Oakajee Port & Rail Pty, a joint venture between Australian iron ore producer Murchison Metals Ltd. and Mitsubishi Corp. of Japan, said today that the company is planning to increase its proposed capacity by 29% in the first stage.

Oakajee is all set to develop a terminal project to export iron ore from Western Australia. The proposed project would cost Oakajee around $A4 billion. Oakajee took the decision to expand its capacity to meet the rising demand of from regional iron ore miners.

Mumbai-based, Concurrent India Infrastructure Ltd. said on Friday that it is going to buy majority stake in Kazi Aviation & Travel Services.

It did not disclose the amount which is going to be involved, if and when the deal takes place. The details of the plans were given in a filing done by Concurrent to the BSE.

Both the companies are related to the field of infrastructure. While Concurrent deals in the business of construction, power and engineering; Kazi deals with the aviation sector. The Chennai-based company does ground handling, maintenance and repairing of aircrafts.

This is not the first deal that is happening in this area this year. Earlier, two deals between big companies have already taken place.

The joint venture between Leighton Holdings's Asia unit and Macmahon Holdings, has won a contract worth $463 million.

The company has to build tunnels and ventilation buildings for the Hong Kong Express rail link. It would cover the Tse Uk Tsuen to Shek Yam section of the Guangzhou - Shenzhen - Hong Kong Express Rail Link (XRL).

The contract is for the construction of link which would be 7.6 kms. twin-track tunnel and the ventilation buildings will be made with 90-meter deep shaft.

Work on the project will start very soon and should get over by 2015.

IL&FS Transportation is the latest one to have joined the race for public listing. And through this, the infrastructure company plans to raise Rs. 700 crore.

The price band of the IPO is expected to be in between Rs. 242 and Rs. 258 per share. It would be floating 14 per cent of its stake through the listing.

The IPO will be open for subscription from March 11 and will go on till March 15.

It has already filed its red-herring prospectus with the Registrar of Companies on March 4.

Calling it pro infrastructure growth, Kishor P. Ostwal, CMD of leading BSE listed research company CNI Research, said on Friday that the budget has dealt with the key concerns such as fiscal deficit, inflation growth and reforms simultaneously.

The budget recognized India's need of inflow of over $1 trillion for taking the infrastructure to world class levels without falling prey to the pitfalls of global economies, he said.

As per him, the tax limit hikes are substantial and would put more money in the hands of salaried and small businessman enhancing demand for FMCG and Consumer durable sector.

Essar Securities is going ahead with a stake sale in its telecom infrastructure company.

Named Essar Telecom Infrastructure, which is mostly into tower business; the firm will now see American Tower Company (ATC) as one of its shareholders.

The total value of the deal is going to be close to Rs. 49 crore and has already got approval from the board of directors of Essar Securities.

The construction major Man Infra construction ltd. (MIL) has entered the IPO market with issue of 56,25,150 equity shares of Rs 10 each through a 100% book building route.

The company provides construction services for port infrastructure, residential, industrial, and commercial and road infrastructure projects. It is going to issue, 25,150 equity shares of Rs 10 each through a 100% book building process. The price band fixed is at Rs 243-252. The issue closes this Monday.

The Reserve Bank of India has relaxed its norms relating to the lending in the infrastructure sector, according to a notification released on Friday.

The central bank has created a new category of non-banking finance companies known as infrastructure finance companies taking the type of finance companies to four others being asset finance companies, loan companies and investment companies.

ARSS Infrastructure Projects has opened for subscription its initial public offering today through which the company plans to riase about Rs 103 crore.

The issue will close for subscription on February 11, 2010. The price band for the issue has been fixed at Rs 410-450 per share. At the upper price band the issue will constitute 16.67% of the post-issue equity capital of the company.

The electric vehicle charging station infrastructure provider, Coulomb Technologies, has raised $14 million in the Series B venture funding round. The funding round was led by two companies, namely Voyager Capital and Rho Ventures.

Coulomb technologies has secured this fund with a view to expand in the market of powering EVs. Particularly, the fund will be used to finance its Research and development, operations capital and sales. Coulomb has further plans to penetrate in the worldwide markets including Asia and South America.

Srei Infrastructure Finance Ltd has planned to merge with Quippo Infrastructure Equipment Ltd. Quippo Infrastructure was founded in 2002 by Srei jointly with international lenders such as International Finance Corp and FMO of the Netherlands holding 40% initially. It is now the country's biggest infrastructure equipment rental firm.

