Company News 22nd Jan 2007

L&T signs JV pact with Saudi firm

DUBAI: The Indian construction conglomerate Larsen & Toubro has signed a joint venture (JV) agreement with Saudi Arabia’s A A Turki Contracting and Trading Corporation, which will focus on electromechanical construction for the hydrocarbon and power sect or. The new venture will be known as Larsen & Toubro ATCO (Saudia) LLC.

Ref : Business line

IndianOil puts retail plans in Indonesia on hold

 Indian Oil Corporation Ltd has put on hold its plans to foray into the petroleum retailing industry of Indonesia. A senior company official said, “After evaluating the business prospects in that country we have decided to put on hold our plans to foray into Indonesia’s retail sector till there is more clarity on de-regulation plans there.”

 

However, the company is likely to continue with its lubricant distribution business in Indonesia, he stated. IndianOil was looking at launching its retail outlets in Indonesia by floating a fully owned subsidiary. If the plans had materialised this would have been IndianOil’s third retailing venture abroad. IndianOil entered the Sri Lankan market in 2002 through Lanka IOC Ltd. The Indian petroleum marketing major also has a presence in Mauritius through its subsidiary IndianOil Mauritius Ltd.

Ref : Business line

 

ICICI Bank board to take up Sangli Bank 

ICICI bank is all set to acquire Sangli  bank ltd.of Maharashtra.Sangli was set up in the year 1916 by Raja of Sangli, has  around 192 branches across Karnataka,Tamilnadu, Delhi,
Goa , Gujrat, Andhra Pradesh. For ICICI bank it will provide the advantage of rural lending.If it acquires Sangli Bank then its number of branches will increase from 630 to 822 branches.                                                                                                                                                                    -Business line December 8 , 2006 

 

Infosys joins Nasdaq Top 100 index 

The banagalore based IT major became the first Indian company get into Nasdaq top 100 . rubbing shoulders with Dell,Microsoft and Intel. Infosys closed at $55.03 on Nasdaq on Friday. Based on its overseas market cap of $5.6 billion, it is likely to have a rank of around 80 on the Nasdaq 100 Index.                                                                            -         Business line December 9 , 2006 

 

Airbus A-380 coming to
India next year 

The world’s largest aircraft Airbus A-380  is coming to
India in the next year . Earlier it planned to get into
Bangalore but it was very small for it so it is looking at Delhi & Mumbai. Airbus estimates that
India would require 935 passenger and 165 freighter aircraft till 2026. “We estimate that there is scope for at least 54 large Airbus A-380 variety of aircraft in the Indian market till 2025″ Mr Leahy ,COO,Air Bus,said.                                                                           -         Business line December 12 , 2006 

Tata  CSN fight for CORUS 

In a punch-for-punch price battle for Anglo-Dutch steel maker Corus, Brazilian company CSN’s bid at 515 pence a share has, for the moment, won the round against the revised offer of Tata Steel of 500 pence a share. However, the final whistle is yet to be blown, as Tata Steel has promised a “further announcement in due course.”                                                                          -         Business line December 13 , 2006 

L&T wins Rs 5,400-cr
Delhi airport modernisation deal 

L&T has won the Rs 5,400-crore
Delhi airport modernisation contract. The company said that the order, secured against international competitive bidding, involves design and construction of a passenger terminal and a 4.43-km runway, which would be one of
Asia’s longest.                                                                                                                                                                 -  Business line December 13 , 2006 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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COMPANY NEWS

Reliance proposes to pipe natural gas to Tamil Nadu in 2-3 years 

 Reliance Industries Ltd will launch the project to pipe natural gas to Tamil Nadu in 2-3 years time, according to its Chairman, Mr Mukesh Ambani. The plan was to create a southern corridor pipeline to bring to Tamil Nadu a portion of the reserves of natural gas available at the Krishna-Godavari basin

  Business line 4^th Dec 2006

 Tata Power to make Defence product 

Tata Power has received seven licences from the Government for manufacturing electronic systems and products for defence services. According to the company, the licences would enable Tata Power to be the prime contractor to the Ministry of Defence for designing, development, manufacturing, assembling and upgrading critical systems in seven core areas of defence strategic electronics. 

 Business Line 5^th Dec 2006 

Cisco to locate unit in Chennai

With plans to make India its global hub, US-based networking major Cisco Systems on Wednesday announced a slew of initiatives including setting up a manufacturing unit in Chennai and tripling its manpower in the country from 2,000 at present to 6,000 over the next 3-4 years.

