Stock Watch

The District Regional Transport Authority has decided to fit all the City, mofussil and express buses in the Mangalore city and larger Dakshina Kannada district with the GPS -Global Positioning System to bring order in the transport.

Commuters complain that bus operators in competition with other drive rash in order to gain more passengers. The GPS systems are expected to be in place by the end of this month. The decision was taken at a meeting of DK district administration and bus operators associations last week.

Leading travel firm Cox and Kings (India) has announced that it is going to raise Rs. 2,000 crore in near future. It may follow a mix of equity and debt to raise the fund.

The company is looking forward to fund its expansion plans and acquisitions by such fund rise only. However, Cox and Kings (India) is yet to receive the approval from its shareholders. This fact has been revealed by Chief Financial Officer of Cox and Kings, Mr. Anil Khandelwal.

One of India's oldest travel-related company and also one of the biggest, Cox and King has said that it is looking forward to raise Rs. 2,000 crore. As of now, the company is waiting for the shareholders' nod regarding the same.

The money will be a combination of both debt and equity and will be raised from the domestic as well as overseas sources. It will then be used yo finance the acquisitions of the company.

Cox and Kings feels that this is the right time for the move since the travel industry is now coming out of the shambles because of the recovery phase.

Travel Company, Cox and Kings (India) has announced its year-end financial results for the fiscal year 2009-10 and it has registered an impressive rise in its net profit and consolidated income. The company has informed that the net profit was Rs 133.84 crore for the year that ended in 31st March, 2010.

The consolidated net profit was reported to be Rs 62.81 crore for the financial year 2008-09. This net profit figure has rose by 113% in this year as compared to the last fiscal. This has been informed by Cox and Kings
(India) in a press release.

MakeMyTrip, India's Gurgaon based online travel agent, has officially announced the acquisition of Ticketvala. com, the online bus tickets firm, which is owned and operated by Travis Internet Pvt. Ltd.

Under the deal, MMT has taken over strategic assets from Ticketvala, which include the website, URL, the technology platform agent network, in addition to the bus inventory.

Cox & Kings India, a tour and travel company with operations in India and UK, has managed decent run during debut on the stocks exchange. The company's shares increased by 30 per cent to close at Rs. 426.05, on the Bombay Stock Exchange as compared to IPO price of Rs. 330.

The performance was good at NSE as well, where the stock closed at Rs. 430 after registering decent volume.

Cox and Kings (India) Limited, one of the India's oldest tour operators, has been assigned an IPO Grading of 4 to its proposed IPO by Rating agency CARE.

The latest grade indicates above average fundamentals. It should be noted that CARE assigns IPO grades on scale of Grade 5 to Grade 1, with Grade 5 indicating strong fundamentals and Grade 1 indicating poor fundamentals.

Travelocity Global, leading US based online travel firm has announced that it has acquired India-based online hotel distribution network Travelguru.

According to sources, the company did not reveal financial details of the deal.

The sources further informed that the acquisition, which will extend Travelocity's online travel business in India, will help the firm access more than 4,000 hotels in India.

Indian Railways moved one more step ahead to use technology products in the country's largest transport system by announcing introduction of 6,344 Automatic Ticket Vending Machines (ATVMs) at stations across the country in a bid to reduce ticketing pressure on ticket counters.

Today, Mahindra & Mahindra Group's leisure and hospitality company, Mahindra Holidays & Resorts India Ltd. (MHRIL), announced that they will append modern properties and will elaborate some of its existing resorts with the payoff evoked through their Initial Public Offering (IPO). The IPO will be launched on Tuesday.