NOOK

Barnes & Noble made a splash last November with the launch of the $249 Nook Color, the first mainstream dedicated electronic reader with a full-color touch-screen. And the bookseller recently pushed out a major software upgrade for Nook Color to widen the appeal of its "reader tablet."
But Barnes & Noble believes there's more of a mainstream market for a less expensive dedicated black and white Nook reader.
The result is the all-new Nook touchscreen eInk reader introduced at a New York City event by Barnes & Noble CEO William Lynch. The new device weighs less than 7.5 ounces, or 35% lighter and 15% thinner than the original Nook Wi-Fi was when it came out about a year and a half ago
The latest Nook fetches $139, which puts it above the $114 Amazon is charging for a Kindle with ads.
Barnes & Noble is taking pre-orders now; the device ships on or about June 10 and will be sold online and in physical Barnes & Noble and partner stores. "Our stores will continue to be at the center of the Barnes & Noble story," Lynch says.
The company claims more than 25% of the digital book market.
Arguably the biggest innovation in the new Nook is a (sealed) battery the company says can last up to two months on a single charge, double what Amazon is stating for the Kindle.
The new Wi-Fi only device will replace the original black and white Nook Wi-Fi only and Nook 3G readers, when supplies of the older models run out. (Until that happens you can get older Nooks at reduced prices of $119 and $169, respectively.)
The new Nook does not provide a 3G version, which may put off readers who don't have Wi-Fi access when they are on the go. "When you add a 3G wireless radio … that puts the price point up and we're not seeing the same amount of sales we're getting on the Wi-Fi," Lynch told me.
But Barnes & Noble does believe there are separate markets for its color and black and white readers. Lynch says the company has sold millions of Nooks to date and plan to sell millions more, but he wouldn't disclose specific numbers or break out the mix among color and the black and white devices.
He said he's not concerned about cannibalizing the market for the Nook Color. "Nook Color has been selling so well," he says. "There are two big segments out there." Though digital has the momentum, Lynch also believes physical books will hold their own for the next three to five years out.

In addition to the bolstered battery, Barnes & Noble says the new Nook has 50 percent more contrast, 80% less "flashing" and provides fast page turning and scanning features. Through the software on the device, readers can get recommendations of other books to read based on what's already in their library. The Nook bookstore has more than two million digital titles. And Barnes & Noble incorporates various lending and social sharing features.
The screen seemed responsive to my light touch during the brief period in which I got to hold the device.
Nook comes with 2GB of internal memory, which can hold about 1000 books; you can add an optional memory card to up the storage capacity to 32GB. It's built on top of a version of Google's Android operating system. Readers can choose from 7 font sizes and 6 font styles.

Jade Cargo

The full-freighter operator Jade Cargo International, has set itself ambitious goals for enhancing communication with customers and key service suppliers. In addition, it wants to play a leading role in China in respect of automation and industry initiatives such as e-freight. In 2010, the carrier took the decision to use Traxon Europe as e-communications services provider. The agreement between the two companies gives Jade Cargo access to the Traxon Europe world-wide network and covers availability, e-booking, electronic air waybill data transfer (FWB), electronic consolidation list (FHL) and flight manifest transmission as well as status information and e-status updates (FSU). Furthermore, Jade decided to integrate the Traxon’ AWB Data Capture application into its website. This tool is designed to facilitate small- and medium-sized customers without sophisticated IT systems.
Clear advantages

“The Traxon services will help Jade Cargo to further standardize processes and increase operational efficiency. E-services that simplify an airfreight forwarder’s working day and facilitate EDI messaging are prerequisites for advancing the cause of the IATA e-freight initiative. The e-AWB (Air Waybill) is a critical air cargo document in the process of paper free air cargo handling. It is thus important that all our customers can send e-AWB. Last but not least, the capability to receive and send electronic AWB, HAWB and Flight Manifests is a necessity in the trade with North America and the EU”, says Gabriela Ahrens, EVP Product & Sales at Jade Cargo International Co. Ltd.
This summer season (commencing April 2011) Jade Cargo is strengthening its services between Asia and Europe with new flights to Geneva (Switzerland), Brescia (Italy), and Kaunas (Lithuania), and additional flights to Barcelona (Spain). Jade Cargo also offers regular services to Chicago IL (USA).
“We are very proud that we were able to win Jade Cargo as a customer. The paperless message exchange via Traxon brings clear advantages to Jade Cargo. The airline can optimize its processes, offer the most advanced e-communication services to its customers and meet all new regulatory requirements in the Asia-Europe-Americas trade”, explains Guy Deschamps, Business Partnership & Area Manager Sales at Traxon Europe. “We look forward to deepen our relationship in the years to come.”

Peach

Japan’s first budget airline, Peach, was unveiled on Tuesday. The name of the airline is supposed to “invoke positive images such as youthfulness, energy, generosity and longevity”, according to the airline. “The name Peach was chosen to reflect our mission of becoming a completely new type of airline that links destinations in Japan and Japan with Asia. Our promise is to provide safe, low-cost travel 365 days of the year, making air travel easier and more accessible,” said Peach Aviation CEO, Shinichi Inoue.

Strangely, the color scheme of the airline’s interior is not peach-hued, but rather a light shade of magenta. The outfits for cabin crew are surprisingly casual by Japanese standards, with the women cabin crew outfitted in – gasp – trousers instead of the traditional skirt, scarf and heels combo favored by the country’s two dominant airlines: Japan Airlines and ANA.
But the future of Peach may be anything but rosy: it is kicking off flight operations just as the number of travelers from overseas destinations has tumbled following the March 11 earthquake and the resulting nuclear disaster. How the airline manages to woo tourists from the rest of Asia back to Japan is key. The low-cost carrier, affiliated with ANA, will start flights from its home base – Kansai International Airport in Osaka. Flight services to Sapporo of northern Japan and to Fukuoka of southern Japan is expected to start no later than March 2012, followed by flight to Seoul’s Incheon airport in May 2012.
Peach aims to grab 6 million customers with 16 jets five years after its launch. If it fails to achieve this target, it might just have to change its name to…yep, you guessed it: Lemon.

