NEW DELHI: the Mahindra Group willrestructure its top management by inducting several fresh faces into its keydecision-making body to reflect the $6.7-billion conglomerate’s expandingbusiness interests.

as part of the restructuring process, it willdismantle its Group Management Board (GMB), which comprised sector presidentsand group vice-chairman Anand Mahindra, the group has announced internally. Itwill be replaced by a Group Executive Board (GEB) from the next financial year.Under the new structure, 15 new faces will be added to the top managementbody.

the new structure coincides with the retirement of two topexecutives of the group — Arun Nanda, who heads the infrastructurevertical, and Anjanikumar Choudhari, who heads the tractor vertical. the choiceof the new names gives an indication of the businesses that are likely to be thegrowth drivers for the group such as retail, infrastructure and hospitality,apart from automobiles, IT and tractors.

the GEB will have a bunch of40-something senior managers who have been groomed since 2004 to take the topjobs across the group’s nine business verticals. In an internal notecirculated on Monday, M&M vice-chairman Anand Mahindra explained the logicbehind what he called “the clean sheetredesign”.

“Since 1997 (when the GMB was set up), thegroup has grown exponentially so that a strong need was felt to enhance andupdate the GMB concept. with wider participation in this board, we will set inmotion a process more suited to creating alignment and exploiting synergies atboth strategic and operational levels, thus creating business value in a vastlyexpanded set of businesses,” he said.

the new names in the GEBroster include VS Parthasarathy, executive vice-president, finance, M&a andcorporate IT; Zhooben Bhiwandiwala, executive vice-president and managingpartner of Mahindra Partners; Anita Arjundas, CEO & MD of Mahindra LifespaceDevelopers and CEO real estate sector; Ramesh Ramanathan, MD, Mahindra Holidaysand CEO hospitality sector; Sanjay Kalra, CEO of Tech Mahindra; Harsh Kumar, MD,Mahindra Intertrade; CP Gurnani, CEO, Mahindra Satyam and Ramesh Iyer, MD,Mahindra Financial Services.

these young stars of the group will joinsector presidents who were earlier part of the GEB such as group CFO BharatDoshi, president of auto and tractor sectors Pawan Goenka, HR president RajeevDubey, Anoop Mathur, president, two-wheeler sector, Systech president HemantLuthra, IT sector president Ulhas Yargop and Uday Phadke, president, finance,legal and financial services.

the overall restructuring process alsoincludes several top level changes within the group. according to anotherinternal note, the business of two sectors — auto and tractors — isbeing reorganised into three profit centres and two integrated keyprocesses.

Each of these is headed by a CEO. the profit centres arethe Swaraj division of the farm equipment sector headed by current CEOBishwambhar Mishra, the tractor division headed by newly minted CEO GautamNagwekar and the auto division headed by also newly appointed CEO RajeshJejurikar. both mr Jejurikar and Nagwekar are currently COOs of their respectiveverticals.

Howare you reading the Nifty’s movement this morning and how would you playthe index?

actually marketswere waiting for one negative news to flow in for them to correct and the Dubaicrisis gave that news for markets to go down, it was more of a knee jerkreaction. most of the Indian companies which have exposure to Dubai markets cameout with clarification as to the extent of losses that they might have tosuffer, which was way below the expectations and we saw that the market bouncedback in the second half and going forward today one thing that will have to waitis around 11:30 Dubai markets would open, we would have to see the reaction inDubai market. For traders that is very important but for investors any fall inthe market is a buying opportunity for longterm.

Right,tell us about auto as a pack because now we are talking about a price hikecoming in mainly because the input side has become dearer for the companies, sostocks like M&M and Tata motors, how would you really playthat?

Definitely if you look atauto sector this is one sector which is exhibiting top line growth unlike othersectors and we have seen that the profits also have seen significant jump andthe cause of concern for most of these auto stocks was the increase in the rawmaterial prices and the commodity prices which will get factored in once theyraise the price of their vehicles. So what they are doing is the rise incommodity prices or rise in raw material prices being passed onto the endbuyers. So all said and done, this is one sector which will benefit and this isone sector which is seeing strong momentum growth and seeing strong top linesales and this will continue for few more quarters tocontinue.

A park bench in Redhouse Park, Birmingham, after heavy rain. this month has been one of the wettest since reocrds began. Photograph: David Jones/PA

Britain was drenched by one of the wettest Novembers, the Met Office said today.

The month has had the fifth-highest amount of rainfall on record and is likely to climb further up the rankings when figures for the last week are added tomorrow.

