L&T Finance Sets Date for IPO

MUMBAI –L&T Finance Holdings Ltd. will launch its initial public offering on July 27 in the largest listing in India so far this year and a key test for investor appetite for a big-ticket share sale in a moribund market.

The share sale is also an important part of Indian engineering giant Larsen & Toubro Ltd.'s plan to spin off some of its non-core businesses into self-sustaining units with independent access to capital markets.

The float, which will raise up to 12.45 billion ($280.4 million), will be in addition to an institutional share placement of 3.30 billion rupees in early July, taking the total funds raised through the exercise to as much as 15.75 billion rupees. That's a little less than the up to 17.50 billion rupees the company had indicated in its draft offer document earlier in the year, as it scaled down its plan due to weak demand in primary markets.

The non-bank lender may accept bids from cornerstone investors a day before the launch of the issue, which runs until July 29, it said in the offer document.

L&T Finance had filed a draft prospectus in September 2010 but delayed its IPO beyond the initial targeted launch of March 2011 as volatile local stock markets soured investor appetite.

The issue, just the third listing in India beyond $100 million in size this year, will be a key barometer of demand in what has so far been a weak IPO market. Dealogic data shows a 52% fall in primary equity deal volumes so far this year.

Finance companies in particular were under pressure as aggressive monetary tightening by India's central bank coupled with moderating economic growth have weighed on investor demand.

However, even another hike at the central bank's rate-setting meeting on July 26, a day before the issue's launch, is unlikely to deter investors from buying into the shares, said S. Tulsian, a broker at the Bombay Stock Exchange. Tulsian added that parent Larsen & Toubro's past performance could encourage retail investors to buy into the latest offering by the group.

JM Financial Consultants Pvt., Citigroup Global Markets India Pvt., HSBC Securities and Capital Markets India Pvt. Barclays Securities (India) Pvt., Credit Suisse Securities (India) Pvt., and Equirus Capital Pvt. are managing the issue.

The non-bank lender may accept bids from cornerstone investors a day before the issue opens, it said in the offer document. The offer will close on July 29. L&T Finance has already raised 3.3 billion rupees in an institutional share placement ahead of the public offering.

JM Financial Consultants Pvt., Citigroup Global Markets India Pvt., HSBC Securities and Capital Markets India Pvt., Barclays Securities (India) Pvt., Credit Suisse Securities (India) Pvt., and Equirus Capital Pvt. are managing the issue.

Oil Gains in New York as U.S. Supplies, China Demand Counter Europe Debt

Oil climbed in New York as signs of shrinking crude stockpiles in the U.S. and rising demand in China countered speculation that Europe’s debt crisis will temper fuel demand.
Futures advanced as much as 0.5 percent before a report tomorrow that may show U.S. inventories dropped a seventh week. Prices also rose after China said its apparent fuel consumption rose 7.2 percent in the first half. Crude slipped yesterday amid concern Europe’s leaders will be unable to agree on steps to contain the region’s debt crisis at a summit this week.
“It’s summer drive-time, inventories are coming back a bit and people are suggesting that the economy is not going to falter,” said Jonathan Barratt, a managing director of Commodity Broking Services Pty in Sydney, who predicts oil in New York will average $100 a barrel this year. “The market’s not decided as to what the consequences are to oil yet” from the debt situation, he said.
Crude for August delivery gained as much as 45 cents to $96.38 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, and was at $96.18 at 12:08 p.m. Sydney time. The contract yesterday declined $1.31 to $95.93, the lowest since July 14. Prices are up 26 percent the past year. The more actively traded September future climbed 22 cents to $96.47.
Brent oil for September settlement rose as much as 45 cents, or 0.4 percent, to $116.50 a barrel on the ICE Futures Europe exchange. Prices are 54 percent higher the past year.

Crude Stockpiles

Brent crude may climb to more than $123 a barrel if prices can exceed a series of “swing highs,” according to technical analysts FuturesTechs.com Ltd. The contract may advance to $123.22 if it breaks through a sequence of pivot points formed by earlier peaks, beginning at $119.86 to $119.87, FuturesTechs said in a report yesterday.
The Energy Department report may show U.S. crude supplies fell 1.5 million barrels for a seventh week in the seven days ended July 15, according to the median of 10 analyst estimates in a Bloomberg News survey. Gasoline inventories probably slid 100,000 barrels from 211.7 million, the survey shows.
Bret, the second tropical storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, is moving northeast away from the coast of Florida on a track that will take it out to sea, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. In the eastern Pacific, Tropical Storm Dora formed yesterday about 400 miles (644 kilometers) south-southeast of Salina Cruz, Mexico, the center said.
International Energy Agency member nations are likely to decide against offering more oil after last month’s stockpile release failed to curb prices and Middle East output rose, according to a Bloomberg News survey. The IEA will say on about July 23 whether they will continue emergency sales to make up for supply choked off by the Libyan conflict.