Fedora

The Fedora Project, a Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT) sponsored and community-supported open source collaboration, today announced the availability of Fedora 15, the latest version of its free open source operating system distribution. The Fedora operating system is free of cost to download and includes only free and open source software for users to enjoy and share. Developed by a worldwide community, the Fedora Project collaborates closely with upstream free software project teams to provide a compelling experience for users and to access and integrate improvements and innovation rapidly.
"I'm extremely proud of the Fedora 15 release," said Jared Smith, Fedora Project Leader at Red Hat. "This release stands as a testament to the hard work and dedication of the entire Fedora community."
Notable feature enhancements in Fedora 15 include:

• GNOME 3 Desktop brings a fresh look and feel with GNOME shell and Fedora is the first major distribution to include GNOME 3. In addition to the visible changes, there are also many changes under the surface such as the move from CORBA-based technologies to D-Bus-based successors.
• BoxGrinder is a set of tools for making appliances, typically used in virtualized environments, or for use in a cloud environment. It grinds out a preconfigured disk image, including the operating system and required software ready for deployment and can deliver the appliance to a targeted location. BoxGrinder originated in the JBoss Community and marks the first time a JBoss Community project has been included in Fedora.
• SystemD replaces SysVinit and Upstart as the default system and session manager in Fedora 15. SystemD was designed to more effectively handle the start-up and management of system daemons. It provides aggressive parallelization capabilities, uses socket and D-Bus activation for starting services, offers on-demand starting of daemons, keeps track of processes using Linux cgroups, among other things.
• Consistent Network Device Naming makes it easier for systems administrators to effectively determine which physical network port is connected to a Linux network device.

The Fedora Project aims to release a new complete version of its free operating system approximately every six months. This rapid development cycle encourages collaboration and the inclusion of the latest, cutting-edge features available. Fedora is built by contributors across the globe and the Fedora Project's transparent and open collaboration process has attracted more than 24,000 registered contributors. The total of unique IP addresses across Fedora releases since tracking was initiated at Fedora 7 is more than thirty million addresses. Information about Fedora's statistics and collection methodology is open and transparent to the public on the following wiki: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Statistics.
The Fedora Project has also held multiple Fedora User and Developer Conferences (FUDCon) around the world over the past year including dates in Santiago, Chile; Zurich, Switzerland; and Tempe, Arizona. The next FUDCon is planned for Panama, May 26-28, 2011 and those interested in attending can learn more about the event and register to attend here.
About Red Hat, Inc.
Red Hat, the world's leading provider of open source solutions and an S&P 500 company, is headquartered in Raleigh, NC with over 65 offices spanning the globe. CIOs ranked Red Hat as one of the top vendors delivering value in Enterprise Software for seven consecutive years in the CIO Insight Magazine Vendor Value survey. Red Hat provides high-quality, affordable technology with its operating system platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, together with virtualization, applications, management and Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) solutions, including Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization and JBoss Enterprise Middleware. Red Hat also offers support, training and consulting services to its customers worldwide.

Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to any historical or current fact. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including: risks related to delays or reductions in information technology spending, the effects of industry consolidation, uncertainty and adverse results in litigation and related settlements, the integration of acquisitions and the ability to market successfully acquired technologies and products; the ability of the Company to effectively compete; the inability to adequately protect Company intellectual property and the potential for infringement or breach of license claims of or relating to third party intellectual property; the ability to deliver and stimulate demand for new products and technological innovations on a timely basis; risks related to data and information security vulnerabilities; ineffective management of, and control over, the Company's growth and international operations; fluctuations in exchange rates; and changes in and a dependence on key personnel, as well as other factors contained in our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K (copies of which may be accessed through the Securities and Exchange Commission's website at http://www.sec.gov), including those found therein under the captions "Risk Factors" and "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations". In addition to these factors, actual future performance, outcomes, and results may differ materially because of more general factors including (without limitation) general industry and market conditions and growth rates, economic and political conditions, governmental and public policy changes and the impact of natural disasters such as the earthquakes and related events in Japan. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company's views as of the date of this press release and these views could change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company's views as of any date subsequent to the date of the press release.

Benz

Benz

Nasser Bin Khaled Automobiles, the exclusive dealers of Mercedes-Benz in Qatar, has introduced the QR (Quick Response) Code technology as part of its enhanced social communications initiatives.A QR code is a specific matrix barcode readable by dedicated QR barcode readers and camera phones. The code consists of black modules arranged in a square pattern on a white background. The information encoded can be text, an internet address or other data.
Mobile phone users can simply point their camera-enabled mobile at the QR Code they see. With the right software, it will fire up its browser and take you directly into the Mercedes-Benz Cyber World.
The QR Code Reader can be directly downloaded from http://www.i-nigma.com/Downloadi-nigmaReader.html or from the Apple App Store (for I-Phone), Android Market, or BlackBerry App World (for BlackBerry Phones), Nokia Users please download from OVI Store.
With a recently launched campaign on the NBK Automobiles FaceBook page and titled ‘Download It, Suss It, Drive It’, NBK Automobiles is the first Mercedes-Benz dealership worldwide and the first automotive company in Qatar and the wider GCC to implement the sophisticated QR Code communications system.
NBK Automobiles general manager Khaled Shaa’aban said: “Mercedes-Benz, which has recently celebrated 125 years of the automobile, is also a pioneer in automotive technology. The introduction of the QR Code serves to add an exciting element to the experience Mercedes-Benz vehicles’ owners have had so far.
“At NBK Automobiles, we firmly believe in the power of communications and have therefore built a full-fledged creative and innovative platform to reach out to clients, prospects and fans with the best there is in the world of automobiles.”
Although initially used for tracking parts in vehicle manufacturing, QR codes are now used in a much broader context, including both commercial tracking applications and convenience-oriented applications aimed at mobile phone users (termed mobile tagging).
QR codes can be used to display text to the user, to add a vCard contact to the user’s device, to open a uniform resource identifier (URI) or to compose an email or text message. Users can also generate and print their own QR codes for others to scan and use by visiting one of several free QR code generating sites.
Recently, QR codes have become more prevalent in marketing circles and have been integrated into both traditional and interactive campaigns.
Media where QR codes have been deployed include: billboard ads, guerrilla marketing campaigns, in-store displays, event ticketing and tracking, trade-show management, business cards, print ads, contests, direct mail campaigns, websites, email marketing, and couponing just to name a few. QR codes are of particular interest to marketers, giving them the ability to measure response rates with a high degree of precision allowing for easier ROI calculation, thus helping justify spending on marketing budgets. QR codes have also been used at trade shows and in conferences amongst others.

