2000 Reuters English News Service BOMBAY, April 7 (Reuters) - Shares of Indian financial services firm ICICI Ltd rose eight percent in Friday deals buoyed by higher valuations projected by analysts, in view of its Internet focus. In afternoon deals, ICICI shares were up 10.15 rupees at 137.30 at the Bombay Stock Exchange at the eight percent upper circuit limit. On Thursday leading research house Morgan Stanley Dean Witter said in a research report it had raised its 12-month price target for Indian financial services firm ICICI to 207 rupees per share factoring in an upside from its e-business initiatives. The firm said that it had valued ICICI 's core financial services business at 164 rupees per share for March 2001 and its e-business initiatives at 43 rupees. "The firm is technology savvy and its innovative ways of providing services have made it an investor favorite compared to other stocks in the sector", Fayeza Feroz analyst at Pranav Securities said. Dealers said the jump in ICICI share price is also helped by the sharp overnight rise in its American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) listed at the New York Stock Exchange which surged 17.76 percent to close at $22-3/8. Dealers said its recent tie-ups have also enthused market players. ICICI 's fully owned subsidiary ICICI Infotech on Tuesday tied-up with Sun Microsystems for jointly incubating dotcom startups and for creating a data centre. "Investors not merely looking at the spreads which is the key income for a financial firm but are more interested in ICICI 's innovative plans in e-commerce related fields", Feroz added. ((Sudhir Shetty, Bombay equities, +91 22 265-9000, +91 22 264-1699, bombay.newsroom@reuters.com)).

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To: Labrador who wrote (475)	4/14/2000 8:31:00 AM
From: voop	of 494

totaltele.com Citrix buying Indian Internet U.S.-based Citrix Systems Inc, a software and services company that caters to large computer networks, said on Thursday that it planned to acquire Indian Internet solution and services firm PowerTel BOCA Ltd subject to approval from Indian authorities. "The acquisition will enable Citrix, a global leader in application server software and services, to accelerate its expansion in the Asia-Pacific region," Citrix said in a statement. The statement did not give financial details. A spokeswoman for Citrix said Bangalore-based PowerTel BOCA will become a wholly-owned Citrix subsidiary. A senior Citrix official told a news conference in the southern city of Bangalore that India's federal Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) had on Thursday given its approval to the acquisition and further approvals were required from the central Reserve Bank of India. Nabeel Youakim, the Asia Pacific region managing director for Citrix, said after the acquisition PowerTel BOCA would be known as Citrix Software Ltd and would be headquartered in Bangalore. He added that Citrix would make significant investments in India following the acquisition. "We will make serious investments in India coming in from now...but we would not like to disclose the amount." Youakim said Citrix would invest in people, infrastructure and in setting up new facilities in the Indian cities of Bombay, Hyderabad and Madras. A statement from Citrix said the acquisition will enable it to accelerate its expansion in the Asia-Pacific region. "The acquisition will provide Citrix with a network of established offices throughout India...and access to more than 500 local resellers to complement its existing distribution and channel partner relationships," the statement said. Youakim said Dinesh Puri, managing director of PowerTel BOCA, would be the managing director of Citrix Software after the acquisition was approved. Puri said PowerTel BOCA had 43 employees in India and had posted a turnover of about 140 million rupees ($3.2 million) for the year ended March 31, 2000. He said venture capital firm Draper International and India's ICICI Ventures, a unit of Indian financial services firm ICICI Ltd , together owned 42 percent of PowerTel BOCA before the acquisition. He said PowerTel BOCA had started as a modem manufacturer four years ago before moving towards Internet solutions and services.

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To: Mohan Marette who wrote ()	4/18/2000 2:47:00 PM
From: Labrador	of 494

ICICI Web alters commission Our Banking Bureau MUMBAI 04/18/2000 Business Standard Page 13 Copyright (c) Business Standard ICICI Web Trade Ltd has revised the commission structure on its product and would be now offering four slabs to its customers from the earlier two-tiered structure. The lowest rate would be 0.4 per cent for those customers who trade values more than Rs 1 crore within the same settlement with the effective commission per leg for squared off trades being 0.2 per cent. This new structure was announced at the launch of trading on the site, ICICIDirect.com. For trades below Rs 10 lakh per quarter the commission of 0.85 per cent has been retained which is likely to be valid for most retail customers. Initially around 5,000 accounts have been activated though this number could increase soon to 22,000 which is the number of registrations that the company has received. ICICIDirect had been accepting registrations since the middle of February and is expected to have roped in many sub brokers. Madhabi Puri Buch, chief executive officer of ICICI Web Trade, said, "This revision in rate structure has taken place on account of customer feedback. "Currently only the cash product is available with margins expected to be introduced in the next few months. We are also in talks with the US Securities and Exchange Commission for appropriate jurisdiction for allowing foreign investors and non-resident Indians to trade." According to company officials, the SEC requires them not to solicit any investor in the US to trade on their site. "This would include even those individuals who have only a bank account in the US. However, rules are not as stringent in the middle east and therefore that area is likely to be targeted more in the near future," said a company official. Officials were also of the view that since regulations in the United Kingdom were as stringent as those in the US they would be concentrating on first sorting out issues in the latter due to the greater interest shown by investors in US. Other new slabs include those for trades between Rs 50 lakh and Rs 1 crore which is 0.5 per cent and that for trading volumes between Rs 10 lakh to Rs 50 lakh at 0.6 per cent.