Cumbria’s 58-year November record of 267 mm (10.5 ins) was broken in 24 hours this month, with the total exceeding 316.7mm. Eskdalemuir, in Dumfries and Galloway, also had its wettest month. Up to 24 November, 422 mm of rain had fallen, beating the previous high of 402 mm from February 1997.

A Met Office spokesman said November could be the UK’s third or fourth wettest since records began in 1914.

He said: “There’s been a lot of rain in parts of the country over the past few days and it’s possible it could end up being the third or fourth wettest November on record when the figures are averaged out tomorrow.”

The high of 193.6mm was set during the floods of 1951. the second wettest November was in 1940 (190.4mm), the third (188mm) in 1929 and fourth (182.2mm) in 1954. Figures for up to 24 November show 176.2mm of rain has fallen so far this month, putting it in fifth place.

Temperatures across the country are expected to plummet to -5C (23F) over the next two days, with northern England and Scotland braced for a blanket of snow.

Among the areas that could experience up to 5cm of snowfall are those around Cockermouth in Cumbria, which was submerged just over a week ago after more than 304mm of rainfall in 24 hours.

MUMBAI:Indices were on a firm foot on Wednesday as buying activity resumed across theboard ahead of November series expiry. however volatility later in the daycan’t be ruled out.

At 12:29 pm, Bombay StockExchange’s Sensex was at 17269.62, up 138.54 points or 0.81 per cent. The30-share index hit an intra-day high of 17284.30 and low of 17124.15.

National Stock Exchange’s Nifty was at 5123.25, up 32.05 points or0.70 per cent.

“Nifty depicted signs of weakness on shortterm charts with formation of distributive patterns. Short term oscillators havebeen depicting sign of weakness for some time. Despite the divergence the indexso far continued to form higher peaks and troughs. Failure to rally past 5110would lead to increasing weakness in the index. Short term supports are placedat 5050 and below that at 5020 while 5110 remain crucial supply zone. Trenddecider level remains at 4900 and 5185 which may lead for unfolding of a biggermove,” said Edelweiss report.

BSE Midcap Index was up 0.77 percent and BSE Smallcap Index gained 0.93 per cent.

amongst thesectoral indices, BSE Oil&gas Index was up 1.76 per cent, BSE Metal Indexmoved 1.33 per cent higher and BSE Auto Index gained 1.10 per cent. BSE RealtyIndex was down 0.22 per cent.

Reliance Industries (1.90%), Mahindra& Mahindra (1.75%), Hero Honda (1.66%), Maruti Suzuki (1.61%) and ITC(1.46%) were amongst the top Sensex gainers.

DLF (-0.86%), NTPC(-0.46%), ICICI Bank (-0.42%), Tata Power (-0.34%) and Wipro (-0.14%) wereamongst the top losers.

Market breadth was positive on the BSE with1608 advances and 913 declines.

MUMBAI:Indices were on a firm foot on Wednesday as buying activity resumed across theboard ahead of November series expiry. However volatility later in the daycan’t be ruled out.

At 12:29 pm, Bombay StockExchange’s Sensex was at 17269.62, up 138.54 points or 0.81 per cent. The30-share index hit an intra-day high of 17284.30 and low of 17124.15.

National Stock Exchange’s Nifty was at 5123.25, up 32.05 points or0.70 per cent.

“Nifty depicted signs of weakness on shortterm charts with formation of distributive patterns. Short term oscillators havebeen depicting sign of weakness for some time. Despite the divergence the indexso far continued to form higher peaks and troughs. Failure to rally past 5110would lead to increasing weakness in the index. Short term supports are placedat 5050 and below that at 5020 while 5110 remain crucial supply zone. Trenddecider level remains at 4900 and 5185 which may lead for unfolding of a biggermove,” said Edelweiss report.

BSE Midcap Index was up 0.77 percent and BSE Smallcap Index gained 0.93 per cent.

amongst thesectoral indices, BSE Oil&gas Index was up 1.76 per cent, BSE Metal Indexmoved 1.33 per cent higher and BSE Auto Index gained 1.10 per cent. BSE RealtyIndex was down 0.22 per cent.

Reliance Industries (1.90%), Mahindra& Mahindra (1.75%), Hero Honda (1.66%), Maruti Suzuki (1.61%) and ITC(1.46%) were amongst the top Sensex gainers.

DLF (-0.86%), NTPC(-0.46%), ICICI Bank (-0.42%), Tata Power (-0.34%) and Wipro (-0.14%) wereamongst the top losers.

Market breadth was positive on the BSE with1608 advances and 913 declines.

MUMBAI:Indices were on a firm foot on Wednesday as buying activity resumed across theboard ahead of November series expiry. However volatility later in the daycan’t be ruled out.