Business Line 7^th Dec 2006

Company News

Sun TV’s merger plan
Sun TV plans to merge satellite television broadcasting companies with itself, according to information provided by the company to the Bombay Stock Exchange. Its board will consider the merger on November 27. When contacted, company officials declined to comment.
Business line –21 Nov 2006
GM lays foundation stone for Talegaon plant
General Motors Corporation on Tuesday laid the foundation stone for its second plant in the country at Talegaon near Pune to manufacture mini car Chevrolet Spark and said the plant would also manufacture several other cars in the segment from its global portfolio of small cars.
Business line –22 Nov 2006
Madura Garments, Sierra tie up
Madura Garments has entered into a tie up with Sierra Industrial Enterprises to introduce Louis Philippe, Van Heusen and Allen Solly brands of footwear.
Business line –24 Nov 2006
NTPC to spend Rs 6,000 cr on coal block
NTPC Ltd plans investments to the tune of around Rs 6,000 crore for developing its 15-million-tonnes per annum Pakri Barwadih captive mine — the first of a series of eight mining blocks allotted to power major
Business line –25 Nov 2006

Company News ( November 20 , 2006 )

Hitachi Announces Its Corporate Strategy

Hitachi, Ltd announced that it has formulated a corporate strategy to promote collaborative creation and profits. With a rigorous focus on a market-oriented approach and profit creation as the basic policy, the aim is to establish a structure that stably generates high profits by the use of key initiatives

In line with this management policy, in order to improve earnings, businesses within the Hitachi Group are to be rigorously managed based on FIV criteria, and subject to restructuring and reappraisal accordingly, with no area of operations being regarded as exempt from such scrutiny. With the emphasis on collaborations with partners and group companies, in the Hitachi Group diverse partnerships are being used to strengthen collaborative innovation business undertakings in various areas of operations. The focus is also on producing innovations in which the priority is on profitability, such as by expanding businesses that provide innovative products and services that are market leaders, and strengthening R&D capabilities that are directly linked to the generation of profits.

 The aim is to use these initiatives to achieve an operating margin of 5% by fiscal 2009. Hitachi is also focusing on strengthening its financial structure and maintaining a D/E ratio (including minority interests) of 0.8 or below.

 Zee buys 50% in Ten Sports

 $57 mn deal to help Zee get a foothold in cricket broadcasting. Zee Telefilms has acquired a 50 per cent stake in Ten Sports at an enterprise valuation of $114 million (or $57 million for the stake sold), from Dubai-based Taj Television.

 Al Jazeera in English

 Nov. 19, 2006 — Al Jazeera, the Arab world’s leading broadcast network, launched its English-language channel this week with a slick and polished 24-hour newscast.

 But while the world was watching, American viewers — one of the channel’s main targets — were not. None of the major American cable or satellite providers chose to carry the signal.

Most Americans know Al Jazeera as the network that broadcasts Osama bin Laden’s periodic messages. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld once called it, “vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable.” But the man who runs Al Jazeera’s English network, Wadah Khanfar, said that is a misperception.

The deal will help Zee get a foothold in cricket broadcasting as well as production expertise where they currently have only a limited presence.

Company News ( Oct 27th,2006)

ICICI Bank, SIXT India in financing tie-up

 (26 October 2006 New Delhi) Leading Indian private sector bank ICICI Bank, and Delhi-based Sona Group company, Sixt India, today announced the ICICI Bank-Sixt Lease programme. Under the alliance, ICICI Bank will purchase the cars and Sixt would manage the rental operations with its corporate customers. The ICICI Bank-Sixt financial alliance will provide a complete vehicle leasing and fleet management solution, which includes residual value-based leasing, maintenance, repair, insurance management, accident management, fuel management, upgrade options and easy walkout options in case of employee severance for corporate clients. Commenting on the occasion, Sachin Khandelwal, head, vehicle finance, ICICI Bank said, “The Bank’s alliance with Sixt India will comprehensively address the growing requirements of corporates for leasing and fleet management of their vehicles. The leasing market is growing rapidly and provides a good business opportunity to both the partners.” Sunjay J Kapur, Vice Chairman & Managing Director Sixt India, said, “The corporate vehicle leasing market in India is pegged at Rs1,500 crore and is expected to grow at the rate of 30-40 percent ,Sixt AG has a presence in 85 countries.

Microsoft quarterly earnings up 11 pc

(Seattle, Oct. 27 (AP): Microsoft Corp’s fiscal first-quarter earnings rose by 11 per cent, exceeding Wall Street estimates, as the company said it benefited from stronger sales of server software and some cost savings. For the three months ended September 30, Microsoft said it earned $3.48 billion, or 35 cents per share. That compares with earnings of $3.14 billion, or 29 cents per share, in the same period a year earlier. The year-earlier results included a one-time legal charge of 2 cents per share. The Redmond-based company said revenue for its fiscal first quarter was $10.81 billion, an 11 per cent increase over $9.74 billion in the same period a year earlier.

