Company News ( 12th Jan 2007)

GE arm buy to give RIL access to Global Auto

Reliance Industries is looking at the possiblity of joining the bidding for General Electric’s plastics business. If the Mukesh Ambani group flagship enters the fray, this could be the biggest M&A transaction an Indian comopany is involved in.

At this year’s AGM, chairman Mukesh Ambani had stressed on inorganic growth as a way to enhance their global competitiveness. Reliance is pursuing the three-pronged strategy of enhancing growth margins through an emphasis on premium grades and new capacity additions and acquisitions and new technology development. Sources say Reliance is said to be exploring a tie-up with Dow Chemicals. The US major has signed an MoU with Reliance to set up a unit in Reliance’s Jamnagar SEZ.

In turn, Dow would offer a substantial stake in its struggling petrochem unit in the US. A formal announcement is expected anytime. Sources say the bid for GE Plastics is contingent on whether Reliance is able to expand its strategic relationship with Dow Chemicals.

Videocon buys 40 LCD patents from IBM

Durable major Videocon Industries has purchased 40 LCD (liquid crystal display) technology patents from chip maker, IBM to design and manufacture high technology LCD panels used in LCD TVs for an undisclosed amount.

While this moves Videocon into the highly-valued but small league of global LCD panel makers, it also ensures IBM an equally strong partnership with Videocon in the area of semiconductors, hardware and technology, research and development. Videocon currently has a patent for plasma panel technology which it developed at its lab in Japan and Italy with professor Aamno who earlier was in Sony and invented the worlds first monochrome plasma. This technology which commercialises in year 2008 will cut the capital costs of plasma panel by more than 50%.

In the proposed policy the government is planning to provide a 20-25% incentive on the capital expenditure incurred during the first 10 years of operation.

FINANCIALS ( Jan 5,2007)

· Aditya Birla group to take over Trinethra

The Aditya Birla group is set to start its retail play through a takeover of Andrapradesh based Trinetra Super Retail Ltd which runs a chain of over100 food and grocery stores in South India. Sources close to the talks between the two entities confirmed the deal, but would not elaborate on the financial details.

· Equity market greet New Year in style

Strong auto sales numbers a domestic institutional buying handed out a 155 point Mew Year bonus to traders. The BSE 30 sensex gained 1.13% or 155.33 points to end at 13,942.24. It follows two consecutive loss-making sessions during the last week of 2006.

· States to earn Rs.40,000 cr from liquor, lotteries.

Call it a promotion of vice or otherwise. Either way, liquor and lotteries are habbits that not only less-resolute mortals, but even cash-strapped State Governments would find difficult to kick without.

· DLF to raise Rs.12250 cr.

With the biggest IPO to hit the domestic bourses, the Delhi based real estate player DLF will raise Rs.12250 cr through its public issue, following the filling of its draft red herring prospectus on Wednesday.

· Sensex closes above 14,000.

The BSE-30 sensex settled above the 14000-mark at 14,014.92 before touching an all time intra-day high at 14.035.67. The sensex gained 72.68 points or 0.52% at the close of trading.

· Inflation rises to 5.45% on costlier minerals.

The annual WPI-based inflation rose 5.45% during the weekend. This was mainly due to the rise of prices of minerals of manufactured products.

· Manufacturing, services fuel 9.2% growth in Q2.

India registered the highest first-half GDP growth since 1991-’92 due to the robust performance from manufacturing and service sectors.

· Nifty breaches 40,000 mark intra-day.

Strong FII inflows and significant rollovers of future contracts spured the NSE Nifty to breach 4,000 mark intra-day at 4,oo1.3 before winding down to close at 3,997.60 up 1.09% from Thursday’s close.

Money & Banking

December 30, 2006

WPI inflation rises further to 5.43% 

Inflationary pressures heightened at the close of the year, touching 5.43% for the week ended December 16^th, one basis point short of the fiscal’s highest inflation rate. The inflation stood at 5.32% in the previous week. Inflation has touched it’s highest level of 5.44% the fiscal on June 17^th which prompted the government to relax imports of wheat, pulses and sugar, besides banning export of sugar to augment supply of these essential commodities.

 

January 1, 2007

Assocham asks RBI to roll back CRR to previous level of 4.5% 

Industry body Assocham has asked the RBI to roll back the CRR from the current level of 5.5% to the previous level of 4.5%.The chamber believes that the series of hikes in CRR has created liquidity crunch in the money market to the extend that the call rates touched 19% mark, highest in last 9 years.

 

January 2, 2007Key IFCI investor’s entry soon  

The Govt is vetting a proposal to induct a strategic investor into the financial institution, which has been forced to stop it’s lending activity after it’s business fortunes dipped over 6 years ago. A combination of aggressive lending in the early part of the last decade, which later resulted in a good deal of the portfolio turning into bad loans and higher cost of borrowing saw red ink being splashed all over IFCI balance sheet.

 

January 3, 2007Tech Funds top returns chart in 2006 

Technology mutual funds yielded an average return of 46% in 2006, matching the sensex growth and out performing most sectorial indices. The funds mainly invest in stocks of large and mid size IT or software companies.

 

January 4, 2007

CST to be cut by 1% from April, centered to fill in state’s loss 

The Central Sales Tax(CST) will be cut by 1% to 3% from April 1^st 2007.To compensate the states for the resulting revenue loss, they would be permitted to tax 44 new services currently outside the service tax net and an additional 33 services currently being taxed by the centre. Further the legal changes would be made to allow states to levy VAT on imports. States will also get the right to levy VAT on tobacco hitherto taxed by the centre.

                       

MNCs fail to launch patented drugs in India

 

 

 

 

MNCs fail to launch patented drugs in
India

With no global blockbuster drug finding an exclusive market

on the strength of a product patent in
India during the first

21 months of the country’s product patent regime, the apprehensions

 of a negative impact due to the regime change are fast fading away. 

 

Apart from Roche’s hepatitis medicine Pegasys, which received a

patent in March 2005, there have been no major announcements on

grant of product patents. 

 

SBI Life launches Horizon II pension plan

 SBI Life Insurance on Wednesday announced the launch of

Horizon II Pension, a unit-linked pension plan for investors who

are wary about the volatility in the stock markets and are not

techno-savvy.

With this launch, SBI Life Insurance expects to close this year

with revenues touching Rs 2,500 crore against Rs 1,050 crore in

2005-06, said SBI Life Insurance Managing Director and CEO,

S Krishnamurthy at a press meet here to announce the launch.

The company expects to do business of Rs 100 crore with this new

 product in the next one month

 

Johnson and Johnson launches new baby hair oil

 

 

 Johnson and Johnson (J&J) consumer products has announced

the launch of its new baby hair oil.Johnson’s new baby hair oil is

enriched with Avocado and Pro Vitamin B5. The product is now available

 to consumers in
India at the price of Rs 26 for a 50 ml bottle,

Rs 45 for a 100 ml bottle and Rs 78 for 200 ml.