IVRCL Infrastructures & Projects Ltd announced that its net profit for the three month period ended Dec 2009 slumped 1.50% to Rs 45.8 crore as against Rs 46.52 crore in the third quarter ended December 31, 2008.

In a statement, the company said that it recorded the decline owing to an amendment to the Income Tax Act that led to higher tax outgo at Rs 22.94 crore as compared to Rs 9.07 crore in 2008.

For the three month period ended December 2009, Infrastructure Development Finance Company (IDFC) registered a 46% growth in its consolidated net profit, which stood at Rs 269.90 crore as against Rs 184.62 crore during the same period of the last financial year.

The company total income during the said quarter surged to Rs 997.80 crore as compared to Rs 865.20 crore during the corresponding period of 2008.

On the standalone basis, the company registered a growth of 39.53% in its net profit at Rs 240 crore for the October-December quarter.

Infrastructure developer, Hindustan Construction Co Ltd has recorded a net profit of Rs 14.75 crore for the third quarter of the current financial year against Rs 23.20 crore in the same period previous fiscal.

Praveen Sood, the Chief Financial Officer of HCC said "The net profit figure is not comparable due to write back of excess tax provision of Rs 9 crore in the previous year."

The order book of the firm stood at Rs 15,703 crore on December 31, 2009 and the company expects it to reach Rs 21,000 crore by March end.

Union minister for Road Transport and Highways Kamal Nath has said that the government may consider using cement for construction of expressways. The ministry has laid out plans to construct over 18,000 km greenfield expressways by 2032.

Nath said “It would be appropriate to look at building expressways with cement concrete as these will be greenfield projects.” The minister was speaking at a seminar organized by CII titled ‘Concrete Highway Projects’.

The minister outlined a possible use of concrete on roads stretches which are used heavily and further said that the roads which are already build with bitumen will not be turned into cement roads.

GTL Infrastructure has acquired Aircel Cellular tower business for Rs 8,400 crore. The all cash deal will see GTL acquire 17,500 telecom towers from the company.

GTL is to raise the money through a mix of debt and equity. Manoj Tirodkar, Chairman of the company said “This is the largest all-cash asset purchase transaction in Indian corporate history. We expect to fund this transaction through fresh equity of Rs 3,400 crore; this could go up to Rs 4,000 crore if required. The balance 5,000 crore will come through debt funded by a consortium of banks syndicated by SBI Caps.”

GTL Infrastructure is set to buy all the 17,500 cellular transmission towers of Aircel in a deal worth close to $1.8 billion, according to sources.

After the deal, the joined entity will become one of India’s largest third-party mobile tower companies with 33,000 telecom towers. Bharti Infratel, Crown Castle and Tata-Quippo had all expressed interest in the deal, but GTL managed to get ahead.

Aircel is expected to use the funds for expansion throughout India and bid for 3G license.

The announcement is expected tomorrow as GTL indicated to the BSE that its board is about to meet to discuss opportunities of ‘strategic acquisitions and investments’. The firm is also believed to be in talks with various banks to arrange funds for the deal.

The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) will issue guidelines relating to IPO by the end of February. The guidelines will be for the insurance companies, indicated an IRDA official.

Mr. J Hari Narayan, chairman of the IRDA speaking at the sidelines of an insurance conference said, "We are awaiting Institute of Actuary's guidance note on Economic Capital calculation. Once that is done, we will be in shape. We will come out with the IPO guidelines by February end."

The conference was organized by the FICCI in Mumbai on Tuesday.

In a major push to country’s road infrastructure program, the Central Government has given green signal for the up gradation of nearly 561.87 km of highways in five states. The road projects worth Rs 6,151.94 crore have already been approved by the Cabinet Committee on Infrastructure.

The government aims to expand 439 km existing four-lane section roads of the Golden Quadrilateral (GQ) scheme in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan in to six lanes for addressing the rising traffic problem. The GQ project, to be executed on Design, Build, Finance, Operate and Transfer (DBFOT) basis, would cost around Rs 4,279.94 crore.

Government is committed to enhance spending on road infrastructure and proposing to bid 8,000 km of road construction contracts for the current financial year, stated the Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia.

Speaking in the sidelines of a national conference on leadership organized by CII, Dr. Ahluwalia said, "In comparison, the government bid out 2,000 km of road construction contracts during the last three years."