NYSE-listed Western Union Company, a global leader in money transfer services, has entered into an agreement to acquire the money transfer business of Europe-based FEXCO, one of the company’s largest Agents.

It may be noted that, FEXCO has been a Western Union Agent since 1990, and in 2001 Western Union acquired a 25 percent stake in its overall business. As part of the deal, Western Union will surrender its stake in the non-money transfer business of FEXCO.

IDBI Fortis Life Insurance, a joint venture between IDBI, Federal Bank and Fortis has announced the launch of its unique Homesurance Protection Plan.

The Homesurance Protection Plan is a reducing term plan, which provides insurance cover equal to the outstanding balance of your home loan. In the unfortunate event of death of the home loan borrower, the insurance cover enables repayment of the home loan liability.

US bank holding firm Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has increased the capital in its wholly owned non-banking financial company, Pratham Investments and Trading Private Ltd, to Rs 485 crore (approximately US$100 mn), by pumping $76 million (Rs 370crore).

Market watchers believe that latest infusion by Goldman Sachs follows Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley pumping money into their local arms.

With this latest infusion, Pratham Investments plans to use the funds to expand its credit trading and investing businesses.

Indian software services firm Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. has entered into a strategic alliance with Cisco Systems Inc. (CISCO), the worldwide leader in networking, to develop and deliver information technology services.

Under the arrangement, TCS would build a new technology practice focused on Cisco's Industry-leading data centre networking security solutions.

Company officials said, Cisco and TCS are developing go-to-market solutions that meet the infrastructure and network requirements of global corporations.

Three-wheeler giant Piaggio Vehicles Private Limited (PVPL), has launched pre-owned Apé vehicles venture under the brand name ‘Apé Life’ where one can buy a new or exchange used Apé vehicles under one roof.

The company claims that this is the first venture of its kind in the sub 1-ton market, which will contribute 10% to company’s sales by 2011.

Hirco Developments Pvt. Ltd, announced that it has entered into a MoU with Tata Power for providing power supply solutions and distribution management to residents and tenants of Hirco’s Panvel special economic zone.

Under the arrangement, Tata Power will manage the quality and reliable power distribution system in the Panvel SEZ.

Presently, Hirco is developing an integrated township in Panvel region, which will showcase an ideal mix of modern residential units, offices, school, health care facilities, parks, shopping facilities, entertainment centres and more.

There is some bad news for domestic air travelers. In a latest move major Airlines (Air India, Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines) including low-cost carriers have withdrawn all promotional fares and increased basic fares by around Rs 2,000 on several sectors from Tuesday.

The companies have decided to stop the low-fare advance purchase (APEX) schemes, quoting that the airfares would now be decided by the market.

India's No. 2 motorcycle maker, Bajaj Auto plans to increase its stake from 25% to 30% in KTM Power Sports, Europe`s second-largest sports bike manufacturer.

During a press conference, Rajiv Bajaj, Managing director of Bajaj Auto, disclosed that the company is tightening its grip on KTM Power Sports and the stake hike would be concluded in six to eight weeks.

The initial public offer (IPO) of Chennai-based Edserv Softsystems of Rs 20 crore managed to sail through even while the Rs 44-crore IPO of Gemini Engi-Fab has been pulled off last week due to lack of investor confidence.

According to data revealed by National Stock Exchange, the IPO of EdServ Softsystems has received 51,49,000 bids as against issue size of 39,73,908 shares and got subscribed 1.30 times.

The price band for the issue was fixed between Rs 55 and Rs 60.

In today's trading session, Tata group stocks witnessed mixed reaction from investors on news that Tata Sons, the holding company of the Tata group, has pledged shares of some of the group companies, to finance operations in a tight liquidity situation in the credit market.
 
In its filing with the NSE, Steel giant Tata Steel, announced that the company's founders have pledged 9.89 crore shares, or 13.53 per cent of the total equity capital.

Medical services provider Fortis Healthcare notified on Tuesday that one of its main promoters Fortis Healthcare Holdings has pledged 20.75 per cent stake of the company for an undisclosed amount.

The health chain said, that its promoter (Fortis Healthcare Holdings) has pledged 4.70 crore shares representing 20.75 per cent stake in the company.

US-based aviation giant Boeing has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Public sector undertaking BEML, to develop analysis and experimentation centers in India.

Under the arrangement, both partners would set up analysis and experimentation centers in Bangalore and Delhi, to test military products.

After opening on a flat note, the Sensex continued to trade strong on account of heavy buying action witnessed across frontline stocks including DLF and Reliance Capital.

The BSE Sensex hit one-month high above the 9,700-mark on hopes that the interim budget will contain fiscal incentives to perk up sagging growth.

Realty stocks gained the most on hopes the forthcoming interim budget may include sops to the housing segment. The BSE realty index surged 5.89%, the most among sectoral indices on BSE.

The Mumbai’s King Edward Memorial (KEM) Hospital is struggling to deal with emergency services after resident doctors went on a strike.

The resident doctors are calling for the arrest of 25 people following an alleged assault on five of their colleagues by relatives of a patient on Monday night.

The patient, who was undergoing treatment in the Central Mumbai hospital for the last 15 days, died in the hospital and the body was not handed over to the relatives.

To avoid further controversies, the King Khan aka the Bollywood legend Shahrukh Khan has decided to trim down the word “barber” from the title of his forthcoming home production movie ‘Billu Barber’ because of objection to the word “Barber” in the title by the Salon and Hair Dressers’ Association of Maharashtra.

The association said that “Barber” was not just an insulting term but also referred to a caste.

While talking to report persons, SRK said that his production house Red Chillies has decided to take away the word 'barber' from all the posters.

To guarantee level playing field for themselves, the new mobile operators have urged the telecom regulatory body, TRAI to lessen the mobile termination charges.

But on the other hand, the subsisting telecom operators are asking for the highest rates possible.

Presently, the three major pan-India telecom operators such as Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular charge a termination fee of 30 paise per minute from an operator on whose network the call ends.

It was a quiet beginning to trade in Indian equities markets today (Tuesday, Feb 10) with a key index belled the day on a flat note in proportion to Asian peers.

After marking its closure on a buoyant note on Monday (Feb 09), the 30-share index, BSE Sensex opened with a gain of 6.06 points, at 9,589.95 today.

After few minutes of trading, the Sensex touched a high of 9,615. Later it slipped into the negative terrain, and soon bounced back into positive

The big news doing the rounds is that Saif and Kareena will be seen locking lips onscreen for the first time in their forthcoming movie by Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions.

The name of the film has not been finalized yet.

According to sources, the kissing scene between the two was shot last week in a Chembur studio. The kissing sequence is part of a song.

It is also learnt that the couple was a bit anxious during the shoot, but the film director talked Saif and persuaded him. Later on, Bebo, too, looked quite comfortable with the idea of the onscreen liplock with her boy friend.

A new study has disclosed that Vitamin B and folic acid can lessen the chance and intensity of migraines by decreasing amino acid levels.

A research group at Griffith University in Australia based their findings on a six-month study conducted on 50 participants with chronic migraine.

The result of the study showed that folacin and vitamin B could help significantly reduce the occurrence as well as severity of the migraine symptoms.

This is an intraday call for the day traders who want to make sound profit in today’s trading session.

According to the analysts, ICICI Bank can be purchased with the stop loss of Rs 418 to achieve the intraday target of Rs 442. If the stock remains positive then the stock may be purchased for the next intraday target of Rs 450.