 DaimlerChrysler reported to be planning Chrysler brand launch

DaimlerChrysler plans to bring Chrysler brand vehicles into
India.

 

The report notes that the move is a part of the company’s strategy

 to generate 25% of its global turnover from
Asia .

 

 

KUMARAMANGALAM BIRLA

In a media-conscious world where business tycoons are measured by the number of column centimeters and the seconds of sound bytes they hog, Kumaramangalam Birla is an anomaly.

The Mumbai-based chairman of the giant Aditya Birla Group is reticence personified. He shuns interviews; queries about his diversified group’s achievements or future plans are quietly diverted to the corporate communications department.

Almost any other businessman would have loved to be in Birla’s place. For there have been numerous occasions to be in the limelight: acquisition of the Indian Aluminum Company; buyout of a crucial 10 percent stake in Larsen & Toubro, South Asia’s largest engineering company; takeover of the computer firm PSI Data.

Birla was far away from inquisitive reporters even after Fortune magazine announced last week that at age 34, he is the eighth richest in the world (under the age of 40), and richest man in India. Birla’s wealth of $2.1 billion is derived from interests in everything from cement, textiles, rayon, carbon black and aluminum to insulators, copper, fertilizers, chemicals and sponge iron. Last year, the Aditya Birla Group clocked sales of $5.5 billion.

Only two other Indians feature in the list of 40 billionaires, and both of them are settled abroad. Sabeer Bhatia hit the headlines when he sold his popular e-mail service, Hotmail, to Microsoft for $400 million. And UK-based Reuben Singh’s RS Group consists of 11 companies involved in activities as diverse as currency trading and wireless Internet services.

“What makes Birla’s achievement all the more significant is the fact that he has been able to stabilize a gigantic business group that skeptics had warned was in danger of falling apart in 1995,” says Kakoli Sengupta, an analyst with New Delhi-based Pinnacle Securities.

That was the year his father, Aditya Birla, after whom the group is named, had succumbed to cancer at a relatively young age of 51. One of the most dynamic and brilliant Indian industrialists, Aditya Birla is credited with launching 70 new projects in a span of 25 years.

Aditya Birla’s would have been a tough act to follow, industry-watchers had predicted. True, Kumaramangalam Birla had the advantage of being personally trained by his father in the nuances of business. But the business environment in
India had changed of late. Economic liberalization had unleashed intense competition, not only from existing Indian companies but also from new overseas players attracted by the huge potential of the Indian market place.

And the young lad, who had been shielded from the topsy-turvy and often dirty maneuvers that make up Indian business, would find the going tough, proclaimed pundits in business circles. Would the young man be able to handle the large and often unwieldy business group?

Another question everyone asked was: What would the young inheritor do with the dozen-odd aging key managers and advisors his father had left behind in important positions in group companies? Kumaramangalam Birla, in a surprising move, retained most of them.

But at the same time, he inducted fresh talent from management schools in
India and abroad. This unique and potent combination of the experience of the old guard and the drive and gung-ho initiative of young blood would be a great help - in steadying the group as well as in charting new courses.

Birla has turned out to be a quiet but very efficient businessman in his own right. As in the case of forming his A-team, other key decisions emanating from the sixth floor of Industry House, the group’s imposing head office in south Mumbai, soon proved that Kumaramangalam Birla was his own man.

In a series of moves, Birla sold off some businesses and expanded his reach in some others. All the while he reinforced a message down the line: he had decided to concentrate on the group’s core competency of commodities, something his family group has dominated over the past four generations.

“I put on hold a couple of projects, some of which were announced and some of which had been at the take-of stage,” he says. These had included the Aditya Birla Group’s forays into sugar, paper, steel, glass fiber and PTA (a key intermediate used in the manufacture of textiles). “We didn’t think that we would be a dominant player in any of these industries in the long run, that the returns would not match our expectations. We would rather invest that money in businesses in which we are strong and consolidate.” As part of this policy, his group has started talks with the Australian mining and metal major BHP Billiton for acquiring its stake in a Canadian copper mining venture,

Highland
Valley. If the deal comes through, it could cost the Aditya Birla Group around $100 million. The negotiations are being conducted through group company
Hindalco, India’s largest non-ferrous metals producer.

At the same time, Birla has taken some tough decisions to exit from businesses in which he has already poured in time and money but which he feels may not add value to his group in the long run. It is for this reason that he is selling the group’s 33.13 percent stake in Idea, the cellular operating company in which the Tata group and
US telecom giant AT&T also hold similar stakes.

He has also pulled out of Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Corporation (MRPL), a joint venture with the public sector giant Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL). “We invested Rs 1.5 billion [$31 million] in MRPL, but we want to exit due to various factors,” Birla said at Hindalco Industries Ltd’s annual general meeting held last fortnight. According to industry sources, the Aditya Birla Group may also sell its 37.39 percent stake for Rs 600 million to the public sector monolith Oil and Natural Gas Commission Ltd (ONGC).

Birla is also looking at expansion overseas, keeping a focus on chemicals and carbon black (a key ingredient in the making of automotive tires). The group already has a presence in 17 countries where various activities bring in total sales of Rs 81 billion. “We are strong in chemicals and carbon black in some Southeast Asian countries. These will be out first port of call when we expand overseas,” Birla announced at a press conference last month.

Apart from his business mind, Birla also stands out for the quiet, dignified way in which he conducts himself. His immense wealth sits lightly on his shoulders. Unlike many others of his ilk, he is not given to a flashy lifestyle or an ostentatious display of his wealth. The features editor of a business newspaper had a tough time recently getting details of the foreign cars in his collection; his office had tried its best to block the information from leaking out.

Author and columnist Shobhaa De, who has made a career out of chronicling the follies of the rich and famous, has, surprisingly, a few good things to say about Kumaramangalam Birla. “He has an extraordinary memory. The sort of memory that extends well beyond analyzing and recalling balance sheets. The sort of memory that records and registers every-day encounters with every-day folks,” she wrote recently in the latest edition of Shobhaa’s People, her popular weekly newspaper column.

“Birla’s trademark low-key, soft-spoken demeanor comes as a sharp (and very welcome) contrast to the brash breed of braggarts strutting around corporate
India,” she added.

At a young age, the boy billionaire has hit upon a winning formula: he lets the achievements of his companies, and not his immense wealth, do the talking for him.

COVER STORY(1st to 5th jan.2007)

IT’s rocking: Centre may halve hardware excise.                   

                                                                                    

• Personal computers and television will become cheap in the coming fiscal year.
• Government may lower excise duty on electronics and IT hardware from 16% to 8%.
• Proposal prepared by Information Technology Department.
• Proposal to be forwarded to Finance ministry.
• It will make Indian market competitive in Global market.

          

                                                                             (1^st Jan.2007.The Economic Times)     

RIL, ONGC to Share Rigs  

• Exploration firms are facing problems due to shortage of rigs.
• Rentals of rigs sky rocked due to scarcity. Reliance is paying $320,000 a day to Transoceanic.
• RIL and ONGC are likely to enter into an infrastructure sharing agreement now, the other companies with deepwater interests may also join the pool.