Star Health Insurance

Star Health Insurance

While buying health insurance, the policyholder mainly compares the features available under various products and premium payable for each one of them. In the past few months one distinct feature that has come to fore is the maternity coverage. Although all insurers under their retail product lines do not provide this, it is being provided by all three standalone health insurers, Star Health and Allied insurance company (Star Wedding Gift Insurance Policy), Apollo Munich Health Insurance Company (Easy Health Family Floater Exclusive and Platinum Plan) and Max Bupa Health Insurance Company (Heartbeat Family Floater Plan).

An FCRB analysis reveals whether taking a health insurance policy to get coverage for maternity expenses is practical or not. As it turns out it is beneficial if the waiting period is low and the extra premium paid by the policyholder is not too high.

FCRB found out the estimated child delivery expenses of few hospitals in Delhi and compared them with the actual premium being charged by these insurers.

The charges in economy accommodation for a normal delivery at DR Maternity and Nursing Home in north-west Delhi are around Rs 18,000 to Rs 22,000 while the charges go up to Rs 25,000 to Rs 30,000 for the caesarean delivery. Sri Balaji Action Medical Institute in west Delhi, charges about Rs 17,000 to Rs 20,000 for normal and Rs 24,000 to Rs 27,000 for caesarean. BL Kapur Memorial Hospital in central Delhi, charges around Rs 20,000 to 22,000 for normal and Rs 35,000 to Rs 37,000 for caesarean. Holy Family Hospital in South Delhi, charges around Rs 12,000 to Rs 14,000 for normal and Rs 24,000 to Rs 28,000 for caesarean. In these charges, the expense for medicine, room charges, doctor’s fees, dietician and pediatrician’s fees, medical investigation charges, operation theatre charges and nursing expenses are included.

In order to get coverage for maternity and delivery charges, one has to opt for family health insurance policy and wait for a few years before becoming eligible to claim the same from the insurance company.

Apollo Munich has the longest waiting period of four years, while in Star Health it is three years. In case of Max Bupa the waiting period is two years.

The analysis shows that the average premium for a couple of around 27 years of age, the premium for a plain vanilla family health insurance policy with Rs 3,00,000 sum insured comes to Rs 4,700. While the premium comes to Rs 6,167, Rs 7,354 and Rs 11,366 from Apollo Munich, Max Bupa and Star Health respectively for their family health plans with maternity coverage. “The extra premium being charged by insurers to cover maternity is reasonable and is based on actuarial calculations for bearing extra cost of maternity,” said SK Sethi, vice-president of Insurance Foundation of India.

Also, premium for 32-year-old couple, the premium for Max Bupa policy increases to Rs 7,910 while it remains same for other health insurers.

Under the family health insurance policy with sum insured of Rs 3,00,000 the policyholder is allowed to claim upto Rs 30,000 for normal as well as caesarean delivery from Max Bupa, Rs 15,000 for normal and Rs 20,000 for caesarean delivery from both Apollo Munich and Star Health.

Supposing the policyholder has to avail the maternity cover after two years and is insured under Max Bupa, then in that case the extra premium (as compared to a normal health insurance policy) that he has already paid for the cover is Rs 5,308. If the same benefit is availed after four years, then the extra premium paid for Apollo Munich is Rs 5,868, Rs 10,616 for Max Bupa and Rs 26,664 for Star Health. After six years of policy period, the excess premium comes to Rs 8,802 for Apollo Munich, Rs 15,924 for Max Bupa and Rs 39,996 for Star Health. The difference comes to Rs 11,736 for Apollo Munich; Rs 21,232 for Max Bupa and Rs 53,328 for Star Health after eight years of holding the policy.

This clearly shows that Apollo Munich which charges around Rs 1,500 of extra premium on yearly basis, is value for money in long run, however the waiting period is high and coverage for maternity is low.

The extra premium charged by Star Health is highest, the waiting period is also high and coverage for maternity is low.

Kansas City Star

Based on the aggregated intelligence of 170,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, railroad operator Kansas City Southern (NYSE: KSU ) has earned a respected four-star ranking.
With that in mind, let's take a closer look at Kansas City Southern's business and see what CAPS investors are saying about the stock right now.
Kansas City Southern facts
On CAPS, 97% of the 402 members who have rated Kansas City Southern believe the stock will outperform the S&P 500 going forward. These bulls include HardnoseDotCom andTradersinfo.
Late last month, HardnoseDotCom succinctly summed up the Kansas City Southern bull case: "[L]ow PEG, strong price uptrend."
Over the next five years, in fact, Kansas City Southern is expected to grow its bottom line at a brisk rate of 29% annually. That's much faster than other railroad operators like Canadian National Railway (NYSE: CNI ) (15%), Union Pacific(NYSE: UNP ) (14%), and CSX(NYSE: CSX ) (16%).
CAPS member Tradersinfo expands on KSU as a rather timely selection:

We see continued momentum at Kansas City Southern. Last quarter the Company reported revenue growth of 12% and a jump in operating income of 18%. This indicates that the railroad industry is growing along with the pickup in international trade. We are especially pleased with the way Management has kept costs under control in spite of fuel price hikes in Q1.
What do you think about Kansas City Southern, or any other stock for that matter? If you want to retire rich, you need to put together the best portfolio you can. Owning exceptional stocks is a surefire way to secure your financial future, and on Motley Fool CAPS, thousands of investors are working every day to find them. CAPS is 100% free, so get started!

Headquarters (Founded)	Kansas City, Mo. (1962)
Market Cap	$6.23 billion
Industry	Railroads
Trailing-12-Month Revenue	$1.87 billion
Management	CEO David Starling (since 2010) CFO Michael Upchurch (since 2008)
Return on Equity (Average, Past 3 Years)	6.6%
Cash/Debt	$101.5 million / $1.6 billion

