The shares were sold at a discount to Federal's closing price of 414.05 rupees on Monday.
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Tropical Storm Isaac is pictured as it approaches landfall in this August 27, 2012 NASA handout satellite image taken at 2125 EDT.
Credit: Reuters/NASA/HandoutBy Kathy FinnNEW ORLEANS | Tue Aug 28, 2012 8:00am IST
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Tropical Storm Isaac closed in on the U.S. Gulf coast on Monday, triggering evacuation orders in some areas and disrupting offshore oil production as it threatened to make landfall between Florida and Louisiana as a Category 2 hurricane.
The wide, slow-moving storm swiped south Florida on Sunday and strengthened over the warm Gulf waters. It was expected to reach land late on Tuesday or early Wednesday, the anniversary of devastating Hurricane Katrina seven years ago.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center warned the storm could buffet towns and cities in at least three U.S. states near the shoreline and flood the northern Gulf coast with a storm surge of up to 12 feet (3.6 metres) in some areas.
"The weather will start going downhill overnight tonight on the northern Gulf Coast," Hurricane Center Director Rick Knabb told reporters. "Wherever it is people are going to be during the storm, they need to get there tonight."
Isaac was forecast to strengthen into a Category 2 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity, with top winds of 100 mph (160 kph), before making landfall and moving over the Gulf Coast.
The storm could take direct aim at New Orleans, which is still struggling to fully recover from Katrina, which swept across the city on August 29, 2005, killing more than 1,800 people and causing billions of dollars of damage along the coast.
"That brings a high level of anxiety to the people of New Orleans," said New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu. "I want to tell everybody now that I believe that we will be OK."
At 8 p.m. EDT (2400 GMT), Isaac was centered 230 miles (370 km) southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River with top sustained winds of 70 miles per hour (110 kph) -- a speed that places the storm very near hurricane status -- and swirling northwest at 10 mph (17 kph).
The storm was more than 400 miles (645 km) wide and Craig Fugate, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said the worst effects may well be in Mississippi and Alabama.
"This is not a New Orleans storm. This is a Gulf Coast storm," Fugate said.
The governors of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama declared states of emergency and mandatory evacuation orders went into effect for residents of several low-lying districts, including about 8,000 to 10,000 residents of Mobile, Alabama, as well as nearby Dauphin Island.
President Barack Obama approved Louisiana's request for a federal disaster declaration, Governor Bobby Jindal said. Obama's approval, given in a phone call that included the governors of Mississippi, Alabama, makes federal funds available for disaster recovery activities like clearing debris.
Energy producers in the Gulf of Mexico shut down some of their operations ahead of what could be the biggest test for U.S. energy installations since 2008, when Hurricanes Gustav and Ike disrupted offshore oil output for months and damaged onshore natural gas processing plants, pipelines and some refineries.
The ports of Mobile and New Orleans were closed and barge traffic was suspended along southern portions of the Mississippi River.
In New Orleans, which is below sea level, long lines formed at some gas stations. Skies over the city were gray and a stiff breeze signaled the approaching storm. Along Canal Street in the city's historic French Quarter, crews were boarding up storefront windows.
Charles Neeley, a 69-year-old contractor overseeing a group of workers covering the windows of a drugstore, said he was undeterred by the storm.
"We usually ride out ones and twos and get the hell out for threes and fours," he said, referring to the categories of hurricane strength.
In Gulfport, Mississippi, as in many other coastal towns, people crowded supermarkets to buy bottled water and canned food.
"Traffic is crazy," said Debbie Fish, who lives in Biloxi, Mississippi. "It seems like everybody is out running around."
"HOPE FOR THE BEST"
A bumper-to-bumper stream of vehicles left New Orleans on the I-10 highway heading west toward Baton Rouge as motorists made their way to higher ground.
At Mandina's Restaurant, a popular New Orleans eatery flooded by eight feet (2.4 meters) of water during Katrina, fourth-generation owner Cindy Mandina said she was nervous.
"We're going to hold tight and hope for the best," Mandina said, as she prepared to close up before the storm. "Pre-Katrina, you'd never close, you'd stay open, maybe lose power and then reopen as soon as possible."
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, equipped with dozens of bulldozers, piled tons of sand to reinforce the New Orleans levee system as Isaac lurked in the Gulf.
Emergency workers hope the levees, a series of massive walls which surround low-lying areas of the city, will hold up against the storm surge and avert life-threatening flooding.
Colonel Edward Fleming, commander of the Army Corps of Engineers overseeing flood protection, said improvements to the levee system had made New Orleans far less vulnerable to flooding than it was seven years ago.
But in low-lying Plaquemines Parish, which could be the first to be lashed by Isaac's winds and storm surge, workers scrambled to stack sandbags and reinforce levees.
Much of the parish lies outside the greater New Orleans levee system, and construction projects to bolster protection are not yet complete.
"We're really worried about the storm surge, we really need a few more years before we see an event like this," said Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser.
Despite the threat to the U.S. offshore oil patch, which produces about 23 percent of the country's oil output and 7 percent of its natural gas, prices for international benchmark Brent crude traded down $1.24 to $112.35 a barrel in late Monday activity.
