Berlin  - The German government will take a 25 per cent cent stake plus one share in one of the country's leading banks, Commerzbank, sources told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa on Thursday.

The newspaper Die Welt said the move was in return for a 10 billion-euro (13.56 billion dollars) injection of capital.

Earlier in the day, Commerzbank became the first German lender to issue a bond backed by state guarantees. The bank set the size of the bond at 5 billion euros.

Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC), one of the leading PSU banks in India, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with India's leading car manufacturer Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. to publicize the loan scheme offered by Oriental Bank of Commerce.

As per MOU, the exclusive car dealers of Maruti Suzuki will publicize the loan scheme among the prospective car buyers and link them to the Bank for credit support for hassle-free process.

London, Jan 7 : Lloyds TSB, the leading financial institution, has topped the league table of the UK's most gay-friendly employers in a new survey.

The police services, banking and management consultant firms have outshined the public sector, media and education at the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index 2009.

Goldman Sachs, the global bank holding company landed at the 11th place.

Stock market analysts have suggested investors to ‘sell’ State Bank of India (SBI) stock with a target of Rs 1271.

According to them, interested investors can sell the stock between Rs 1295-1300 with a strict stop loss of Rs 1320.
 
Today (Jan 07), the stock opened at Rs 1330.90, against its last closure at Rs 1324.20 on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on Tuesday (Jan 06). Current EPS & P/E ratio stood at 119.59 and 10.76 respectively. The share price has seen a 52-week high of Rs 23.87.60 and a low of Rs 991.10 on BSE.

The State Bank of India (SBI), the largest bank in the country, has picked up 19.7 per cent equity in Orissa-based Mayfair Hotels and Resorts (MHRL) through a private equity (PE) deal, for an undisclosed sum.

The group currently has four hotels in the state and plans to use the funds to expand organically and geographically.

The deal was for 37.33 lakh shares with a face value of Rs 10 each. Post-deal, the promoters' share will be 80 per cent.

IBM has entered into a US$5 million IT services agreement with Kotak Mahindra Bank Limited (Kotak) to further strengthen latter’s position as one of the leading banking and financial services provider in India.

Under the arrangement, IBM will design, build and maintain a highly scalable, energy-efficient green data center as well as the converged IP network infrastructure for the client.