Ethanol

Iowa State University's Hans van Leeuwen has moved his research team's award-winning idea for improving ethanol production from a laboratory to a pilot plant.
Now he knows the idea, which produces a new animal feed and cleans water that can be recycled back into ethanol production, works more efficiently in batches of up to 350 gallons than on a lab bench.
"We're learning we can reliably produce good quality and good quantities," said van Leeuwen, Iowa State's Vlasta Klima Balloun Professor of Engineering in the department of civil, construction and environmental engineering.
What van Leeuwen and a team of Iowa State researchers are producing is a fungus, Rhizopus oligosporus, that makes a high-quality, high-protein animal feed from the leftovers of ethanol production. The process of growing the fungus also cleans water from ethanol production so that it can be recycled back into fuel production. And the process, called MycoMeal, could one day produce a low-cost nutritional supplement for people.
The project has two patents pending and has won several major awards, including a 2008 R&D 100 Award presented by R&D Magazine, the 2008 Grand Prize for University Research presented by the American Academy of Environmental Engineers and a 2011 Honor Award in University Research from the academy. The project also contributed to R&D Magazine naming van Leeuwen its 2009 Innovator of the Year.
The research team working on the project is led by van Leeuwen and includes Nick Gabler and Mike Persia, assistant professors of animal science; Mary Rasmussen, a post-doctoral research associate in food science and human nutrition; Daniel Erickson, Christopher Koza and Debjani Mitra, graduate students; and Brandon Caldwell, a graduate of Iowa State. The project is supported by a three-year, $450,000 grant from the Iowa Energy Center and a Smithfield grant from the Office of the Iowa Attorney General. Lincolnway Energy of Nevada, Cellencor Corp. of Ames and Iowa State's Center for Crops Utilization Research and BioCentury Research Farm are also supporting the project.
Here's how their process works to improve dry-grind ethanol production:
For every gallon of ethanol produced, there are about five gallons of leftovers known as stillage. The stillage contains solids and other organic material. Most of the solids are removed by centrifugation and dried into distillers dried grains that are sold as livestock feed, primarily for cattle.
The remaining liquid, known as thin stillage, still contains some solids, a variety of organic compounds and enzymes. Because the compounds and solids can interfere with ethanol production, only about 50 percent of thin stillage can be recycled back into ethanol production. The rest is evaporated and blended with distillers dried grains to produce distillers dried grains with solubles.

The researchers add fungus to the thin stillage and it feeds and grows into a thick mass in less than a day - van Leeuwen calls it "lightning-speed farming." The fungus removes about 60 percent of the organic material and most of the solids, allowing the water and enzymes in the thin stillage to be recycled back into production.
The fungus is then harvested and dried as animal feed that's rich in protein, certain essential amino acids and other nutrients. It can also be blended with distillers dried grains to boost its value as a livestock feed and make it more suitable for feeding hogs and chickens.
Van Leeuwen said the production technology can save United States ethanol producers up to $800 million a year in energy costs. He also said the technology can produce ethanol co-products worth another $800 million or more per year, depending on how it is used and marketed.
Now that the project has moved from a campus lab to the Iowa Energy Center's BECON facility in Nevada, van Leeuwen said researchers are working to improve the process at larger scales.
"We're adding and subtracting, doing things differently and redesigning our process all the time," he said.
Even so, the process has developed enough that researchers can use simple screens to harvest pellets of the fungus from the project's 20-foot high reactor. They're feeding some of the fungus to chickens and will soon start feeding tests with hogs. A next step could be testing the fungus for human consumption. (University leaders have tried the fungi and researchers regularly eat it, van Leeuwen said.)
As the project has successfully scaled up, so has van Leeuwen's optimism that the process could help the biofuels industry.
"Implementation of this process addresses criticism of biofuels by substantially lowering energy inputs and by increasing the production of nutritious animal feed," van Leeuwen said. "The MycoMeal process could truly revolutionize the biofuels industry."

Living Social

LivingSocial and Foursquare are both fighting for local ad dollars from mom and pop stores, neighbourhood restaurants, and even big box retailers as online social media companies set their sights on a largely untapped pool of revenue.
Now because of the rise of social media and smartphones, companies like LivingSocial and Foursquare can target consumers and drive them to storefronts in ways that the Yellow Pages and websites from the past boom like Microsoft's (MSFT.O) Sidewalk could not do.
"I think we're in a position to do something revolutionary for local advertising," Foursquare Chief Executive and Co-Founder Dennis Crowley said during the Reuters Global Technology Summit on Thursday.
The pool of dollars is huge: U.S. local advertising spending is expected to reach about $136 billion in 2011, according to Bia/Kelsey.
Foursquare is a mobile application with about 10 million users who "check-in" to area establishments, which are then shared with the user's social network of friends.
About 400,000 merchants use Foursquare tools to drive traffic to their stores.
"I think that we will hit our inflection point the same way that Twitter did," Crowley said. "I can imagine getting to 100 million users. I can imagine us exceeding that."
Foursquare and LivingSocial, the online daily deals site, are part of a new wave of companies that have attracted investors interested in owning a piece of the social media business.
The first social media site to test investor appetite and go public was LinkedIn (LNKD.N), which made its stunning debut on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, defying even the highest of expectations by closing 109 percent above its IPO price at $94.25.
On SecondMarket, one of the largest exchanges for private company shares, Foursquare saw the biggest increase in participants interested in the company during the first quarter. LivingSocial made SecondMarket's list as one of the new companies on investors' radar for the same period.
MORE THAN DAILY DEALS
With about 30 million members worldwide, LivingSocial is still far smaller than the No. 1 player in the market, Groupon, which has about 70 million users and is expected to file for a public offering this year. LivingSocial is on track to generate $1 billion revenue this year.
Tim O'Shaughnessy, co-founder and chief executive of LivingSocial, said online advertising companies have approached LivingSocial interested in a takeout.
The Washington D.C.-based company just raised $400 million in its latest round which included Amazon.com (AMZN.O), valuing the company at about $3 billion.
"You're really in a position where somebody acquires you or you become a public company. I think either of them could happen with us," O'Shaughnessy said.
For now, O'Shaughnessy is concentrating on expanding the business.
"I don't view this as the daily deal business. I view it as the local commerce business," he said.

For instance, the company introduced Living Social Instant that pulls a list of real time offers based on proximity to the establishments.
It's the same spot where Foursquare is aiming.
Foursquare is building out tools that recommends places based on the interests of a person's social circle, similar to Amazon and Netflix's (NFLX.O) suggestions for buying books and watching movies.
"When you build great products, it's very easy to monetize them," Crowley said.

Memorial Day

Gas prices plummeted nearly 10 cents last week in Tampa Bay and are expected to drop at least another five cents over the next week as people gear up for the holiday weekend, according to AAA.
It's a downward trend that is anything but normal.
In a typical year, Memorial Day typically means the start of higher gas prices, said Jessica Brady, a spokeswoman for AAA Auto Club South.
Regular gas is running at $3.76, down from $3.86 a gallon about a week ago. It cost $3.79 a month ago.
"This is the first time we've had a trend with oil under $100 per barrel," Brady said.
Brady gave several reasons for the decrease: Demand in the U.S. is down; China and Japan's economies are expected to slow, curbing international demand; the dollar is gaining ground on the Euro, increasing its spending power.
Although this long Memorial weekend will have more people out on the roads, Brady said she didn't think it would have much impact on overall gas prices.
It's difficult to say where the market will go in upcoming weeks. Several experts predicted earlier in the year that gas prices would hit $4 per gallon.