 

                                                                 ( 2nd January 2007,The Economic Times)       

                                                                                      

 

 

 

 

CST phase-out from April  

·         The CST ceiling is likely to be reduced to three per cent from the new fiscal year. ·         The Union Finance Ministry and the finance ministers of the VAT (value-added tax) regime States have worked out a “broad consensus” on a package of compensation for States to offset the revenue loss incurred by them on account of a cut in the Central Sales Tax (CST).  ·         The CST is levied on the inter-State sale of goods. The CST phase-out is likely to start from April 1, 2007, on the basis of the full compensation package to the States. The revenue collections by way of CST are estimated to be over Rs. 25,000 crore next fiscal. 

                                                               ( 4^th Jan.2007,The Hindu)                                                                                                                                                                    

 

 

 

 

Vodafone brass powwows with doT 

Makes presentation On
India plans to TelecomSecy;Hindujas too throw their hat into the ring.·         In a bid to get clarity on foreign direct investment (FDI) regulations in the country as it readies for launching a bid for Hutch-Essar –Vodafone on Thursday met senior government officials from the department of telecommunications.·         Vodafone seems to be ignoring its own acquisition criteria, going by which Hutchison Essar(HEL) is a questionable buy.·         Vodafone may be able to please the regulatory authorities, but pleasing its own share holders may turn out to be an uphill task. 

                                                                        ( 5^th Jan.2007. The Economic Times)

Hot properties and new inventions(29/12/06-05/01/07)

Delhi based real estate player DLF will raise RS.12,250 crore through its public issues. The issue will open in the first half of february.

BUSINESS LINE(04/01/07)

Indain engineers at Daimler chrysler’s Research and development lab are working on “intelligent night view”,a next generation application that will let the driver catch up on his sleep while the car negotiates the night traffic.

BUSINESS LINE(04/01/07)

Toyota motor corp will develop a  system  to stop a vehicle if it detects the driver is drunk as part of efforts to cope with a serious social problem.The system expected to become available in 2009.

BUSINESS LINE(04/01/07)

Fiat is planning the launch of the new Fiat 500 as a huge lifestyle event in 2007 using the internet for an opening to the public’s contribution and expectation.

BUSINESS LINE(04/01/07)

COVER STORY(9th to 15th Dec)

CSN bid for Corus set for this week 

• Brazilian steel maker CSN is set to table a formal offer for corus this week
• The Board of Corus is expected to meet on Sunday.
• The Bid may be announced on Monday if negotiations goes well.
• The Brazilian Company has announced last month it was considering and indicative bid of 475P which would trump Tatas 455p offer.

                                                         The Economic Times( Monday .11.December 2006)                                                                                                   Foreign flight norms for desi airlines likely to be relaxed.                                                                                                                               

• The norms for domestic airlines to fly abroad is relaxed by reducing the requirement of minimum five years of domestic operation to three years.
• Air Decan will be the first airline to enjoy this benefit.
• Air Decan has already completed three years in August 2006.
• This idea is to enable airlines like Air Decan, SpiceJet and Kingfisher to meet competition from foreign carriers.
• The revised norms will kick in with the new civil aviation policy which is likely to be put in policy by January 2006.

                                                                                        [The Economic Times. Thursday 14 December 2006]

      Century Mills set to shut down operations in Mumbai 

ü      About 6,300 of the 6,700 workers (comprising around 95%) have opted for the Voluntary Retirement Scheme offered by the company management.

ü      The management is subject to pay Rs. 9-10 lakhs per person on retirement with high cost of the operations.

ü      700-800 workers have rejected the VRS offer of Rs 3-5 lakh per employee.

ü      The employees demand for a compensation equal to what they could have possibly earned if they had worked till 60

[Business Line- 14^th December 15, 2006, Thursday]CRRash: Sensex loses 400 points 

·         Share sensex plunged 538 points

·         Settled at 13,399.43

·         Went down 400.06 points

·         BSE Bankex shed 463.96

The Economic Times       12/12/06

Tata motors, fiat to invest Rs 4000 Cr in new facility

·         Tata Motor and Fiat Auto will jointly invest Rs 4000 Cr in a 50-50 joint venture to make cars and engines at Ranjangaon near Pune.

·         It will have an annual capacity to produce 1 lakh cars and 1 lakh engines and gear boxes.

                                                             Business Line. (15^th December..2006 Friday)         

 

The Reliable Killer

AK-47
The Weapon That
Changed the Face of WarBy Larry Kahaner
Wiley — 258pp — $25.95 

 

Here’s today’s puzzler: Name a Russian innovation that whips most everything America and Western Europe throws against it, has astounding firepower, and is unaffected by heat, cold, and sand. It’s the Kalashnikov assault rifle, also known as the AK. Since its first large-scale production in 1947, this low-tech weapon of mass destruction has spread across the globe, doling out death from Afghanistan to the
U.S.

The AK has become the firearm of choice for at least 50 standing armies and uncounted ragtag outfits, from insurgents and terrorists to drug dealers and street gangs.

 

For inventor Mikhail Kalashnikov, inspiration came in 1941 in the form of direct contact with Nazi invaders’ Schmeisser submachine guns. As the young tank commander recovered from his wounds, he vowed to create a weapon that would help defend the motherland. However, it took him years of tinkering, along with technical schooling, to perfect his brainchild, the Avtomat Kalashnikova 1947.

 

It was in
Vietnam, Kahaner tells us, that the AK really earned its stripes. In jungle skirmishes, whoever pumped out the most rounds in the shortest amount of time won.
America countered with its own automatic, the space-age-sleek M-16. But for years that rifle was reputed to have problems. One story, plucked by Kahaner from the
Vietnam memoir of Colonel David Hackworth, illustrates the issues. Hackworth came across an accidentally exposed Viet Cong gravesite, yanked out a mud-caked AK, pulled back the bolt, and fired off thirty rounds as if the gun had just been cleaned. “This was the kind of weapon our solders needed and deserved, not the M-16 that had to be hospital cleaned or it would jam,” wrote Hackworth.

 

Kalashnikov culture also spread to
Latin America, beginning with the Nicaraguan Contra war of the 1980s. Again the
U.S. helped spread the epidemic, as Lieutenant Colonel Oliver L. North’s secret White House project shipped thousands of AKs to the counterrevolutionaries. Soon, “just as it had done in the Middle East and Africa, the indestructible and cheap AK worked its way from country to country, turning small conflicts into large wars” in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Colombia.