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To: Labrador who wrote (477)	4/18/2000 2:49:00 PM
From: Labrador	of 494

A balance sheet of the 1990s ASHOK V DESAI 04/18/2000 Business Standard Page 11 Copyright (c) Business Standard The state of the Indian economy appears to be embarrassingly sound. It is now two years after the nuclear ceremony, which brought universal condemnation and sanctions upon India; just the month before last President Clinton christened our subcontinent the most dangerous spot in the world, thereby telling American business not to invest in India. Despite this confrontation with the capitalist world, India's balance of payments remains surprisingly strong; through hail and high water, the reserves keep rising. And that is not because of foreign investment. Foreign direct investment is distinctly down after the coming of the BJP governments. Portfolio investment is not, but it is a fickle bird of fancy. It has been down and up. It is here today and may be gone tomorrow. In any case, capital inflows are not responsible for the rising reserves. One cannot avoid the conclusion that the external fundamentals are strong. And more surprisingly, inflation is down. The level of inflation showed a distinct fall from 1996 onwards; in the past year it has come down to levels that have not been seen since the days before socialism and the grand follies. Something has changed; we are no longer in the boom-and-bust mode of the 1960s, 1970s or 1980s. What has changed? Five things in particular. First, industry is no longer in a position to pass on cost increases. Domestic competition has increased, and now there is some competition from abroad as well. This accounts for much of the fall in inflation. For this, the credit must go to the Fund and the Bank, which forced us to abolish industrial licensing in 1991, and to Narasimha Rao who had the sense to yield to force. If the Fund and the Bank had any strategic sense, they would be advertising their success in India instead of drawing comfort from Cte d'Ivoire and El Salvador. Second, the illegal balance of payments has collapsed. The hawala premium has disappeared, and billions of dollars that used to be siphoned off into illegal foreign exchange transactions. For this, credit again goes to the Fund and the Bank they forced us to devalue in 1991, begin to dismantle import licensing in 1992, and start reducing tariffs in 1993 and to Manmohan Singh at the finance ministry and P Chidambaram at the commerce ministry who carried out these changes. But I would now give greater credit to Chidambaram. For when Manmohan Singh liberalised gold imports through NRIs without releasing foreign exchange for them, he in effect legalised smuggling; most of the gold came to be brought in by couriers of big Dubai smugglers. When Chidambaram allowed a few banks to import and sell gold in 1996, he dug the grave of gold smuggling. We see the effects of this single measure today in the death-throes of hawala. The rise in the reserves is due to the fall in the demand for gold and smuggled goods, and in foreign exchange balances illegally held abroad. The third change is something Manmohan Singh did in a moment of righteousness. He felt it was unfair that the government should take away people's savings without a by-your-leave through the loans it compulsorily sold to the banks. So he resolved in 1992, without anyone asking him, that the central government and its institutions would no longer resort to the Statutory Liquidity Ratio. On the face of it, it changed nothing; even now the Reserve Bank sells thousands of crores of central securities to the banks. But the absorption is no longer automatic; the Reserve Bank has to cajole, threaten, twist arms, and even then it sometimes cannot sell the loans. It has had to raise interest rates; the cost to the government has gone up. IDBI and ICICI have had to raise money from retail investors at high interest rates. The change is working its way through the system. When Yashwant Sinha inveighs against the fiscal deficit, he is not being a reformer; he is just reflecting the consequences of Manmohan Singh's decision. The fourth change is in taxation. Manmohan Singh brought down the income tax rates. If I write that revenue has increased as a result, S S Bagai will immediately write back showing that it has not as a proportion of non-agricultural income. But I would still claim that that in a country where tax evasion is so rife, all taxation is unfair to honest taxpayers; the reduction in taxes has evened the scales slightly in their favour. It is not just the tax reduction; there are two further fiscal changes. One is that the rate of corporate tax and the peak personal rate of tax are about the same, so the gains from declaring personal expenses as corporate expenses have declined, and so have the advantages of controlling companies for that purpose. And Yashwant Sinha abolished the tax on dividends in the hands of shareholders, and thereby reduced the double taxation of dividends (as against the single taxation of undistributed profits). This too reduced the advantage of controlling companies. With these two changes, a promoter no longer has to control a company to be able to live off its profits; he can hand it over to competent managers and live comfortably as a shareholder. A handful of promoters have done so already; many more have hired more competent CEOs than themselves. The last change is not very clear to me: something has happened in the foodgrain market. In the 1970s, the Green Revolution created a flood of wheat; to save Punjabi farmers from distress, the central government turned the rationing scheme into a scheme to subsidise foodgrains and increase their consumption. But there are always many claimants for a subsidy: farmers, who would like higher prices, consumers, who would like lower prices, and the officials of Food Corporation, who would like fat margins to blow up on themselves. The farmers have politically been the most powerful, and have won an annual support price increase of 10-15 per cent year after year. That is what raised the rate of inflation from an average 7 per cent in the 1950s and 1960s to 11 per cent in the 1980s, even though the growth rate of foodgrain output rose. In the 1990s, somehow, the political advantage of pushing up support prices petered out. The first sign came in the eight state elections of 1994-95, of which the Congress lost six. Manmohan Singh connected this to Balram Jakhar's pushing up of support prices by 60 per cent in three years. He applied all brakes and brought down inflation to an incredible 4 per cent by the general election of 1996; but the Congress still lost it. The present government is, if anything, even more beholden to Punjabi farmers; but it has been more circumspect in raising support prices. The urban supporters of the BJP have at last found a voice. So inflation has come down, and I think the fall may last. These five changes have buttressed the economy and opened up great opportunities. In the next article I shall suggest how the momentum imparted by these reforms can be maintained. ........................................................................................................................................

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