"There's so much money in the oil market right now," said Brady. "It's so volatile. It's reacting to everything."
Although gas is down on average in Tampa Bay, prices varied widely from station to station. Gas ranged from $3.45 at a station in Plant City to $3.99 at a station in New Port Richey.
Brady said several factors go into setting the price at individual stations, including overhead costs, location and competition.

Infiniti

Infiniti

Infiniti and F1 world champions Red Bull Racing are considering collaborating on a new high-performance road car.

The Japanese luxury brand has a two-year sponsorship deal with the championship-leading Red Bull Racing team, and the performance Infiniti is expected to be on sale within the next 18-24 months.

Simon Sproule, who leads Infiniti's motorsport involvement, said: 'Our relationship with Red Bull is only five races old, but the trajectory for it is to move on and work more closely together. One way of doing that is on a road car project.'

Sproule stressed that any project had to be 'credible' and cited the example of the Renault Clio Williams as a collaboration between a road car manufacturer and race team that had been a sales and marketing success.

As a result, Sproule added that whatever car was chosen as the base for the project would be substantially reworked and would have to be re-homologated before it could go on sale.

A limited run of 500 Clio Williams cars were launched in 1992, but it was entirely engineered by Renault and not the Williams F1 team.

It was so successful that further special editions were later launched. However Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner said he'd consider getting his F1 engineers in on the project.

He said: 'There's no reason not to be involved. We have proved that Red Bull can take on the likes of Mercedes in F1 despite their heritage and a natural evolution of that would be to use our expertise we have in [developing] road cars.'

Last year, parent company Nissan has filed for trademark protection for the names Infiniti Performance Line and IPL in America, suggesting Infiniti planned to launch a performance sub-division to rival Mercedes AMG and BMW M cars.

Singapore Airlines

Singapore Airlines has confirmed the imminent arrival of a new series of Airbus A380s with an extended business class cabin running the entire length of the upper deck, as first tipped by Australian Business Travellerin December last year.
The carrier has listed its second-gen A380 on the new Singapore Airlines website unveilled today and released a seatmap for the new-look superjumbo which shows the upper deck will be exclusive to business class passengers, with 86 seats spread over 22 rows.
This is sub-divided into four cabin areas, including the oddity of a single row cabin (row 96) with just four seats – with the rearmost exit in front and the toilet, galley and stairs to the lower deck below.
The seatplan also confirms the lower deck will retain the 12 first-class suites and 311 economy seats.
To see or download the seatplan for your self, click tohttp://www.singaporeair.com/pdf/seatmaps/airbus380.pdf. (Tip of the hat to AusBT reader pungpui for spotting this one.)
There's still no official word on when the new A380 will take to the skies, although as we reported last week (see below) airline booking systems are showing the first of these eight superjumbos will be introduced on the Sydney-Singapore SQ221/212 service on June 20th (out of Singapore).
Singapore Airlines looks set to add a second tranche of Airbus A380s to its fleet next month with an extended business class cabin running the entire length of the upper deck.
The long-rumoured change appeared in global airline booking systems today, according to booking resource AirlineRoute, although Singapore Airlines has yet to officially announce the new layout.
AirlineRoute also reports that booking systems show the first of the new A380s will be introduced on the Sydney-Singapore SQ221/212 service on June 20th (out of Singapore).
Eight new superjumbos ordered by the Singapore flag-carrier are said to sport the new 'high-density' business class configuration, which will add 24 more of Singapore's generous business class seats to increase overall business class capacity by 40% and removing less-profitable economy seats.
SQ's current A380 layout splits the upper deck between 60 business class seats and 88 economy seats.
The revised A380 seating chart sees the economy seating removed in favour of six more rows of lie-flat business class seating for a total of 86 business class seats.

Economy will be pared back to the downstairs-only allocation of 311 seats. The front of the lower deck will still house SQ's twelve luxurious first-class suites, the middle four of which can be converted into a pair of double suites.
The new seating plan is a vote of confidence in the resurgent business travel market, with Singapore Airlines clearly expecting to boost ticket sales and put more business class bums on seats.
Alas, it's a loss for savvy economy class passengers who know the upstairs section has a quieter and more cosy feel than the packed lower deck, as well as that great double-decker view.
The upper-deck economy cabin also permits easier aisle access due to the use of a 2-4-2 seating configuration, whereas downstairs it’s a 3-4-3 rack.
Singapore Airlines will however keep the existing layout and upstairs economy cabin on its current A380 fleet rather than retrofit these to the new design.

Mukesh Ambani House

Mukesh Ambani House

Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata has described Reliance Industries chief Mukesh Ambani's 27-storey Mumbai home, Antilla , as an example of rich Indians' lack of empathy for the poor.

"It makes me wonder why someone would do that. That's what revolutions are made of," Tata said in an interview to The Times, London, when asked about Ambani's house. The Times had asked Tata the question in the context of widening income inequalities in India.

Tata also told The Times: "The person who lives in there should be concerned about what he sees around him and [asking] can he make a difference. If he is not, then it's sad because this country needs people to allocate some of their enormous wealth to finding ways of mitigating the hardship that people have."

The 73-year-old tycoon added: "We are doing so little about the disparity [in India]. We are allowing it to be there and wishing it away."

Tata, who has been questioned in the 2G scam case, told the British newspaper that he regretted that his conglomerate couldn't enter the growing aerospace industry in India. He said his attempts to enter the segment were thwarted by corruption. Corruption, he said, was "a major problem and was, in itself, "really frustrating".

Tata, due to retire next year, admitted that the search for his successor was taking longer than envisaged; one of the likely successors is his halfbrother, Noel Tata. The paper quoted Tata as saying he was not involved in the search for his successor, but suggesting that he did not think Noel, who took over as head of international operations last year, was ready for the role.

"I think if he is to run this he should have greater exposure than he has had. Partly his not having it has been his own choice," Tata told the paper.

Tata said the UK, where he runs businesses as diverse as tea to automobiles to steel, was in the grip of an erroneous belief that "we are no longer capable of making things and are destined to rely on the financial sector and service industries to keep our islands afloat".

He added, "I have a greater degree of bullishness about the UK and what it stands for. But nobody seems to want to exert the effort to make the UK truly competitive or bring it back to the glory that it was."