 

Today the AK’s place in civilization seems clear. In 2004, the Iraqi army, trained by the
U.S. military, nixed American-made M-16s and insisted on being issued AKs. That same year, Playboy issued its list of “50 Products That Changed the World.” Near the top–beaten out by only the Apple (AAPL ) Macintosh, the pill, and the Sony (SNE ) Betamax–was the AK, the embodiment of innovation’s dark side.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Reliable Killer

AK-47
The Weapon That
Changed the Face of WarBy Larry Kahaner
Wiley — 258pp — $25.95 

 

Here’s today’s puzzler: Name a Russian innovation that whips most everything America and Western Europe throws against it, has astounding firepower, and is unaffected by heat, cold, and sand. It’s the Kalashnikov assault rifle, also known as the AK. Since its first large-scale production in 1947, this low-tech weapon of mass destruction has spread across the globe, doling out death from Afghanistan to the
U.S.

The AK has become the firearm of choice for at least 50 standing armies and uncounted ragtag outfits, from insurgents and terrorists to drug dealers and street gangs.

 

For inventor Mikhail Kalashnikov, inspiration came in 1941 in the form of direct contact with Nazi invaders’ Schmeisser submachine guns. As the young tank commander recovered from his wounds, he vowed to create a weapon that would help defend the motherland. However, it took him years of tinkering, along with technical schooling, to perfect his brainchild, the Avtomat Kalashnikova 1947.

 

It was in
Vietnam, Kahaner tells us, that the AK really earned its stripes. In jungle skirmishes, whoever pumped out the most rounds in the shortest amount of time won.
America countered with its own automatic, the space-age-sleek M-16. But for years that rifle was reputed to have problems. One story, plucked by Kahaner from the
Vietnam memoir of Colonel David Hackworth, illustrates the issues. Hackworth came across an accidentally exposed Viet Cong gravesite, yanked out a mud-caked AK, pulled back the bolt, and fired off thirty rounds as if the gun had just been cleaned. “This was the kind of weapon our solders needed and deserved, not the M-16 that had to be hospital cleaned or it would jam,” wrote Hackworth.

 

Kalashnikov culture also spread to
Latin America, beginning with the Nicaraguan Contra war of the 1980s. Again the
U.S. helped spread the epidemic, as Lieutenant Colonel Oliver L. North’s secret White House project shipped thousands of AKs to the counterrevolutionaries. Soon, “just as it had done in the Middle East and Africa, the indestructible and cheap AK worked its way from country to country, turning small conflicts into large wars” in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Colombia.

 

Today the AK’s place in civilization seems clear. In 2004, the Iraqi army, trained by the
U.S. military, nixed American-made M-16s and insisted on being issued AKs. That same year, Playboy issued its list of “50 Products That Changed the World.” Near the top–beaten out by only the Apple (AAPL ) Macintosh, the pill, and the Sony (SNE ) Betamax–was the AK, the embodiment of innovation’s dark side.

 

 

 

 

 

hot properties/new inventions/innovations

1.Recently cotton cultivation was badly affected by the incidence of white flies, diseases and overuse of insecticides, to the extent that many farmers gave up cultivating cotton, enduring great economic loss. Harbhajan Singh and his brothers then devised a new method of cultivation, which is sowing cottonseeds on ridges in a pattern of 2feet-6feet-2feet. That is to say, they kept a six feet gap between each set of two ridges at two feet distance from each other. Tractors were used to set the spacing between the ridges and water was allowed to flow only in the two feet gap and not in the six feet one. This pattern of sowing and irrigation helped them obtain a good yield even during the years of drought and in conditions of acute scarcity of water. Ndtv.com,15.12.20062. In a country bearing the reputation of being one of the world’s least efficient energy users, an innovation that has the potential to save five million tones of oil in a year would surely ring a bell. Researching his innovation since 1993, Mr Bhattacharya has come up with a pressure-type kerosene stove that has oil savings to the tune of forty to sixty per cent above the regular stove, additional features being enhanced safety, reduced operating noise level and better combustion. Mr Bhattacharya has applied for a patentIndianinnovation council (google)15.12.20063. The problem began when Mr Duraisamy was unhappy at having to eat cold food. By the time his wife could bring food from the house to the farm, it got cold. The solution came from a class IV text book belonging to Duraisamy’s daughter. In it was written that air when compressed generates heat. He also knew from his own experience that a cycle pump gets hot when air is being pumped from it. He thought of utilising the heat wasted at the exhaust of a water pump. Using an old engine as a compressor, Duraisamy took a pressure cooker and made two holes in it. Inside the cooker he kept a sealed container that was to act as a heat exchanger. The hot compressed air was pushed in through one hole and came out through the other. Thus was made a unique pressure cooker fuelled by compressed air. It takes about seven minutes reach a temperature of about 300 degrees centigradeNdtv.com,15.12.2006 

Commodity

Asia ethanol demand seen at 2 billion liters in the year ending September 2007, but it would not push up sugar prices, according to Mr. Christopher Berg, Deputy Director of German analyst F.O Licht.

Pepper futures fell sharply on Thursday on bull liquidation and other factors such as the announcement by the Kerala State Marketing Federation that it would sell 300 tones of pepper held bi it and absence of buying support due to lack of confidence in the quality of the materials available with the e exchanges.

Malaysian crude palm oil futures closed marginally lower on Thursday, as prices of rival soya oil declined on the Chicago Board of Trade. The bench mark February contract on the Bursa Malaysia Derivative exchange finished down 3 ringgit at 1,850 rinnggit ($552) per tonne.

 Group - 5

 15 (B)

Dr.KIRAN MAZUMDAR SHAW

Dr. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw 

Dr.Kiran Mazumdar Shaw is an Indian enterpreneur, born on 23 March 1953 in Banglore. She is the Chairman & Managing Director of Biocon Ltd. She was educated at the Bishop Cotton Girls School and
Mount Carmel
College at
Bangalore. After obtaining a B.Sc Honours degree in zoology from
Bangalore
University in 1973, she joined the
Ballarat
University in Melbourne, Australia and qualified as a master Brewer in 1975 to become
India’s first woman Brew master. Her professional career started with the position of trainee brewer in Carlton & United Beverages in 1974. During 1975-77, she worked in technical positions in Kolkata and Vadodara.In 1978, she joined as Trainee Manager with Biocon Biochemicals Limited in
Ireland. Collaborating with the same Irish firm, she founded Biocon
India with a capital of Rs 10,000 in her garage. Over the years, the company grew under her stewardship and is today the biggest biopharmaceutical firm in
India. 

Kiran Mazumdar Shaw has held several honorary and advisory positions, few of them are 

·        Member, Board of Governors,IIM Banglore·        Chairperson and mission leader of CII’s National Task Force on Biotechnology·        Member,The Prime Minister’s council on trade & industry in
India·        Member ,Board of science foundation,
Ireland 

Some of the major awards won by Dr. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw are: 

·        Wharton Infosys Business Transformation award (2006)·        Padma Bushan (2005)·        Lifetime achievement award from Indian Chamber Of Commerce (2005)·        Honorary doctorate of science, from Ballart university (2004) 

 

GROUP 5A

Retail Finance (Nov 25- Dec 1)

Public sector banks too offer online trade services

Businessline, Nov 25

 Not to be left behind private banks, several public sector banks are tying up with broking firms to offer online trading services. In the last week, three public sector banks announced trading services and a few more banks are also expected to follow. While the securities firms provide the trading facility, banks provide savings and demat accounts. For the banks, it means a new source of fee income, more floating funds and a larger base of low cost deposits in the form of savings and current bank accounts. State Bank of India, which tied up with Motilal Oswal Securities, already has 65,000 demat clients and is targeting 1,50,000 clients. “Online trading will give us floating funds,” said Mr Sangeet Shukla, Chief General Manager, (Personal Banking). Punjab National Bank has tied up with IDBI Capital Market Services and Oriental Bank of Commerce with ILFS Investmart. Bank of India is linking up with Asit C. Mehta Investment Intermediates Ltd.