Company News (14 – 20 Oct , 2006)

Intel ships 5 Million Dual Core chips in 60 days . (Wednesday, October 18, 2006)

Intel company says that it has shipped 5 million Duel Core Processors in the first two months of its sales , amid signs of strong demand for laptops’ this quarter. The company’s new Core Duo chipset marked the sales . Intel gave the sales figure as other executives forecast a strong forth quarter for notebook PCs’. Companies like Sony , Hewlett Packard , Toshiba , Dell were not feeling a major outfall from the issues regarding the new batteries used ..Intel is the midst of a major outhaul including price and job-cut.

Toyota to set up second plant in Karnataka . (Wednesday, October 18, 2006)

Toyota Motors id likely to come set up its second plant in Bidadi. The managing director KK Swamy says that they are still waiting to take a decision on where to set up the plant and what products will be manufactured there which is likely near Bangalore.

 Sony cuts profit forecast by two thirds (Friday October 20, 2006)

Sony slashed its annual profit forecast by 62% yesterday, blaming it on the heavy cost of recalling potentially faulty PC batteries from around the world. The company also said its decision to reduce the price of its long-awaited new game console, PlayStation 3, ahead of its launch in Japan next month had affected earnings. Sony’s chief financial officer, Nobuyuki Oneda, conceded that the number of recalled batteries could rise to more than 9.6m. It is earmarking 51bn yen (£230m) to pay for the recall, having earlier estimated the cost at up to ¥30bn. The company said its group operating profit for the year to March 2007 would come to ¥50bn – well down on its forecast in July of ¥130bn. Group net profit is expected to fall by 38% to ¥80bn. It left its annual sales outlook at ¥8.23 trillion.

Company News ( 07 Oct – 13 Oct, 2006 )

DR REDDY’S SETTLES PATENT ROW WITH GSK 

DR REDDY’S labs on Tuesday announced that it has settled a patent litigation with Glaxo Smith Kline relating to Sumatriptan succinate tablets , the generic version of anti- migraine drug Imitrex R  .The settlement would allow Dr Reddys to exclusively distribute an authorized a generic version of the tablets in US months ahead of its patents expiry

INTEL’S
INDIA ARM TO CHIP IN MORE FOR GeNEXT MOBILE PLATFORM 

Development center of Intel in India will be making significant contribution to new projects of the chip major .The Intel India development centre in Bangalore, which is the R&D center for Intel outside the
US will be making contribution to its next generation mobile platform (notebooks) and server chips

JAIPURIAS INVITE BRAND DISNEY TO
INDIA 

Brand Disney is all set to enter
India. According to industry sources,Mr Jaipuria,the youngest of the Jaipuria brothers will soon be entering in to a deal with Disney’s retail network, for setting up a chain of stores in India. The two companies’ are likely to enter a licensing agreement later this month. Plans are afoot to make a modest beginning with just two stores in
Delhi. More stores will subsequently be set up in other metropolitan cities.

Ambanis separately eye Shringar pie
….. 

The Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani group (ADAG) and the Reliance Industries group are in separate discussions with the promoters of Shringar Cinemas to buy a substantial stake in the company, people close to the talks said.  Discussions between the two groups now centre on the amount of stake to be sold and the role of the current management team led by Shravan Shroff, the managing director. A source familiar with the talks said the existing promoters would continue to retain a small stake in the company. The company is likely to be valued around Rs 175-200 crore. The new investor would own a majority 51% stake possibly through a part purchase and infusion of fresh equity. Mr Shroff will remain the managing director, the source added. This structure is akin to the one worked out when ADAG bought Adlabs in July last year. Manmohan Shetty, the promoter of Adlabs, continued to run the company as its managing director, even after the ownership had passed on to the ADAG

Google buyout heralds dawn of Internet….

This is the next step in the evolution of the Internet.” That’s how Google’s chief executive officer Eric Schmidt summed up the significance of his company’s deal to pay $1.65 billion to acquire web video phenom YouTube.
To an outsider YouTube is a fledgling company, which is less than two years old and as far as anyone knows has yet to make a penny in profit.
However, Schmidt is known as one of the most canny guys around
Silicon Valley, having guided Google to a market capitalisation of $132 billion while keeping everyone’s feet on the ground at the legendary Googleplex.

 

Reference: Economic Times (Oct 9-12)