The UK, Tata told The Times, "needs a real push. It needs nationalism. The sort of spirit that comes during a war. It needs people really to want to see the UK sitting again, maybe not as a colonial power, but as an economic power".

He told the paper that India was lucky to have a Barack Obama in the US and a David Cameron in the UK. "Both of them are open to ideas; they are very pragmatic in their views. Each of them feels that India is a land of some opportunity for themselves," he said.

Antilla

Ratan Tata

Tata Group chairman, Ratan Tata took a dig at Mukesh Ambani and said the Reliance Industries chairman’s USD 1 billion home, Antilla, in Mumbai was an example of lack of empathy for the poor. Tata also said he was surprised Ambani wanted to live in such opulence home.

The Times, London, reported that Tata described Ambani’s home as an example of rich Indians’ lack of empathy for the poor.

"It makes me wonder why someone would do that," the London-based Times quoted Tata as saying in an interview.

"The person who lives in there should be concerned about what he sees around him and (ask) can he make a difference. If he is not, then it is sad because India needs people to allocate some of their enormous wealth to finding ways to mitigate the hardship that people have," Tata said as per the reports in The Times when asked about Ambani’s 27-storeys home, one of the most expensive houses in the world.

The 73-year old tycoon also expressed concern about the rich-poor gap and said, "We are doing so little about the disparity. We are allowing it to be there and wishing it away," the London paper reported.

Tata also hit out at the work culture of managers of British firms, Corus and JLR, and said “nobody is willing to go the extra mile” in critical situations, while their Indian counterparts would work till midnight in “a war-like situation”.

“It's a work-ethic issue. In my experience, in both Corus and Jaguar-Land Rover (JLR) nobody is willing to go the extra mile,” he said in the interview.

Tata’s comments come at a time when the Tata Group has announced cutting of 1,200 jobs at Scunthorpe plant, as well as shedding 300 jobs at Teeside and Hartlepool sites of Corus.

He added: “In India, if you are in a crisis, if it means working till midnight, you would do it. The worker in JLR seems to be willing to do that, the management is not.”

“The entire engineering group at JLR would be empty on Friday evening, and you have got delays in product introduction. That's the thing that doesn't happen in China or in Indonesia or in Thailand or in Singapore,” he said.

He lamented a lack of dynamism in industry, saying that Britain “needs a real push. It needs nationalism. The sort of spirit that comes during a war. It needs people really to want to see the UK sitting again, may be not as a colonial power, but as an economic power.”.

Macy's

While New York is far away, the sales professionals atRudolph Honda - the premiere Honda dealer in El Paso - are liking the idea of turning a Macy's Store Window into a showroom for one of the best cars in the world. According to Rudolph Honda, any publicity the Honda Civic gets is good with them.
The Civic "window dressing" is to help promote the Civic Racing Style sweepstakes which heralds the arrival of the all-new, ninth generation Honda Civic. Beyond the contest, the arrival of the new Civic has many people very excited.
The contest is open only to New York residents, but the Civic being on display in NYC has people all over the country excited about the new 2012 Civic.
"Teaming with iconic brands like Macy's and IZOD and offering consumers chances to win a new Honda Civic and the experience of starting an IndyCar race with Mario Andretti makes this one of the most unique promotions we have undertaken, there is nothing like it in sports," said Richard Kent, senior manager of Honda.
Under the banner "To Each Their Own", the 2012 Honda Civic made its world debut last month at the New York International Auto Show. The 2012 Civic boasts the most diverse lineup in the history of Civic with six unique models:
●    4-door Civic Sedan
●    2-door Civic Coupe
●    high-performance, 201-horsepower Civic Si Sedan and Coupe
●    The 41mpg(1) Civic HF
●    The 44mpg(1) Civic Hybrid
●    A Civic Natural Gas model.

Additional highlights of the new Civic lineup:                                                                                  
●    Available new technology features include an intelligent Multi-Information Display (i-MID), USB Audio Interface, Bluetooth HandsFreeLink, and a Satellite-Linked Navigation System with voice recognition and FM Traffic
●    Advanced safety systems include the Honda-exclusive Advanced Compatibility Engineering (ACE) body structure for frontal collision energy management and vehicle-to-vehicle crash compatibility.
●    Major gains in fuel economy, including the 44mpg(1) Civic Hybrid, America's most fuel efficient sedan, and the 41mpg(1) Civic HF.
●    New powertrain technologies include a re-engineered 1.8-liter 4-cylinder engine with enhanced fuel economy, a larger and more powerful 2.4-liter 4-cylinder Si power plant, and a new Civic Hybrid powertrain that delivers higher overall performance and improved fuel economy
Local El Paso residents who have questions about the new 2012 Civic or want to take one for a test drive are encouraged to stop by Rudolph Honda - the premiere Honda dealership in El Paso and surrounding areas. Their sales team are helpful, friendly, and professional. With a long history of serving local residents, they are excited to be able to offer the great new Honda Civic.

Powerball Numbers

Powerball Numbers

Someone in eastern Idaho woke up Thursday morning a million dollars richer.
The Idaho Lottery confirms one winning ticket from Wednesday night’s Powerball drawing matched the first five numbers and has the PowerPlay feature making it worth $1,000,000. The winning numbers were 7, 12, 13, 42, 49 and the Powerball was 16.
”We are encouraging everyone who bought a ticket for (Wednesday) night's Powerball draw to check their tickets carefully for winners," said Jeff Anderson, Idaho Lottery Director.
The winning ticket has the PowerPlay, an add-on for $1 extra per line played at the time of purchase, Anderson said. PowerPlay multiplies non-jackpot winning tickets up to $1,000,000.

TMI

There’s a lot of boy-stuff we have to deal with in my household. But that’s what you get when you have seven of them.
So believe me when I say, when it comes to sons, I’ve see it all.
Still, there’s one thing that never gets easier, that’s seeing them fall in and out of love and having to deal with all the challenges in between.
One of my boys was a freshman in high school when he fell hard for another girl in his class.
Let’s call her… Bunny.
Before you can say “high school romance,” I was driving the two lovebirds to the local movie theater. I felt like a low-class limo driver in my mom-van as the two smooched in the back seat all the way to the mall. But as I watched the show in the rear view mirror, I was proud of my boy for keeping his hands in sight at all times and treating Miss Bunny with respect.
Innocent enough, so far, but this phase did introduce us to a whole new world of boy-girl interactions. He had older brothers around at the time, so they were the first ones I accused when I found a condom (still in its wrapper, thank God), in the front yard. None of the older boys fessed up, but Beau Romeo said, “Oh, that’s Bunny’s.”  Sitting him down for a stern talking to about 14 being a way-too tender age to engage in anything as serious as sex, I was less than thrilled with his blasé attitude about the condom issue.
“Bunny’s mom got pregnant when she was a teenager and she doesn’t want her to mess up her life,” he said. “Every time we go anywhere, she shoves a condom at Bunny.”