Corpn Bank branch wins LIC award

 Businessline, Nov. 27

Corporation Bank, Personal Banking Branch, Nampally, has become the first public sector bank to earn BIMA Bank award from the Life Insurance Corporation ofIndia, South Central Zone, here. The award is in recognition of the highest insurance premium mobilised by the branch over the last six months. The branch had crossed Rs 50 crore business at the end of September 2006 and earned ISO certification, according to a press release.

SIB to launch co-branded Citi credit card

Businessline, Nov. 29

South Indian Bank (SIB), which opened a new office here recently to streamline its operations here, will be launching co-branded Citi Bank credit card next month. This is part of the bank’s endeavour to increase its non-fund based revenue. SIB has already signed MoUs with five mutual funds to distribute their products.

Catholic Syrian offers mediclaim policy

 Businessline, Nov. 30

Catholic Syrian Bank has launched a mediclaim policy, CSB Health Care Support, in association with the New India Assurance Company. The launch of the scheme is just right since most customers would be looking out for better tax breaks towards the end of the financial year, along with medical insurance facilities, Mr N.R. Achan, Chairman of the bank, said over the phone. The fee-based income of Catholic Syrian Bank is expected to go up substantially during the current year, since the bank has tied up with several mutual funds also for selling their products, Mr Achan said.  

Research&Development

 

 

Increasing energy storage

Dramatic growth in computer use is making consumers require more from their electronic devices, which creates increased demand for a better power source than existing battery technologies. To that end, researchers at Carnegie Mellon Univ. (CMU), Pittsburgh, Pa., have discovered a nanocrystalline material that is cheaper, more stable, and produces a higher quality energy storage capacity than what is currently used in a variety of industrial and portable consumer electronic products. According to the CMU team, nanostructured vanadium nitride with controlled oxidation of its surface at the nanoscale is less expensive to use than conventional materials such as ruthenium and can store energy for a longer period of time.

DATE: 03:11:06

Titanium powder process

A new process for making high-purity titanium metal powder can reduce cost and substantially boost efficiency in parts manufacturing. Developed by DuPont, Wilmington, Del., and Honeywell Electronic Materials, Tempe, Ariz., the process makes titanium metal powder which can then be pressed into desired shapes. The new method enables manufacturers to make parts with less machining and significantly less scrap, while yielding virtually the same strength and weight characteristics as machined titanium. The new powder form can be converted with nearly 90% efficiency compared to the 13% efficiency of conventional machining of solid pieces of titanium.

DATE:07:11:06

Fibers that see

Conventional optical systems rely on lenses and detector surfaces to create images, but they are constrained by their size, weight, fragility, and limited field of view. However, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, have developed an optical system made of flexible, lightweight, mesh-like webs of light-detecting fibers. If constructed in the shape of a sphere, the fiber webs can sense the entire volume of space around it. The fiber constructs have already demonstrated the ability to measure the direction, intensity, and phase of light without any components of conventional optical systems.DATE:07:11:06

 

 

Small chip, big results

A miniature wireless data chip, developed by Hewlett-Packard, Palo Alto, Calif., could provide broad access to digital content in the physical world. The 2- to 4-mm² chip, equipped with a built-in antenna, could be adhered onto or embedded into almost any object, including hospital wristbands, postcards, and printed documents, and it will give users instant retrieval of information and content now found mostly on electronic devices or the Internet. The experimental chip is a memory device based on complementary metal-oxide semiconductors (CMOS), with a storage capacity ranging from 256 kb to 4 Mb and a 10 Mb/sec transfer rate. DATE:10:11:06R & D at Bangalore BANGALORE, India — Xilinx Inc., which has an engineering team at CMC Ltd. at Hyderabad, plans to shift the staff to an independent Indian R&D subsidiary in 2006. CMC began providing R&D for Xilinx in early 2004, and so far 18 IP cores have emerged, including one for the company’s automotive business segment. Other work here includes development in embedded processing, high-speed I/O, design system validation and automotive applications. DATE:10:11:06  

A new development in UK

 UK based telecom billing solutions company INTEC, which has a centre of excellence in Bangalore providing professional services to global consumers, is now looking to move some of its R&D activity in India. R&D team will be about 100 people in two years with investment of $12million have been planned.DATE:10:11:06GROUP MEMBERS: REMITHA K RAMADAS(FK-1449)                                       ADITYA PANIGRAHI(FK-1318)                                        KRYSTYNA(FK-1370)                                        SRIKANT KUMAR(FK-1359)                                      VINOTH KUMAR(FK-1340)                                      SUBRAHJEET  JEE(FK-1295) 

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 ChennaiWith 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

Hot property and new inventions

1.Realty triggers FDI to kiss $10 bn in 6 months. Realty biggies such as Tricona, K Rahya & the Surrender Hiranandani group have already raised close to around$ 3 bn at the  Alternate investment market , several other players including Unitech,  Ansal API Omaxe & Narendra Hiranandani Group are learned to be in talk for raising another $ 2-2.5 bn.

(4.12.06, Economic Times)

2.China eyes Desi Realty

Sources in the  Indian real estate sector say that the chinese govt is planning to invest part of the corpus from its state-run provident & social security, in the indian realty sector to maximize gains from one of the largest growing markets in the world.

(5.12.06, Economic Times)

Financial (Dec 1,2006)

 

FY’07 to be best year of growth: FM

With economy logging the highest growth of 9.1 per cent during the first half of this fiscal, Finance Minister P Chidambaram sounded confident that FY’07 would be one of the best years in terms of growth. He, however, tempered the optimism saying supply side-driven inflation was the only worrying factor. “We are happy that the economy grew by 9.2 per cent in the second quarter. The fact that economy recorded the highest growth of 9.1 per cent in the first half of any fiscal since economic reforms began in 1991-92 makes us doubly happy. I hope that the current year turns out to be one of the best years of economic growth,” Chidambaram said.

On less agricultural growth in the second quarter as against the first quarter, he said agriculture in the second quarter is always a lean period. Farm sector grew by 1.7 per cent in Q2 against 3.4 per cent in Q1. When asked whether high growth will put pressure on interest rates, he said liquidity is comfortable in the economy. Revealing the latest tax figures, Chidambaram said the fiscal deficit stood at Rs 87,100 crore during the first seven months of this fiscal as compared to Rs 92,068 crore in the corresponding period last fiscal. Revenue deficit was Rs 67,299 crore compared to Rs 70,284 crore during the same period last year. Fiscal deficit during the seven-month period constitutes 58.6 per cent of what was estimated in the budget for the entire fiscal.

