19November2008

FM asks India Inc to lower prices
Finance minister of India, Mr. P. Chidambaram has urged urged India Inc. CEO to lower prices. This is in view to increase the sale and hence safeguard the jobs which is quite possible in large scale. CEOs of automobile industry, builders etc. expressed inability to lower price. Auto sector companies already are running on very low margin of 4-5%, so lowering prices wont be possible to meet the requirement. Builders are already finding it difficult to raise capital are struggling to complete the projects. DLF, Unitech have expressed inability to lower rates. Unitech has put its construction of chain of luxury hotels on hold to fund its other projects.

Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang resigns
Severely criticized for his handling of deal with Microsoft, advertisement deal with Google, Yahoo Inc. co-founder and CEO could not handle the pressure from shareholders and stepped down. Note: In May Microsoft bid for Yahoo! giving $33 for each share when Yahoo! was trading at $25-27. Jerry, rejected the offer and Microsoft in its try to get Yahoo! and fight against ever growing Google, walked away. Google also did not proceed with commercial search advertising arrangements with Yahoo! as regulators dint allowed because of the affect on competition in the market.
By November beginning Yahoo! share was pricing at $10-10.5. A steep fall after the deals canceled. On 18th November 2008, shares rose by more than 8.5% in hopes of new CEO restarting talks with Microsoft.

This is another case of a Chief Executive being complacent for his company. Similar was the case with Dick Fuld, CEO of Lehman Brothers who was too bold to claim Lehman being under priced before Lehman filed for bankruptcy on 15September2008.

Grant Road to be made junction
Grant Road will be made junction to increase number of locals of western line from South Bombay to Virar. Churchgate station is already functioning at its max. There is a local leaving Churchgate station every 2 minutes in peak hours. Making Grant Road a junction would come as a relief to millions of commuters on western line of Mumbai.