Realty, IT prop up markets

Wed, 30 Dec 02:30 pm

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The markets cut some of their losses on the back of buying activity, thus rising closer to the dotted line during the previous two hours of trade. Currently, selling activity is being witnessed across sectors led by stocks from the capital goods, oil & gas, banking, and FMCG sectors. However, realty, consumer durables, IT and telecom sectors are seeing gains.

The BSE-Sensex is trading down by around 15 points and the NSE-Nifty is down by around 5 points. However, midcap and small cap stocks have managed to buck the trend. Currently, the BSE-Midcap and BSE-Smallcap indices are trading up by 0.3% and 1% respectively. The Rupee is trading at 46.71 to the Dollar.

According to a leading business daily, Indian IT majors are eyeing US$ 10 bn IT outsourcing deals being proposed as IT restructuring project at General Motors (GM). It may be noted that GM invited bids for US$ 15 bn projects in 2006. However, these projects were deferred on account of GM's restructuring. Now the new management under US government plans to restart these IT projects. Indian IT majors like Infosys, TCS, Wipro and Mahindra Satyam which are already amongst GM's IT suppliers are competing with the global giants like IBM, HP-EDS and Capgemini for the same. GM is also looking for vendor consolidation in IT. It might end up working with fewer vendors which have proven track-records. So the competition is expected to get tougher.

These IT projects are expected to comprise of design, applications and seamless migration from older operating systems to newer ones. The IT service providers will also be responsible for newer deliverables like expense reduction, value-generation etc. So the pricing is expected to be outcome based i.e. it will depend on the effectiveness of the solution rather than the number of software professionals deployed. We believe such non-linear projects will be critical for Indian IT companies which are now aiming to decouple their growth from the employee headcount.

Wind turbine major Suzlon is currently trading marginally lower on the bourses. As per a leading business publication, Belgium industrial gearbox maker Hansen Transmissions is looking to increase its presence in the Chinese market after Suzlon cut its stake in the company. Recently Suzlon divested 35% of its 61% stake in Hansen to repay debt taken for its other major acquisition REpower. Suzlon now holds 26% in Hansen. Hansen is planning a Euro 200 m integrated wind turbine gearbox manufacturing plant in China, which is expected to be completed in April 2011. The plant will have an annual production capacity of up to 3,000 MW and an employee strength of about 600 people. The company has also commenced a Euro 270 m project to build an integrated plant for the manufacture of wind turbine gearboxes at Coimbatore which is expected to reach full capacity in April 2011. It may be noted that Hansen supplies gearboxes to four large manufacturers of wind turbines, Vestas, Gamesa, Siemens Wind and Suzlon. With Suzlon’s lesser say in Hansen’s strategic decisions post the selling of its controlling stake in the company, Hansen’s plans for the Chinese market may now be more independent of Suzlon’s interests.