M&M net profit falls 14% in Q3, Kingfisher House to be sold on Mar 17 and more

M&M net profit falls 14% in Q3, tractor sales take a hit
Homegrown auto firm Mahindra & Mahindra on  Friday reported a 14.13 per cent fall in standalone net profit to Rs 807.99 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, hit by weak sales in the tractor segment. The company had posted a net profit of Rs 942.14 crore in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal, Mahindra & Mahindra said in a regulatory filing.

Govt prods steelmakers to use local coal to cut $4-bn import bill
The government is asking the country's big steelmakers to consider converting local medium-quality coal into premium coking coal to slash an annual import bill of more than $4 billion for buying that grade from countries such as Australia and South Africa.

Retail inflation hits 17-mth high in January
Rising for the the sixth straight month, retail inflation touched a 16-month high of 5.69 per cent in January, mainly due to costlier food prices. Retail inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), stood at 5.61 per cent in December 2015 and 5.19 per cent in January 2015. The pace of retail price rise in January 2016 is the highest since 6.46 per cent in September 2014.

December industrial output falls 1.3%
Industrial output contracted an annual 1.3 per cent in December, government data showed. Economists surveyed by Reuters had forecast output would shrink 0.1 per cent compared with a 3.2 per cent year-on-year fall in November.

SBI-led consortium to sell Kingfisher House on March 17
The SBI-led bank consortium has decided to auction Kingfisher House in Mumbai on March 17 in a bid to recover a part of Rs 6,963 crore debt due from the now grounded Kingfisher Airlines. The e-auction will be done under Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest (SARFAESI) Act, 2002.