At 12:29 pm, Bombay StockExchange’s Sensex was at 17269.62, up 138.54 points or 0.81 per cent. The30-share index hit an intra-day high of 17284.30 and low of 17124.15.

National Stock Exchange’s Nifty was at 5123.25, up 32.05 points or0.70 per cent.

“Nifty depicted signs of weakness on shortterm charts with formation of distributive patterns. Short term oscillators havebeen depicting sign of weakness for some time. Despite the divergence the indexso far continued to form higher peaks and troughs. Failure to rally past 5110would lead to increasing weakness in the index. Short term supports are placedat 5050 and below that at 5020 while 5110 remain crucial supply zone. Trenddecider level remains at 4900 and 5185 which may lead for unfolding of a biggermove,” said Edelweiss report.

BSE Midcap Index was up 0.77 percent and BSE Smallcap Index gained 0.93 per cent.

amongst thesectoral indices, BSE Oil&gas Index was up 1.76 per cent, BSE Metal Indexmoved 1.33 per cent higher and BSE Auto Index gained 1.10 per cent. BSE RealtyIndex was down 0.22 per cent.

Reliance Industries (1.90%), Mahindra& Mahindra (1.75%), Hero Honda (1.66%), Maruti Suzuki (1.61%) and ITC(1.46%) were amongst the top Sensex gainers.

DLF (-0.86%), NTPC(-0.46%), ICICI Bank (-0.42%), Tata Power (-0.34%) and Wipro (-0.14%) wereamongst the top losers.

Market breadth was positive on the BSE with1608 advances and 913 declines.

MUMBAI:Indices were on a firm foot on Wednesday as buying activity resumed across theboard ahead of November series expiry. however volatility later in the daycan’t be ruled out.

At 12:29 pm, Bombay StockExchange’s Sensex was at 17269.62, up 138.54 points or 0.81 per cent. The30-share index hit an intra-day high of 17284.30 and low of 17124.15.

National Stock Exchange’s Nifty was at 5123.25, up 32.05 points or0.70 per cent.

“Nifty depicted signs of weakness on shortterm charts with formation of distributive patterns. Short term oscillators havebeen depicting sign of weakness for some time. Despite the divergence the indexso far continued to form higher peaks and troughs. Failure to rally past 5110would lead to increasing weakness in the index. Short term supports are placedat 5050 and below that at 5020 while 5110 remain crucial supply zone. Trenddecider level remains at 4900 and 5185 which may lead for unfolding of a biggermove,” said Edelweiss report.

BSE Midcap Index was up 0.77 percent and BSE Smallcap Index gained 0.93 per cent.

Amongst thesectoral indices, BSE Oil&gas Index was up 1.76 per cent, BSE Metal Indexmoved 1.33 per cent higher and BSE Auto Index gained 1.10 per cent. BSE RealtyIndex was down 0.22 per cent.

Reliance Industries (1.90%), Mahindra& Mahindra (1.75%), Hero Honda (1.66%), Maruti Suzuki (1.61%) and ITC(1.46%) were amongst the top Sensex gainers.

DLF (-0.86%), NTPC(-0.46%), ICICI Bank (-0.42%), Tata Power (-0.34%) and Wipro (-0.14%) wereamongst the top losers.

Market breadth was positive on the BSE with1608 advances and 913 declines.

Koenigsegg’s dramatic decision to forego the takeover of Saab leaves the company’s future in a serious limbo. despite having done the initial formalities in June, Koenigsegg couldn’t seem to get the Swedish government to act as a guarantor for a 400 million euro loan from the European Investment Bank to help the company tide over its crisis and get the all-new Saab 9-5 off the assembly line and on to showroom floors.

When Koenigsegg was announced as the winning bidder back in June, everything seemed to be out of a fairy tale book. The 17-cars-a-year company was buying out a 1,00,000-cars-a-year operation. Christian Von Koenigsegg soon put up a string of individuals and companies together that represented Koenigsegg AB. Beijing Automotive even picked up a stake in Koenigsegg and showed interest in acquiring the tooling for the outgoing Saab 9-5 and assembling it in China. but with Koenigsegg’s and GM’s joint announcement over the week that the former was pulling out of the deal, Saab, as we know it, is walking perilously close towards an early sunset.

What this means is, Saab, its employees and dealers could be without jobs and business by the end of December, unless GM manage to find a last minute buyer. GM had indicated that if it weren’t for Koenigsegg, the firm would have wound up Saab’s operations by the end of the year. that prospect has now re-emerged and it looks like there won’t be any buyers who could walk into the ring at such a short notice.