Meteorologists at Weather Insight, an arm of Thomson Reuters, estimated that the storm temporarily shut down 88 percent of U.S. offshore oil production capacity and 80 percent of the offshore natural gas output.
Once ashore, the storm could wreak havoc on low-lying fuel refineries along the Gulf Coast that account for about 40 percent of U.S. refining capacity.
That could send gasoline prices spiking just before the U.S. Labor Day holiday on September 3, analysts said.
Isaac killed at least 22 people and caused significant flooding and damage in Haiti and the Dominican Republic before skirting the southern tip of Florida on Sunday.
(Additional reporting by Jane Sutton, David Adams and Kevin Gray in Miami; Scott Malone and Ben Gruber in New Orleans; Kristen Hays and Chris Baltimore in Houston and Verna Gates in Alabama; Writing by Tom Brown; Editing by Christopher Wilson and Jackie Frank)
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South Korea's Kim Yu-Na kisses the gold medal she won in the women's figure skating event at a news conference during the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, February 26, 2010.
Credit: Reuters/Simon Newman/FilesSEOUL | Tue Mar 9, 2010 11:21am IST
SEOUL (Reuters) - Kim Yuna's stunning win at last month's Winter Games will not only boost the career of the Olympic figure skating champion, it should help add several billion dollars to the South Korean economy.
Samsung Economic Research Institute economist Lee Dong-hun estimated Asia's fourth largest economy would benefit to the tune of 20.1768 trillion won ($17.82 billion) from the record haul of medals by its athletes in Vancouver.
South Korea finished fifth on the medals table, its best position, with six gold, six silver and two bronze medals.
All of the medals were won in skating events, including one from a world record performance by 19-year-old figure skater Kim, dubbed "Queen Yuna" at home.
"The country's splendid achievement in the 2010 Winter Games will bolster soft power, a prerequisite becoming an advanced country," Lee wrote in a report.
"After watching Kim Yuna's performance, Koreans may have experienced a heightened sense of self-confidence that encourages the belief that, by putting together their capabilities, Koreans can achieve anything."
In a country which has few peers when it comes to producing statistics, he broke down the financial benefits into such areas as greater brand recognition for companies and a boost for exports and domestic demand.
There was also a 3.3 trillion won price tag on indirect effects, including a boost to public morale.
All the more reason, the economist wrote, for South Korea to push hard to host the 2018 Winter Olympics.
The city of Pyeongchang is bidding for the third successive time after narrowly losing out to Vancouver and Russia's Sochi for the 2010 and 2014 Games.
(Reporting by Jonathan Thatcher; Editing Peter Rutherford; To query or comment on this story email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)
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Britain's Phillips Idowu is seen in Budapest in this October 17, 2009 file photo. Idowu has pulled out of this week's world indoor championships in Doha after the late arrival of his baby son disrupted his preparations.
Credit: Reuters/Karoly Arvai/FilesLONDON | Tue Mar 9, 2010 12:20am IST
LONDON (Reuters) - Triple jump champion Phillips Idowu has pulled out of this week's world indoor championships in Doha after the late arrival of his baby son disrupted his preparations.
"The late arrival of my baby boy has meant that my training has been severely disrupted and I decided after talking with my coach that I'd not had the preparation we agreed was needed to do the British team proud," Idowu said in a statement issued by UK Athletics on Monday.
"I will increase the training with a focus on the European Championships in Barcelona," added the 31-year-old, who became a father for the second time last week.
(Reporting by Alison Wildey; Editing by Kevin Fylan and Sonia Oxley;
To query or comment on this story email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)
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The Facebook logo is seen on a screen inside at the Nasdaq Marekstsite in New York May 18, 2012.
Credit: Reuters/Shannon Stapleton/FilesREUTERS - U.S. stock market regulator the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is reviewing whether to relax rules governing what companies can say ahead of initial public offerings, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.
The review comes after Facebook's (FB.O) botched listing, which prompted more than a dozen shareholder lawsuits accusing Facebook and its underwriters of obscuring the company's weakened growth forecasts ahead of the listing. Facebook shares have almost halved from their $38 IPO price.
Some U.S. lawmakers have complained that small investors were kept uninformed in the runup to the May IPO, the Journal said.
The head of SEC Mary Schapiro has asked her staff to review the "quiet period" rules which ban remarks about a firm's prospects around the time of a share sale, the Journal said, citing a letter Schapiro recently sent to Republican Congressman Darrell Issa.
"We should review our communications rules and the application of the quiet period" in light of changes in technology and the stock market in recent years, Schapiro wrote in her August 23 letter, which was a response to one Issa sent in June, the WSJ reported.
Issa wrote in his June 19 letter that in the case of Facebook's IPO, "the informational disadvantage to the less informed public proved harmful".
Schapiro, while declining to comment on the Facebook share offer, responded by saying the agency could review rules that gag company executives ahead of an IPO to prevent hyping of a stock, the paper said.
The SEC could not immediately be reached for comment by Reuters outside of regular U.S. business hours.
(Reporting by Sakthi Prasad in Bangalore; Editing by Daniel Magnowski)
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