 

BSNL’s GSM quest receives jolt

The Delhi High Court on Thursday extended the stay on award of contract by state-owned BSNL for rolling out 45 million lines for GSM network till December 14. A bench comprising acting Chief Justice M K Sharma and Justice Hima Kohli granted a week’s time to Motorola to file its reply on the response filed by BSNL.

BSNL, which plans to expand its GSM network by 45 million lines, had disqualified Motorola from the bidding process on technical parameters – a decision that has been challenged by the
US company. BSNL in its reply had contended that Motorola was not eligible as it failed to satisfy the techno-commercial aspect of the tender.

Motorola has shown its experience only for BSS component, which provides all the transmission and control functions necessary for radio coverage of service area, towards the supplies, installation and commissioning of 20 million network, the state-run telecom company said. BSNL, submitted that instead of fulfilling the basic NSS component of eligibility condition of supplying/commissioning 20 million GSM network, Motorola provided a figure of 3.2 million, which does not meet the minimum requirement of 20 million.

The PSU telecom company had said that Motorola also failed on financial parameters. As per bidding conditions, a company must be a profit earning company in the last two years but Motorola did not meet this criterion too as it suffered a loss of almost Rs 37 crore in 2004-05.

 

Parsvnath lists at Rs 540 on BSE

Parsvnath Developers, pure-play realty major, today got listed at Rs 540 on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) with a premium of 80 per cent over its issue price of Rs 300. Within a few minutes of trading, the scrip touched a high of Rs 579 on the BSE. The scrips of Parsvnath got listed at Rs 456.70 on the National Stock Exchange and touched a high of Rs 563 in a few minutes of trading.

The Rs 1,000 crore initial public offer of the company received robust response from investors and was oversubscribed 60 times. The issue, also saw an overwhelming response in the qualified institutional buyers (QIB) portion, especially from foreign institutional investors (FIIs).

The company comes out with an issue of 18.16 crore equity shares with an issue price of Rs 300 each. The funds raised from this public offer would be deployed in various ongoing projects across the country.

 

Govt okays Fiat, 16 other FDI plans

The Government has cleared 17 FDI proposals worth Rs 3,536.40 crore, including one from Italian automaker Fiat to invest an additional Rs 2,000 crore to revive its beleaguered Indian subsidiary. Another big proposal, cleared by Finance Minister P Chidambaram on recommendations of Foreign Investment Promotion Board, entails an investment of Rs 1,090 crore from NRIs, PIOs and other overseas parties in ICICI Venture Funds Management Company Ltd.

Mauritius-based Essar Communications Ltd has been allowed to invest Rs 230 crore for acquiring additional stake of 5.85 per cent in Hutchison Essar Ltd. Korea-based Mando Corporation would bring in Rs 103.40 crore to set up a new wholly-owned subsidiary in Chennai for manufacturing, marketing and distributing power steering system for Hyundai Motor India Ltd and other auto companies. Fiat Auto Spa of Italy would bring Rs 2,000 crore of FDI to invest in Fiat
India. The company’s proposal was earlier cleared by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs to increase its FDI from Rs 2,000 crore to Rs 4,000 crore at its Pune-based plant.

 

Nokia sees 10% growth in mobile mkt

Nokia, the world’s top cell phone maker, cut its profit margin forecasts but remained more upbeat than analysts as it unveiled thinner models to face stiff competition and slower market growth.  Nokia joined market analysts in forecasting slower growth for the global mobile phone market in 2007, expecting unit shipments to grow by up to 10 per cent from this year, compared with a forecast of just over 10 per cent issued by researchers Gartner last week. “We expect the volume growth in 2007 to be above 15 per cent in Asia Pacific, China, and Middle East and Africa, and below 10 per cent in Europe, Latin America and
North America,” Nokia said in a statement.

 

BRAND STORY-Group-3 15-A

Hindustan Lever Ltd.   (Nov 24-Dec 1) 

 

In the summer of 1888, visitors to the Kolkata harbour noticed crates full of Sunlight soap bars, embossed with the words “Made in
England by Lever Brothers”. With it, began an era of marketing branded Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG).

Soon after followed Lifebuoy in 1895 and other famous brands like Pears, Lux and Vim. Vanaspati was launched in 1918 and the famous Dalda brand came to the market in 1937.

In 1931, Unilever set up its first Indian subsidiary, Hindustan Vanaspati Manufacturing Company, followed by Lever Brothers India Limited (1933) and United Traders Limited (1935). These three companies merged to form HLL in November 1956; HLL offered 10% of its equity to the Indian public, being the first among the foreign subsidiaries to do so. Unilever now holds 51.55% equity in the company. The rest of the shareholding is distributed among about 380,000 individual shareholders and financial institutions.

The erstwhile Brooke Bond’s presence in
India dates back to 1900. By 1903, the company had launched Red Label tea in the country. In 1912, Brooke Bond & Co. India Limited was formed. Brooke Bond joined the Unilever fold in 1984 through an international acquisition. The erstwhile Lipton’s links with
India were forged in 1898. Unilever acquired Lipton in 1972, and in 1977 Lipton Tea (
India) Limited was incorporated.

Pond’s (India) Limited had been present in
India since 1947. It joined the Unilever fold through an international acquisition of Chesebrough Pond’s
USA in 1986.

Since the very early years, HLL has vigorously responded to the stimulus of economic growth. The growth process has been accompanied by judicious diversification, always in line with Indian opinions and aspirations.

The liberalisation of the Indian economy, started in 1991, clearly marked an inflexion in HLL’s and the Group’s growth curve. Removal of the regulatory framework allowed the company to explore every single product and opportunity segment, without any constraints on production capacity.

Simultaneously, deregulation permitted alliances, acquisitions and mergers. In one of the most visible and talked about events of
India’s corporate history, the erstwhile Tata Oil Mills Company (TOMCO) merged with HLL, effective from April 1, 1993. In 1995, HLL and yet another Tata company, Lakme Limited, formed a 50:50 joint venture, Lakme Lever Limited, to market Lakme’s market-leading cosmetics and other appropriate products of both the companies. Subsequently in 1998, Lakme Limited sold its brands to HLL and divested its 50% stake in the joint venture to the company.

HLL formed a 50:50 joint venture with the US-based Kimberly Clark Corporation in 1994, Kimberly-Clark Lever Ltd, which markets Huggies Diapers and Kotex Sanitary Pads. HLL has also set up a subsidiary in Nepal, Nepal Lever Limited (NLL), and its factory represents the largest manufacturing investment in the Himalayan kingdom. The NLL factory manufactures HLL’s products like Soaps, Detergents and Personal Products both for the domestic market and exports to
India.