There are market speculations that Beijing Auto could try on its own, but only after the company has wound down operations. Currently, the mood in Europe is averse to such a move, as was evident in the MG Rover case and recently in another high-profile near sell out of GM’s Opel division. that pretty much leaves the job to one of the larger European car making conglomerates, of whom none want to have anything to do with Saab. VW is busy tying up Porsche and both the large French car makers – PSA and Renault-Nissan are busy trying to walk back into the black.

That pretty much leaves only one company that hasn’t even been in the picture – M&M. this might sound strange, but if you look closely, M&M could gain on a couple of fronts. with its deal with Renault on the Logan looking dicey, Mahindra could find itself with a ready passenger car portfolio, that too in the luxury category. Add the fact that Saab has credible crossover platforms that have been developed and M&M could leverage those learnings and expand its own portfolio of future SUVs/crossovers. one key platform that could benefit from this takeover is its world SUV. It also gives Mahindra a grip in the European market, one which it really hasn’t managed to make deep inroads into the automotive space, unlike the North and South America, while also giving them a strong manufacturing base. besides, M&M has the ability to raise money from the markets and make a serious go at it, simply because of the goodwill that M&M now enjoys on a larger, global scale.

If I were Anand Mahindra, I’d make that call to Sweden right now! an attempt, however small, could signal a much bigger change.

Mahindra Defence Systems (MDS), a unit of M&M will bid for defence projects in India worth $3.5 billion over the next seven years, said its chief executive yesterday.

Khutub Hai, head of MDS, a special division set up in New Delhi to oversee the requirements of the domestic defence sector told Reuters in an interview yesterday, ”Most of projects will come from artillery systems and armoured vehicles.”

Hai said that he hopes to increase revenues from the current $21.7 million to $430 million by 2016 through joint ventures.

In March 2009, M&M had sought shareholders’ approval to spin off two divisions of its defence unit into separate subsidiaries by transferring the land systems and naval systems divisions of MDS into separate companies. (See: M&M proposes to spin off land, sea defence units)

MDS is a current supplier of the entire range of light combat / armoured vehicles and their derivatives for defence / security forces. it also is the largest private sector company supplying bullet-proof vehicles and sea mines.

The company has been awarded industrial licenses by the government of India for Light Armoured Multi Role Vehicles, simulators for weapons and weapon systems, mobile surveillance platforms, sea mines, small arms and Up-armoured vehicles

Meanwhile, the BSE Sensex was down 118.69 points, or 0.69%, to 17061.49.

On BSE, 75,922 shares were traded in the counter as against an average daily volume of 2.33 lakh shares in the past one quarter.

The stock hit a high of Rs 1076, which is also its all-time high. the stock hit a low of Rs 1040 so far during the day. the stock had hit a 52-week low of Rs 235.50 on 3 December 2008.

The stock had outperformed the market over the past one month till 23 November 2009, rising 12.60% as compared to the Sensex’s 2.20% fall. it outperformed the market in past one quarter, gaining 29.99% as against 12.72% rise in the Sensex.

India’s largest tractor maker by sales has an equity capital of Rs 279.82 crore. Face value per share is Rs 10.

The current price of Rs 1066.50 discounts the company’s Q2 September 2009 annualised EPS of Rs 102.86, by a PE multiple of 10.36.

Khutub A Hai, head of Mahindra Defence Systems was quoted by the media as saying that most of the projects will come from artillery systems and armoured vehicles. the firm hopes to ramp up revenues to $430 million by 2016 through joint ventures from the current $21.7 million.

Mahindra has spun off its defence business into mainly two fully-held units focusing on land and naval systems. the land systems business has government’s approval for a joint venture with UK-based BAE Systems. the company plans to design and co-develop mine protection vehicles along with the UK firm.

Indian defence companies will gain access to a potential $100 billion market over the next 10 years, following a new policy that was announced last month allowing domestic firms to bid for large defence contracts.

India, one of the world’s biggest arms importers, wants to increase the role of its private sector which accounts for around one-fifth of the industry market share.

Mahindra & Mahindra’s net profit soared 185% to Rs 702.94 crore on 35.1% increase in net sales to Rs 4665 crore in Q2 September 2009 over Q2 September 2008. the company declared its results on 29 October 2009.

M&M manufactures automobiles, farm equipment and automotive components. the company’s automobile products include light, medium and heavy commercial vehicles, jeep type vehicles and passenger cars. Mahindra & Mahindra also manufactures agricultural tractors, agricultural implements, internal combustion engines, industrial petrol engines, spare parts and machine tools.

Promoters have pledged more than 93.52 lakh shares representing 3.35% of the equity capital of the company. Total promoter shareholding in the company is 27.39% (As on September 2009).