ICICI Bank, the country’s second largest bank, on Friday in its statement to the BSE said that the board will meet on Saturday to consider the proposal for amalgamation of Sangli Bank with itself.
Declining to give any information on the deal size, a bank official said, "As we are aggressively expanding into agri and rural space, we have decided to merge the Sangli Bank with our bank."
According to analysts, the branch network of Sangli Bank has attracted ICICI Bank to amalgamate with it. Sangli Bank has 186 branches, of which 80 per cent of the network is in Maharashtra and the remaining in Karnataka, Gujarat, Goa and Andhra Pradesh.
Sangli Bank has a low capital adequacy ratio (CAR) and is incurring losses for the last two years.
In 2005-06, Sangli Bank posted a loss of Rs 29.27 crores for the second year in a row. It reported a loss of Rs 31.31 crores last year. Moreover, the bank’s dep-osits are also going down as it is witnessing frequent withdrawal of deposits by the customers.
"The rural lending business of ICICI Bank is growing at the CAGR of 50 per cent. Moreover, the bank has received licence from RBI for opening 100 branches more. The bank has 650 branches at present and hence the merger with the Sangli Bank will benefit ICICI Bank with additional 186 branches and strengthen its foray in rural areas," said Ms Sarika Lohra, banking analyst, Angel Broking.
The financial health of Sangli Bank is weak and it will be in trouble if the RBI declares moratorium unlike United Western Bank. Hence it would be a fair deal for Sangli Bank to merge with a private sector bank like ICICI Bank.
ICICI eyes Sangli Bank
December 9, 2006, 9:51 amIs there an IP phone in your future?
December 9, 2006, 9:51 am
The current migration to IP-based business and consumer markets is well documented. The vast majority of PBX systems sold annually are IP-PBXs. Consumers are also flocking to VoIP, either consciously with Vonage-like services, or unconsciously via cable triple play service bundles, says In-Stat, a high-tech market research firm.
"What’s missing in all this is the IP phone. Only 40 per cent of all IP-PBX seats are currently equipped with an IP phone. A few people are buying Wi-Fi phones for accessing Skype or Vonage long distance services, but how many of your neighbors have replaced their home telephones with IP end points?," it says.
According to In-Stat, when it comes to IP phones, equipment vendors and service pro-viders find themselves between a rock and a hard place. Equipment vendors want to leverage their existing customer base by making the transition to IP technology as easy and transparent as possible. This means backward compatibility with legacy digital feature phones. Without IP phones, new multimedia applications, such as video telephony, or voice/text collaboration have no value. Without valued applications, the investment in IP phones cannot be justified.
"Service providers find themselves in a similar quandary. Requiring consumers to purchase an IP phone is a significant barrier to VoIP adoption. In Japan, for instance, VoIP subscribers are also required to pay for a PSTN line, whether they use it or not. Service providers are eyeing revenue from a whole new generation of consumer applications, enabled by IP end points. But, expecting consumers to buy IP phones is simply unreasonable," it says.
IBM vs MSN
Meanwhile, according to InformationWeek, IBM has rejected Microsoft’s Open XML specification as an international standard. IW says that members of the Ecma General Assembly had voted on whether to send the default document format in Microsoft Office 2007 to the International Organisation for Standardisation, or ISO, for approval. The Open XML competes with the ISO-approved OpenDocument. OD is the default format in OpenOffice, the open source productivity suite.
"In disclosing IBM’s no vote, Bob Sutor, vice-president for open source and standards for IBM, was reported as saying in his blog that OpenDocument is ‘vastly superior’ to Open XML, and is what the industry needs to drive competition and lower costs to customers," IW quoted Mr Sutor as saying.
"[OpenDocument] is an example of a real open standard versus a vendor-dictated spec that documents proprietary products via XML," Mr Sutor said.
"What’s missing in all this is the IP phone. Only 40 per cent of all IP-PBX seats are currently equipped with an IP phone. A few people are buying Wi-Fi phones for accessing Skype or Vonage long distance services, but how many of your neighbors have replaced their home telephones with IP end points?," it says.
According to In-Stat, when it comes to IP phones, equipment vendors and service pro-viders find themselves between a rock and a hard place. Equipment vendors want to leverage their existing customer base by making the transition to IP technology as easy and transparent as possible. This means backward compatibility with legacy digital feature phones. Without IP phones, new multimedia applications, such as video telephony, or voice/text collaboration have no value. Without valued applications, the investment in IP phones cannot be justified.
"Service providers find themselves in a similar quandary. Requiring consumers to purchase an IP phone is a significant barrier to VoIP adoption. In Japan, for instance, VoIP subscribers are also required to pay for a PSTN line, whether they use it or not. Service providers are eyeing revenue from a whole new generation of consumer applications, enabled by IP end points. But, expecting consumers to buy IP phones is simply unreasonable," it says.
IBM vs MSN
Meanwhile, according to InformationWeek, IBM has rejected Microsoft’s Open XML specification as an international standard. IW says that members of the Ecma General Assembly had voted on whether to send the default document format in Microsoft Office 2007 to the International Organisation for Standardisation, or ISO, for approval. The Open XML competes with the ISO-approved OpenDocument. OD is the default format in OpenOffice, the open source productivity suite.
"In disclosing IBM’s no vote, Bob Sutor, vice-president for open source and standards for IBM, was reported as saying in his blog that OpenDocument is ‘vastly superior’ to Open XML, and is what the industry needs to drive competition and lower costs to customers," IW quoted Mr Sutor as saying.
"[OpenDocument] is an example of a real open standard versus a vendor-dictated spec that documents proprietary products via XML," Mr Sutor said.
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