Pantaloon Retail India, a Future Group Company promoted by Kishore Biyani, has decided to issue 1.1-crore equity shares to promoters and associates and 41-lakh equity shares to Dharmyug Investments at a price of Rs.183 per share on preferential basis.

Apart from this, the Mumbai based company would also issue 50-lakh warrants at a price of Rs.183 per warrant to promoters and their associates, convertible into equity shares within 18 months of allotment on preferential basis.

In a significant move, country's second largest mobile-phone operator, Reliance Communications (RCom) has decided to repurchased US $ 5 Million (about Rs 25.26 crore) foreign currency convertible bonds (FCCBs) at discount from the international markets.

In a disclosure to the Bombay Stock Exchange, the Mumbai based company, owned by Anil Ambani said that it has bought back 50 zero coupon FCCBs aggregating Rs 25.26 crore.

The filing further added that the repurchased bonds are expected to extinguish on April 15, 2009.

While launching its new brand campaign, cement maker Jaypee Cement, a wholly owned arm of the Jaypee Group, has appointed master blaster Sachin Tendulkar as its brand ambassador.

Mr. Manoj Gaur, Jaypee Group Executive Chairman, said, “Sachin and Jaypee Cement are a perfect fit as they stand for similar values of inner strength, endurance and ever lasting performance. These value have spurred both to set new benchmarks and made good the dreams and aspirations of all those who believe in Sachin and Jaypee Cement.”

On the eve of entering its 145th year of service, Kolkata-based Allahabad Bank, has made announcement about the retail selling of gold coins publicly.

The public sector lender said that it will shortly launch the scheme in other areas.

While speaking to media persons, Mr. KR Kamath, Allahabad Bank Chairman & Managing Director, stated that at first, the coins will be available in denominations of four (4), eight (8) and ten (10) grams in select core banking solutions branches of the bank.

In a latest development, India's largest utility NTPC has informed that it would start coal production from its mines in Jharkhand in the second half of this fiscal.

The company plans to achieve a coal production target of 15 million tonnes per annum by 2012.

It should be noted that NTPC has ventured into the coal mining business with an aim to meet about 20 per cent of its fuel requirement from its captive mines by 2017.

BT India, the Indian subsidiary of BT group, which is one of the world’s leading providers of communications solutions and services, has announced the opening of its first ever BT Asia Pacific Security Operations centre (SOC) in India.  

The centre which is located in a BT dedicated building at Noida, will provide security device management services involving critical customer components including firewalls, intrusion detection devices and Bluecoat Proxy devices used for securing networked-IT environments.