India's Reliance Power Ltd is planning an initial public offering to raise as much as US$3.5 billion, which would be the country's biggest ever initial public offering (IPO), reports said yesterday.
The IPO would be to raise money to develop mega power projects, India's Mint business paper and the Economic Times said.
Reliance Power, a unit of the Bombay Stock Exchange-listed Reliance Energy Ltd, was expected to file the prospectus with market authorities next week, Mint reported, quoting two people close to the plan.
Reliance Energy, led by billionaire businessman Anil Ambani, declined to comment on what the company called "market speculation," the newspapers said.
Reliance Power, part of the Reliance-Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, has been valued at around US$11 billion.
Reliance Power aims to sell shares equivalent to a 15 percent to 30 percent stake in the company, the reports said.
Reliance Power won rights to develop a 4,000 megawatt mega power project at Sasan in the central state of Madhya Pradesh in June. Its parent, Reliance Energy, is building a 1,200 megawatt power plant at Rosa in northern Uttar Pradesh state.
Reports of the IPO drove Reliance Energy Ltd shares up 7.9 percent to 1,205.50 rupees (US$30.33) on Friday.
Separately, Indian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram on Friday told investors "to do their homework" before investing in the domestic share market that has raced to new highs on the back of overseas fund flows.
The advice came as the benchmark Sensex index of the Mumbai stock exchange climbed 140.54 points, or 0.82 percent, to a record 17,291.1, beating the previous best of 17,150.56 on Thursday.
The index has set new highs on eight successive trading days.
"My advice to investors is that they should do their homework," Chidambaram told reporters in New Delhi.
"And if they cannot do their homework, they should trust those who do their homework," he said in an apparent reference to investment advisers. "And for speculators, I have no advice."
Chidambaram's comments came a day after Indian Corporate Affairs Minister P.C. Gupta urged investors to be sensible.
The Sensex has gained 10 percent since the US Federal Reserve cut rates more than a week ago.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six