NASA spacecraft is orbiting massive asteroid

PASADENA, Calif.—NASA's Dawn spacecraft was captured into orbit around the massive asteroid Vesta after a 1.7 billion-mile journey and is preparing to begin a study of a surface that may date to the earliest era of the solar system, the space agency said Monday.

The entry into orbit occurred while the spacecraft's antenna was pointed away from Earth, so mission controllers had to wait for Dawn to re-establish contact to confirm its success.

The capture was estimated to have occurred at 10 p.m. PDT Friday, when Dawn was 9,900 miles from Vesta and 117 million miles from Earth in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, according to a statement from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

"We are beginning the study of arguably the oldest extant primordial surface in the solar system," the mission's principal investigator, Christopher Russell from the University of California, Los Angeles, said in the statement.

NASA said that after the orbital capture, Dawn sent an initial close-up image taken for navigation purposes. Before the Dawn mission, images of Vesta were obtained by ground- and space-based telescopes but did not show much surface detail.

Vesta, 330 miles in diameter, is the second-most massive object in the asteroid belt and is believed to be the source of many meteorites that fall to Earth.

Dawn will continue to approach Vesta over the next three weeks, search for possible moons and make more navigation images. It begins

Minnesota grinds budget details to end shutdown

(Reuters) - Minnesota political leaders on Monday were grinding toward reaching agreements on budget details needed to end a now 18-day-old state government shutdown that has left thousands of state workers furloughed.

Minnesota's Democratic Governor Mark Dayton has yet to call for the special session needed to approve spending bills and end the shutdown, but ordered the Capitol and state office buildings in St. Paul reopened on Tuesday morning.

The buildings have been closed to the public since the shutdown began on July 1 and Dayton said the reopening would "allow public access and transparency as the legislature prepares to reconvene to pass a budget."

Final versions of four proposed spending bills were posted publicly on state House and Senate websites by Monday evening. Dayton has said he would call a special session once all of the nine spending bills were prepared and reviewed.

Dayton, House Speaker Kurt Zellers and Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch on Thursday said they had reached the framework of a budget agreement to end the shutdown and hoped to complete the detailed bills for a special session early this week.

The governor and legislative leaders, state commissioners, committee leaders and staff members have been working since Friday to craft the details of spending bills needed for the two-year general fund budget of about $35.4 billion.

Dayton and the Republican leaders have all said they were unhappy with their proposed budget plan but believed it was a compromise they must support to eliminate a $5 billion budget deficit and end the government shutdown.

The debate in Minnesota has mirrored those in the nation's capital over the debt ceiling.

The budget framework does not include any of the income tax increases Dayton sought and it has higher spending levels than Republicans wanted. Republican leaders also agreed to give up on some social policy changes they had sought.

'SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE'

The deal proposes to close a $1.4 billion difference between the Dayton and Republican spending plans by delaying $700 million in school payments and issuing $700 million in state debt with revenue from a tobacco industry settlement.

Economists have said the proposed budget fixes would not resolve Minnesota's longer term fiscal problems, but only push them forward two years into the next fiscal biennium in 2014 and 2015 and make them slightly worse.

The resolution could not come sooner for hundreds of Minnesota bars, liquor stores and restaurants running low on alcohol because their state buyer's permits have expired.

The shutdown has forced closure of state parks, historic sites, rest stops, two horse-racing tracks and the suspension of about 100 road construction projects -- but the threat of beer taps running dry has generated broad attention.

A state judge ruled on Monday that the renewal of those permits was not a critical state function and clerks needed to do so would not be returned to work until the shutdown ends.

About 300 liquor retailers across the state have been unable to buy more inventory because buyer's identification cards have expired. Another 400 or so businesses could face dwindling inventory if the shutdown continues past August 1.

The buyer's cards must be renewed annually for a $20 fee and most businesses renewed them before the shutdown began.

While the bars and restaurants cannot buy any alcohol stronger than 3.2 percent without the cards, the impact is strongest on beer because it is perishable and most businesses keep only about a one or two week supply in inventory.

The Minnesota Licensed Beverage Association had asked state court Judge Kathleen Gearin to require the state to process the permits, arguing in part that the businesses would suffer permanent and significant damage.

Former Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz, appointed by Gearin to hear appeals for relief from the shutdown, recommended denial of the association's request and Gearin adopted that position.

Blatz wrote that the businesses could be harmed if not crippled, but the "solution to this problem does not rest with the judicial branch but rather those branches charged with enacting the state's budget."