SEBI on vigil for market manipulators

Sources close to the development said that authorities are being extra-cautious this time,as a number of manipulating activities were noticed in the previous bull run,when the market benchmark Sensex had hit a record peak in early 2008.

The Sensex had scaled an all-time peak of 21,206.77 points on January 10,but after a sharp meltdown thereafter,which continued till March,2009,it fell to near 8,000 points.

However,the markets have recovered since then and the Sensex last week regained the 20,000-point mark and rose to as high as 20,105.54 points on September 22.

A senior SEBI official said that a number of cases had come up in 2008-09,wherein market manipulators — and in some cases,companies or their top officials — also had pushed up share prices to cash in on retail investors’ growing interest in the markets in the midst of the bull run.

Small retail investors generally get attracted to the market only after new peaks have been achieved by the indices and sometimes they get lured into already expensive stocks by these market manipulators,the official said.

Once the small investors are lured into these stocks,whose prices have been inflated by measures like circular trading and rumour-mongering,the manipulators make a quick exit at higher levels,he added.

On the radar of the regulator and the bourses would be those seeking to push share prices through ‘planting of positive reports’ outside the regulatory framework of first informing the exchanges,a senior official at a leading bourse said.

As part of their efforts,SEBI and the bourses will keep a close eye on reports from the media,brokerage firms and investment banks about already listed or to-be-listed firms and would seek to verify the authenticity,as well as the source and intention of these reports,the official added.

These efforts would include consulting information in the public domain,as well as seeking details from the concerned companies and other authorities,the SEBI official said.

Another area of concern for the regulator is high pricing of public issues in times of a bull run. SEBI Chairman C B Bhave last week rued the trend in a conference of merchant bankers and asked them to price public offers reasonably.

Sources said that the SEBI might consider bringing in some norms for greater transparency in the way public offers are priced to ward off any attempt to keep the prices at unreasonably high levels.

Hyundai to launch 2-3 new models every year: Park

Mumbai,Sep 26 (PTI)

Leading carmaker Hyundai has said it will launch two-three new models every year to tap the rapidly growing small car market and maintain market share.

“We will continue to launch two to three new models every year. The domestic market demand is increasing and we want to en-cash it,” Hyundai Motor India Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Han-Woo Park said after launching an upgraded version of i10 here over the weekend.

Hyundai claims 20.6 per cent market share in the domestic market and hopes to retain double-digit figure in future too.

“We will continue to maintain our market share with the launch of new models in the coming days,” Park said.

He also announced the company will be launching its sports utility vehicle Santa Fe next month. He also said the company is developing a new small car but did not give any time frame for it.

“It is being developed in Korea,” he said.

Hyundai has been planning to launch an immediate rival to Maruti’s highly successful Alto for long. The proposed small car would be positioned below its existing flagship model Santro and will compete with the Alto,which is the largest selling car in the country with average sales of over 20,000 units a month.

According to the industry body SIAM data,domestic car sales rose 33.24 per cent to 1,60,794 units in August compared to 1,20,681 units in the same month previous year.

Hyundai currently has two manufacturing facilities at Sriperumbudur which roll out the Santro,i10,i20,Getz in entry to mid-segment,and the Accent,Verna,and Sonata in the sedan segment.

The company,which is the largest car exporter from the country,ships its various models to as many as 110 countries today.

Govt eyes over 20 pc rise in overall revenue collection in Q3

Mumbai,Sep 26 (PTI)

The Government expects an over 20 per cent increase in its overall revenue collection in Q3 of the current fiscal,a senior Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) official said.

“I am hoping that in Q3,we can see an increase of about 22-23 per cent in the overall revenue collection. This will,of course,mean an increase of about 25 per cent in the corporate tax collection”,said CBDT’s Member (Revenue),Durgesh Shankar.

However,much would depend on the self-assessment tax,Shankar said,adding filing of returns by companies is due now.

“The returns are due now. There will be a self-assessment tax paid by people who were conservative last year. If such tax collection this time round is higher,then it will impact our overall Q3 collection,” Shankar said.

Self-assessment tax is the amount payable by the taxpayer if his tax liability as assessed by him is more than the advance tax paid by him.

“Q3 (collection) is very important for us,” he said.

Shankar said that there is a definite pattern to tax collection in which the Q1 collection is normally around 15 per cent and Q2 25 per cent,whereas Q3 and Q4 are at 30 per cent each.

Quarter 2 has seen an overall revenue growth of 17 per cent,which is very significant. The impressive thing is that corporate tax has grown by 19 per cent and non-corporate tax by 14 per cent,Shankar said.

“Our expectations were that corporate tax would go up by 23 per cent but the non-corporate tax would peak at 12 per cent. This shows that there is a subtle shift in the engine of the revenue growth,” he said.

The tax authorities are also hopeful of a higher TDS collection at 38 per cent this fiscal as against 36.5 per cent last year on account of certain initiatives taken by the Government to enhance the collection.

“The data (on TDS) which is coming in this year is much cleaner than last year. But it is still not perfect. Last year,our collection from TDS was 36.5 per cent and I am hopeful that this year it will be around 38 per cent,” Shankar said.

He,however,said that Mumbai needed to pull-up its socks and aim for a higher TDS collection.

“Mumbai is doing well. There are certain areas where they need to pull-up its socks such as TDS. They need to enlarge the scope,” he said.