The 1990s also witnessed a string of crucial mergers, acquisitions and alliances on the Foods and Beverages front. In 1992, the erstwhile Brooke Bond acquired Kothari General Foods, with significant interests in Instant Coffee. In 1993, it acquired the Kissan business from the UB Group and the Dollops Icecream business from Cadbury
India.

As a measure of backward integration, Tea Estates and Doom Dooma, two plantation companies of Unilever, were merged with Brooke Bond. Then in July 1993, Brooke Bond India and Lipton
India merged to form Brooke Bond Lipton India Limited (BBLIL), enabling greater focus and ensuring synergy in the traditional Beverages business. 1994 witnessed BBLIL launching the Wall’s range of Frozen Desserts. By the end of the year, the company entered into a strategic alliance with the Kwality Icecream Group families and in 1995 the Milkfood 100% Icecream marketing and distribution rights too were acquired.

Finally, BBLIL merged with HLL, with effect from January 1, 1996. The internal restructuring culminated in the merger of Pond’s (
India) Limited (PIL) with HLL in 1998. The two companies had significant overlaps in Personal Products, Speciality Chemicals and Exports businesses, besides a common distribution system since 1993 for Personal Products. The two also had a common management pool and a technology base. The amalgamation was done to ensure for the Group, benefits from scale economies both in domestic and export markets and enable it to fund investments required for aggressively building new categories.

In January 2000, in a historic step, the government decided to award 74 per cent equity in Modern Foods to HLL, thereby beginning the divestment of government equity in public sector undertakings (PSU) to private sector partners. HLL’s entry into Bread is a strategic extension of the company’s wheat business. In 2002, HLL acquired the government’s remaining stake in Modern Foods.

Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) is

India’s largest Fast Moving Consumer Goods company, touching the lives of two out of three Indians with over 20 distinct categories in Home & Personal Care Products and Foods & Beverages. They endow the company with a scale of combined volumes of about 4 million tonnes and sales of Rs.10,000 crores.

HLL is also one of the country’s largest exporters; it has been recognised as a Golden Super Star Trading House by the Government of India.

The mission that inspires HLL’s 36,000 employees, including over 1,350 managers, is to “add vitality to life.” HLL meets everyday needs for nutrition, hygiene, and personal care with brands that help people feel good, look good and get more out of life. It is a mission HLL shares with its parent company, Unilever, which holds 51.55% of the equity. The rest of the shareholding is distributed among 380,000 individual shareholders and financial institutions.

HLL’s brands - like Lifebuoy, Lux, Surf Excel, Rin, Wheel, Fair & Lovely, Pond’s, Sunsilk, Clinic, Pepsodent, Close-up, Lakme, Brooke Bond, Kissan, Knorr-Annapurna, Kwality Wall’s – are household names across the country and span many categories - soaps, detergents, personal products, tea, coffee, branded staples, ice cream and culinary products. They are manufactured in close to 80 factories. The operations involve over 2,000 suppliers and associates. HLL’s distribution network, comprising about 7,000 redistribution stockists, directly covers the entire urban population, and about 250 million rural consumers.

HLL has traditionally been a company, which incorporates latest technology in all its operations. The Hindustan Lever Research Centre (HLRC) was set up in 1958, and now has facilities in Mumbai and
Bangalore. HLRC and the Global Technology Centres in India have over 200 highly qualified scientists and technologists, many with post-doctoral experience acquired in the US and Europe.

HLL believes that an organisation’s worth is also in the service it renders to the community. HLL is focusing on health & hygiene education, women empowerment, and water management. It is also involved in education and rehabilitation of special or underprivileged children, care for the destitute and HIV-positive, and rural development. HLL has also responded in case of national calamities / adversities and contributes through various welfare measures, most recent being the village built by HLL in earthquake affected Gujarat, and relief & rehabilitation after the Tsunami caused devastation in
South India.

Over the last three years the company has embarked on an ambitious programme, Shakti. Through Shakti, HLL is creating micro-enterprise opportunities for rural women, thereby improving their livelihood and the standard of living in rural communities. Shakti also includes health and hygiene education through the Shakti Vani Programme, and creating access to relevant information through the iShakti community portal. The programme now covers about 50,000 villages in 12 states. HLL’s vision is to take this programme to 100,000 villages impacting the lives of over a 100 million rural Indians.

HLL is also running a rural health programme – Lifebuoy Swasthya Chetana. The programme endeavours to induce adoption of hygienic practices among rural Indians and aims to bring down the incidence of diarrhoea. It has already touched 70 million people in approximately 15000 villages of 8 states. The vision is to make a billion Indians feel safe and secure.

If Hindustan Lever straddles the Indian corporate world, it is because of being single-minded in identifying itself with Indian aspirations and needs in every walk of life.

 

National Politics [24Nov-01Dec]

Interim relief

The Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, on Friday ruled out suo-motu payment of any interim relief to Central Government staff, stating that the Government would await the recommendations of the Sixth Central Pay Commission on this issue. The Central Government staff have demanded an interim relief of Rs 1,000 per month.

Mr Chidambaram also made it clear that the Government was not contemplating any mechanism of “automatic revision” of pay and allowances for Central Government employees. The Finance Ministry also assured the Lok Sabha that steps would be taken to avoid anomalies while implementing the recommendations of the Pay Commission.

Business Line, Nov. 24

SEZ tax sops to cost over Rs 1 lakh cr in 4-yr period

With more special economic zones (SEZs) getting Government approval, the Finance Ministry has upped the estimated revenue loss from tax concessions to such zones to over Rs 1 lakh crore for the four-year period 2006-07 to 2009-10.The revenue department has now estimated that revenue loss for this period could be as high as Rs 1,02,621 crore.

While the Finance Ministry has been highlighting the magnitude of revenue loss to the exchequer from the tax concessions, the Commerce Ministry, however, contends that there would be a positive gain in revenue for the Government in the next five years. On their part, the Left Parties have been urging the Government that the tax concessions under the SEZ law should be revisited.

The Commerce Ministry is of the view that the generation of additional economic activity and employment would more than offset the loss of tax revenues due to the tax concessions given under the SEZ Act.Senior officials of the Commerce Ministry had recently observed that an additional direct employment of 80,000 would be created in the zones by December this year. The Commerce Ministry has also estimated total investment to be around $10 billion and additional employment in the construction phase to be 2.6 billion man-days by December 2007. Within five years, the total investment is expected to be around $30 billion and additional employment of 15 lakh to be created within the zones.

 

New Delhi , Nov. 24

 

 

To boost fee income, increase deposit base

In the last week, three public sector banks announced trading services and a few more banks are also expected to follow.

 

State Bank of India, which tied up with Motilal Oswal Securities, already has 65,000 demat clients and is targeting 1,50,000 clientsPunjab National Bank has tied up with IDBI Capital Market Services and Oriental Bank of Commerce with ILFS Investmart. Bank of India is linking up with Asit C. Mehta Investment Intermediates Ltd.Union Bank of India has been offering online trading services since November 2005 with SSKI Securities and has 1.1 lakh demat accounts. Bank of Baroda, too, has plans to offer depository services once its Core Banking Services are extended to more branches.

