Newsmakers: Penalty on SBI, infra sector output falls and more

L&T posts over 37% slide in Q1 profit
Larsen & Toubro reported on Friday a net profit of Rs 600 crore  for its first quarter, more than a third down on the previous year, and the engineering giant said the short-term business environment remained "challenging". Last year the company reported a consolidated net profit of Rs 967 crore  for the three months ended June.

Infra sector growth falls to 3% in June
Infrastructure output grew at a slower pace of 3 per cent in June as sectors such as coal and steel turned weak while oil and gas production fell-bolstering the case for faster reforms and further rate cuts by the RBI.

RComm unit stake sale draws US interest
Reliance Communications has revived a plan to sell a 51 per cent stake in its tower unit, attracting early interest from US private equity firms as well as domestic and American industry players, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter said. The firm is looking at a valuation of about $4 billion for the unit, which has about 45,000 mobile phone masts, the sources said.

EPFO to hit stock mkt through ETF route on August 6
Retirement fund body EPFO will kickstart the process of investing in the stock market on August 6 with an initial corpus of around Rs 5,000 crore to be invested through ETFs in the current fiscal. "We are making our first investment in equity (market) on August 6 in Mumbai. The Labour Minister (Bandaru Dattatreya) will preside over the function," EPFO's Central Provident Fund Commissioner K K Jalan said while addressing an Assocham conference in New Delhi.

Hong Kong penalises SBI
The Hong Kong central bank said on Friday it has fined State Bank of India 's Hong Kong branch HK$7.5 million (Rs 6.4 crore) for breaching the city's anti money-laundering and counter terrorism financing rules. The fine marks the first time the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has taken disciplinary action under Hong Kong's Anti Money-Laundering Ordinance brought into force in 2012.