The weekly recap: 20th-24th April
The weekly recap: 20th-24th April
It was an action packed week as Oracle agreed to buy Sun Microsystems, the Reserve Bank of India cut two key rates and despite heat waves, over 55% of people voted in phase two of the general elections.
The week began with one of the largest acquisitions in the IT space. On Monday Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems for a whopping $5.6 billion or Rs28,000 crores. Oracle will be paying $9.55 per share in cash for Sun’s stock. That is a premium of 42% to Friday’s close. Sun has been the target of acquisition ever since its business took a beating after the end of the tech boom in 2001. It had earlier talks with HP and IBM for a possible buyout.
On Thursday over 107 million people across 12 states lined up at polling booths to participate in step two of election 2009.
Though satisfied with the security measures taken for the second phase, the election commission announced re-polling in a few polling stations that were affected by Naxal violence in the first phase.
The Reserve Bank of India on Tuesday cut the repo rate and the reverse repo rate by 25 basis points each urging banks to reduce rates as well. It also cut its forecast for economic growth in the new fiscal year to 6%, the slowest since 2003.
The Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries, India’s largest company by market capitalization, on Thursday reported a fall of 1% in net profit for its fourth quarter. This is the second quarter in a row that RIL has reported a fall. Net profit fell to Rs3,874 crore from Rs3,912 crore last year. RIL’s net turnover for the quarter was Rs28,362 crore, down from Rs37,286 crore. RIL’s loss was largely on account of falling revenues in its major businesses of hydrocarbons exploration, crude oil refining and petrochemical refining.
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