Banks retain customers with online trading, while investors gain from having a link with their demat, trading and savings accounts. Electronic fund transfer acts as a bonus.

ICICI Direct.com has 10 lakh customers in the last six years..

Business Line , Nov. 25

DoT to allow resellers in international bandwidth

In a move that would make international long distance calls cheaper, the Department of Telecom has decided to allow resellers in the international bandwidth segment.Resellers do not own the infrastructure but take bandwidth from licensed ILD operators and sell it in the market. They also do not need any licence or pay entry fee.

The DoT move is aimed at increasing the level of competition in the international bandwidth segment, which will bring tariffs down. DoT has also decided to make it mandatory for existing cable landing stations, most of which are owned by VSNL, to give access to all operators in a non-discriminatory manner.

Business Line , Nov. 25

Centre plans 5 coastal nuclear power stations

The Centre is will setup plans to set up around five new coastal nuclear power stations using high-end reactors of 1,000 MWe and above.The stations would be designed to accommodate up to six to eight such reactors so that the overall capacity of each station can be gradually ramped up to almost 8,000 MWe.

A 12-member Site-Selection Committee under the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), which recommends locations for setting up nuclear plants to the Centre, has visited a number of coastal areas in the country and is likely to zero in on sites in Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and West Bengal.The Centre will take a final call on these sites after the committee submits its report by December-end, officials said. The projects are expected to use light water reactors and are most likely to be run using imported fuel, because of which the coastal sites are being selected. With the possibility of transfer of technology from the US appearing brighter given the progress on the Indo-US deal, importing reactors larger than the 700 MWe ones developed by NPCIL is being planned for these new projects.

Business Line , Nov. 26

PM stresses on job creation

There is a consensus across political parties on the need for a high rate of growth, said the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh. The Prime Minister reiterated that the interplay of dynamism between the world entrepreneurial community and domestic entrepreneurs would aid the growth process. He expressed confidence that India will make progress and achieve eight per cent growth in the future also.

Business Line, Nov. 26

TATA steel

TATA STEEL 

Tata Steel is one of India’s largest integrated private sector steel companies. The company manufactures and distributes steel, welded steel tubes, cold rolled strips, bearings and other related products. Tata is is headquartered in Mumbai, India.     

     Tata Steel a private sector steel company in India. The company manufactures anddistributes steel and other related products through a number of subsidiaries andassociates.

The company has its own iron mines and collieries. Tata Steel primarilyoperates in India and also has its operations in other countries including Thailand,Singapore, China and Srilanka. 

 For the fiscal year ended March 2006, the company generated revenues of $3,693.6million (IR17,144.22 Crores), an increase of 0.1% over the previous fiscal year. Thecompany saw a net income of $755.4 million (IR3,506.38 Crores), an increase of 8%over fiscal 2005. 

Production Centres In India

 Ferro Alloys Plants are located at

   • Bamnipal, Orissa

   • Joda

KEY EMPLOYEE BIOGRAPHIESB.

Muthuraman

Board: Executive BoardJob Title: Managing Director

T. Mukherjee

Board: Executive BoardJob

Title: Deputy Managing Director, Steel 

TOP COMPETITORS

The following companies are the major competitors of Tata Steel:

Mittal Steel Company

N.V.Daido Steel Co., Ltd.

Steel Authority of India Ltd.

Jindal Vijaynagar Steel Ltd.

Essar Steel Limited 

HOT PROPERTIES AND NEW INVENTIONS(NOV24-DEC1)

Land cleared for TATA’s car project at Singur in West Bengal.They will get the land in a  few weeks time.

(26/11/06,The Hindu).

Researchers in Japan  have developed a microchip that blocks computer viruses before they enter PC’s,an advances that could change how security software is used.

(28/11/06,BL)

cover story(24th to 30th nov.)

Wal-Mart &Bharti For Retail Run 

• Sunil Mittal will own & operate joint venture ,running front-end operations
• Wal-Mart will set up its shop in
  India on August 15,2007.will come through franchise route
• Logistics,supply chain  management will engaged by Wal-Mart
• Wal-Mart is number one $316 billion retail giant
•  Worth of Indian retail sector  is $300 billion
• All major players are focusing on vast middle class

                               

                                        The Economic Times        28/11/2006 

Stock Trading In
South Asia Takes a  Cross  Country Leap

                     

• Stock exchanges in South Asian region including
  India have moved a proposal.
• Proposal is to allow cross-listing or secondary listing of a top basket of local stocks in each other’s exchanges.
• This provides an opportunity to investors to trade in either index stocks or the top few stocks.
• For issuers, this could be an opportunity for raising capital in particular stock exchange or improving brand awareness.
• The main stock exchange  involved in this proposal are BSE, NSE, the Colombo stock exchange, Royal securities exchange, Bhutan and the Lahore stock exchange.

                                                                              Thursday 30, November 2006 Ashok Leyland ties up with French-Co for armored vehicle 

• Today Ashok Leyland is the largest provider of logistics vehicles to the Indian

Army with a fleet of 40000 stallions.

• Ashok Leyland is understand to have tied up with a French company to launch a “Light armored vehicles” in
  India.

                                                                                                             28^th November 2006 (Business Line)

Reliance’s piped gas to be cheaper than LPG.

• Reliance industries ltd said that the price of the piped gas supplied by it would be cheaper by one third (33%) of the price of conventional liquid petroleum gas supplied in cylinders.
• RIL has applied for city gas distribution license in 100 cities and is awaiting finalization of the city gas distribution policy by the Govt.

                                                             28^th November 2006 (Business Line) Nestle to buy
Australia’s Green’s for A$ 137 Mn 

·        Nestle, the world’s largest food maker,agreed to buy Green’s food for A$ 137 mn ($107 mn) to gain alarger slice of
Australia’ pet-food market, Nestle.

                                                                                             30^th,November

Money and Banking

25^th November

CSN Bankers pick up 11% stake in Corus

 

CSN Banker has bought nearly 11% in Corus, taking the holding of the CSN combine to just over 15% in the Anglo-Dutch steel maker. In a busy session at the Corus counter on the London Stock Exchange, CSN’s corporate broker UBS picked up 66.1 million shares or 7.3% equity of Corus while its advisors Goldman Sachs acquired 36 million shares, representing a 4% stake.

 

 

 

27^th November

SBI, ICICI Bank’s US forays soon

 

The government is close to achieving a breakthrough in getting the approval of the
US authorities for the expansion plans of the country’s two largest banks-SBI and ICICI. According to senior government officials following talks with the
US authorities,
India’s two leading lender may be granted nod in the next six months for branch licenses.

 

28^th November

PE Funds may need FIPB okay for M&A

 

The government may make FIPB clearance mandatory for acquisition of shares in listed companies by private equity funds based in other countries. This follow apprehension expressed by SEBI over the takeover of listed companies through secondary market transactions. A proposal for closer scrutiny of such deals under discussion between the finance industry, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), and SEBI.