Weird mom behavior if you ask me. But Bunny’s mom should have been much more concerned about what I discovered on my boy’s computer one day when browsing around. We have computer rules in place at our home, such as having it located in the dining room where everyone walking by can have a peek at what you are up to. And, all of our seven sons know that Mom and Dad will be checking up on where they’ve been on the Internet. No porn for us, please!

So you can imagine my horror when one day while checking into Boy Romance’s picture folder, I discovered a full-frontal nudity shot from our dear Bunny. It was T.M.I. (too much information) in the hugest sense and I felt like I wanted to scrub my eyeballs after viewing Bunny’s “assets.” Because of the content of the talk, Hubby had to take this one. Lucky him.  And the chat focused on three issues that we saw with this behavior now known as “sexting:”

1)      Emailing sexual pictures back and forth to each other is NEVER considered proper dating technique.

2)      The pictures are available for anyone in our household (including our 7-year-old twins all the way up to our 25 year-old) to enjoy. Temptations like that should never be available in our household on a computer used by every young man in the house.
3)      “Sexting” is a crime that could land both parties (especially Bunny) in front of a grim-faced judge.

As concerned parents, both Hubby and I started doing our homework on this teen phenomenon and came up with some research recently published by The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.
This report really opened our eyes to the temptations that exist and that we need to warn our young men about. When we were teens there was no such thing as an Internet, cell phones that took pictures or videos or the email technology to send suggestive photos. But our young men are in a culture where 71 percent of teen girls and 67 percent of teen guys have sent or posted (think Facebook here) sexually suggestive content to a girlfriend/boyfriend.
If I were a parent of a young woman right now I’d be freaking out because almost three-quarters of them have sent sexually provocative photos out through the Internet. Wow.

With the knowledge that almost 90 percent of us are online (says the National Campaign) and more than 255,000,000 of us own cell phones in America, I realized that’s a LOT of pictures of nude children. So, here’s the bare bone of what we’ve told our platoon of boys about this issue:

1)      Sexting is illegal and will never be tolerated in our home.
2)      Treat girls with respect at all times. No matter if they’re three, thirty or ninety-three, girls are to be treasured. And, this especially includes their reputation.
3)      We will be monitoring everything you do in our house. We have full access to your computer, your email, and your cell phones. We WILL be looking at photos you have stored on all of your devices.
4)      If we find any inappropriate items in any device, you will lose the privilege of owning that device. (This last one is a threat worse than death.)

And what of the romance between our Dr. Love and Miss Bunny, you ask? Well it all ended as these things often do. Bunny never used the condom stash in her purse (praise be), broke off the relationship and left behind a broken-hearted boy.

*names have been shielded to protect the little devils.

Linkedin IPO

Recent stock market volatility is unlikely to derail the recovery of the initial public offering (IPO) market, which boasts the biggest pipeline in 11 years, experts say.
“There are too many fundamentally high-quality companies in the pipeline—we haven’t seen this in years—and any affects of equity market volatility will be short-lived”, says Paul Bard, research director of IPO research and investment firm Renaissance Capital.
There are currently 175 companies waiting in the IPO pipeline, the largest amount since 2000, representing potential $40 billion in proceeds, according to Renaissance Capital. So far this year, 62 companies went public and 124 companies filed for an IPO, a 20 percent increase from last year.
Wednesday’s pricing of the highly-anticipated LinkedIn IPO [LNKD  105.56   60.56  (+134.58%)   ] at $45 is likely to spike activity in internet companies. The social networking site for professionals priced at the high end of the range, which was raised by 30 percent from its original level. The stock doubled in the first few minutes of trading Thursday.
“LinkedIn may be a tipping point for many that are watching on the sidelines”, says Bard. “This type of valuation may persuade many to take advantage of the momentum.” But not everyone will be met with the same demand, Bard warns. “Investors are selective.”
Peter Falvey, a Managing Director at Morgan Keegan, agrees: “(The) IPO market is very much a momentum market. LinkedIn should have positive impact on tech equity market”.
“Clearly, there is a strong interest from investors in digital media and e-commerce companies like Facebook, Twitter, Groupon and Zynga, as well as a host of smaller, fast growing companies. Each of them will execute very well received IPOs,” says Falvey.
The next big Internet IPO story will be Yandex, Russia's largest online search engine. It is set to raise $1.1 billion in a deal pricing next week.
“Yandex is a compelling offering”, says Bard. “It’s first direct opportunity for U.S. investors to play Russian internet market, and that can be a powerful driver of demand.”
Investor demand for Yandex shares has reportedly been so high that the company may finish taking orders earlier than scheduled. The company is expected to trade on Nasdaq under the symbol YNDX.
Among other deals that are expected to happen as early as this summer is vacation-rental site HomeAway, which filed for an IPO earlier this year with hopes to sell as much as $230 million worth of shares, as well as online radio company Pandora Media and travel website Kayak.
But upcoming IPO offerings are not limited to the internet sector. “We expect steady strong performance from companies in healthcare, energy, including renewable energy, and financial services”, says Henri Leveque, US Capital Markets leader with PwC Transaction Services.
The activity is also global. Commodities giantGlencore made its debut in London Thursday, becoming the U.K.’s largest IPO ever.
According to Renaissance Capital, there will be a total of 20 deals priced in May, raising a total $8.1 billion. Freescale Semiconductor [FSL    ---  UNCH    ], a leader in embedded processing semiconductors, will price in the middle of next week with hopes to raise over $1 billion. Other IPOs scheduled to price before month end are Spirit Airlines, The Active Network, Lone Pine Resources, Sabre Industries, Nobao Renewable Energy, and Solazyme.
But while stock market volatility is not expected to stop the deal flow, it may put downward pressure on prices. “Volatility will most likely cause lower quality companies to be more flexible with their pricing”, says Paul Bard of Renaissance Capital.
Peter Falvey of Morgan Keegan expects increased volatility in the equity market entering the summer, and “if it lasts through the third quarter, we may see material impact on the IPO market.”

The good news—so far this year, investors have been making money in IPOs. The average IPO has returned 9.3 percent from its offer price, according to Renaissance Capital. The aftermarket performance is flat at -0.4 percent, with underperforming Chinese companies dragging down the numbers.
“The IPO pipeline is as strong as it has been in years”, says Falvey, “partially because the challenging IPO market in the last three years translates into a large supply of more mature companies that should do well after executing an IPO”.
Henri Leveque of PwC notes that there’s a strong correlation between preparedness, solid business model and post IPO performance. “Preparedness is key. Companies that prepare diligently are higher on the performance spectrum.”

SBI Q4 Results 2011

SBI Q4 Results 2011

Net profit of country's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) for the fourth quarter ended March 2011 nosedived to Rs 20.88 crore against Rs 1,866.60 crore in the same quarter in the previous fiscal.

The erosion in the standalone net profit is mainly on account of higher provisioning against bad loans, operating expenses including employee cost besides tax outgo of over Rs 900 crore.

Shares of the company dipped 6.34 per cent at Rs 2,451.40 in the afternoon session on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

However, the total income during the quarter rose 18 per cent to Rs 26,536.8 crore from Rs 22,474.1 crore in the corresponding period a year ago.

Despite dismal performance, the bank maintained dividend at 300 per cent for 2010-11. The bank will pay dividend of Rs 30 per share on face value of Rs 10 after shareholders approval.

For the entire fiscal ended March 2011, the net profit of the bank slipped by 10 per cent at Rs 8,264.5 crore as compared to Rs 9,166.05 crore in the previous fiscal.

However, the total income rose to Rs 97,218.9 crore in the fiscal against 85,962.07 crore for FY 2010.

SBI Results

India's largest lender State Bank of India's fourth quarter net profit tumbled nearly 99% year-on-year to Rs 21 crore on higher provisioning against non-performing assets and gratuity. This is much below the street expectations.
In an interview with CNBC-TV18, experts like Vaibhav Agrawal, Banking Analyst at Angel Broking, Hemendra Hazari of Nirmal Bang, Dipan Mehta, Member of NSE & BSE and Kajal Gandhi Senior Research Analyst at ICICI Securities gave their insights and views about the performance of the stock ahead.
Hemendra Hazari said, "After these results, we would turn positive on the stock. The results come off far more negative than expectations. But, that is a positive sign because I believe that substantial clean up has taken place in SBI."
Dipan Mehta, Member of NSE & BSE explains, "The miss on the net interest income (NII) is causing the maximum damage because the analyst and market would have assumed that the provisions are one time nature. But, even then, the numbers don’t look that attractive. With these kind of numbers one would have to definitely be a little underweight on SBI and some of the other PSU Banks."
Below is the verbatim transcript of their interview with Mitali Mukherjee, Gautam Broker and Reema Tendulkar of CNBC-TV18. Also watch the accompanying videos.
Q: Is there any more details that you have been able to cull out on what all has gone into the provisioning this time around for SBI?
Hazari: I was expecting about Rs 1,000 crore of net profit for the fourth quarter which was way below the consensus figure between Rs 2,800 to 3,000. It is my understanding that the NK provisioning had to be much higher in the fourth quarter because of some earlier legacy issues of provisioning. Therefore I expected the results to be poor but not so poor as to have reported Rs 20 crore net profit.
Q: I think a lot of people did have at the back of their mind Rs 800 crore kind of figure because of this provisioning. What else do you think has gone into this bottomline performance? I mean there is this total provisioning of 4000, there is provisioning for NPAs. Are there any other details you have been able to pull out for the bottom line hit?
Hazari: In the earlier years SBI had shown a very large profit increase which in my view was not necessary. What you are seeing today is the evening out of the profit numbers of earlier years.
Therefore, what I would understand now that the balance sheet should have been substantially cleaned up. Even though the stock is reacting negatively as I expected it to from now on you could see much better performance.
Although by the first quarter of FY12 also there could be some pressure. But I would expect that to ease by the second and third quarter of this financial year.
Q: What did you expect to see on the net interest income performance though because even that is a disappointment? You can explain to me the bottom line with provisioning but what about the top line performance, how is that gone down for you?
Hazari: This has to be seen in the light of the sharp 50 basis point increase in the base rate and the prime lending rate that SBI announced some days ago. It is very apparent now that the margin was under pressure. It was under pressure because of SBI’s obsession with increasing market share on the credit side.
As I have always maintained that banks which focus on increasing credit market share always running into problems either of margin pressure which is probably what we have seen in SBI’s fourth quarter or at a slightly later stage of NPAs provisioning which is also what we are seeing today.
Also Read: Why SBI reported fall in Q4 profit?
Q: What’s your call in any case on SBI, where do you stand?
Hazari: After these results, we would turn positive on the stocks. I had been negative because I had expected very poor results in the fourth quarter. The results have come off far more negative than my expectations.
But, that is a positive sign because I believe that substantial clean up has taken place in SBI. It was necessary. At this moment in time, I would expect the stock to be negative but I would turn positive at these levels.
Q: What have you made of these numbers so far?
Agrawal: Some amount of bad news is expected on the provisioning front. But if we look at the results, on most of the line there is a negative surprise including on disappointing note even the net interest income has come in below expectation. So all put together of course even on the operating front the numbers are not looking very good.
Q: What would you expect to see by way of margin performance from SBI given this kind of topline performance?
Agrawal: On the face of it although we don’t have all the numbers yet. But it looks like they would have at least 30 bps odd decline in their margins compared to the last quarter at the very least. So, that is quite a substantial decline considering that with this bank good deposit franchise, expected better performance.
Q: One of your peers was pointing was that all the poison so to speak is out with these numbers. Do you have a sense of what the entire provisioning figures stood at if they had indeed met that 70% rate and do you think that has been booked into this quarter as well or is this some thing that’s going to spill over into the next couple of quarters?

Agrawal: You need to go deeper into the numbers to see exactly where they stand. But, there has been some amount of bad news that has been totally taken into this quarter. We have to see the numbers further to know if there were incremental asset quality pressures as well, what the slippages and so on to make final conclusion.
Q: What was your price target and earnings target pre these numbers on SBI and what did you see as a reasonable price to book that the bank should trade at?
Agrawal: We had reduced our target price for the bank after the monetary policy but it was still at about Rs 3,200. We would definitely give it a relook once we are done with the results but as of now our target price is Rs 3,200.