Sify increases access rates
Mumbai— The Chennai-based ISP, Satyam Infoway, has hiked its rates on its dial-up access products. This is seen as a direct result of the five per cent service tax levied on ISPs recently.
Sify effected a 25 per cent hike on its 25-hour introductory package, from Rs 199 to Rs 249. The price of the 100-hour package has been increased by 10 per cent to Rs 890.
A one-month unlimited package will now cost Rs 369 against the earlier Rs 349, which is an increase of almost 6 per cent. The price of the 24-month unlimited package has jumped by 16 per cent to Rs 6,840.
To provide some relief, Sify has introduced free night time surfing on its 100-hour, 200-hour and 500-hour packages between 11.00 am and 8.00 pm.
This move by Sify is expected to set off a series of similar announcements by other private sector ISPs.
Sources in MantraOnline indicated that a similar rationalisation of prices is on the cards.
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ICI may buy other paint units
Kolkata--ICI India said it is not averse to acquiring paint manufacturing units in order to increase its core competence even as it was in talks with various reputed companies to exit the pharmaceutical business.
At the company’s 47th annual general meeting here the chairman of the company Aditya Narain said the company would definitely look at acquistion of paint manufacturing units at an opportune time.
ICI India has identified decorative paints, Uniqema and Synetix, national starch and quest business as its core competence area where special emphasis would be laid.
Narayan said ICI was targeting to improve productivity on an average of 15 per cent every year as per international standard and would continue with its VRS scheme at its rubber chemicals division in Rishra West Bengal.
The total workforce of about 1700 as at the end of last financial year would be brought down to 1500-1600 to achieve productivity target, he said.
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ICI Q1 net plunges 66 percent
New Delhi -ICI has reported a 66 per cent fall in net profit at Rs 4.71 crore for the quarter ended June 2001 as against Rs 13.88 crore during the same period last year.
The company’s sales dipped to Rs 177.89 crore, which is 15 per cent less than Rs 209.10 crore during quarter ended June 2000, a company release said.
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Tata to launch Tetley soon
New Delhi—Tata Tea is all set to launch the premium version of international packaged tea brand Tetley, and expects the brand to create some waves in the rather staid branded tea market.
The upgraded version of Tetley is scheduled to hit shop shelves in the next two months also under the Tata Tetley brand name, and will target tea connoisseurs in the upper end segment.
Thus Tata Tea will now slug it out with HLL brands like Brooke Bond Taj Mahal and Lipton green label, both of whom have substantial presence in this segment.
Tetley tea bags were launched as a mass product quite some time back. This will however, be replaced with premium bags aimed at the high-end segment. Khusrokhan however, refused to divulge the pricing strategy.
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ICICI Lombard may get IRDA nod today
New Delhi--ICICI Lombard General Insurance, which has been cleared by the Reserve Bank of India, is expected to get a license from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority on July 27, 2001.
ICICI will hold 74 per cent and Canadian insurer Lombard the remaining 26 per cent, in the company. This is the second venture by the ICICI group in the insurance sector. ICICI and UK-based Prudential have tied up in a 74:26 life insurance venture that has already started operations.
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Microsoft unveils .Net curriculum in India
New Delhi—Microsoft India has launched its official curriculum for .Net courses in India with the curriculum components including XML Web services foundation skills.
Managing director, Microsoft India, Rajiv Kaul said that .Net is Microsoft's vision for the future of internet computing and provides tremendous opportunities for Indian developers and IT professionals.
The key components of the .Net curriculum are -- Xtensible Markup Language Web service foundation skills, Microsoft .Net framework and system services and Microsoft Visual Studio .Net.
The curriculum would provide comprehensive training material to help it professionals develop support and implement real-time solutions based on .Net.
The course would be made available at about 120 microsoft certified technical-education centres across the country.
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Another dot com in trouble
Mumbai-- Sharekhan.com is in trouble and reportedly, the management team at S S Kantilal Ishwarlal Securities (SSKI), which runs Sharekhan has been sacked.
SSKI promoter Shripal Morakhia is understood to have ssumed direct management control of Sharekhan.
Company insiders state that the development has been prompted by differences between Morakhia and the Sharekhan management team on the pace of growth. The promoter apparently wanted a faster pace of growth than the current growth rate. Some more downsizing might be in the offing, though no decision seems to have been taken on this as yet.
Sharekhan has over 100 employees.
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Tata Sons firm picks up controlling stake in Tata Fin
New Delhi--A group company of Tata Sons is reported to have picked up a 51 per cent controlling stake in Tata Finance.
Managing director of TFL Kishore Choukar said that the Tatas are realigning businesses to maximise synergies. As part of this effort the house of Tatas has picked up the stake in Tata Finance.
He denied that the recent unravelling of unauthorised transactions could have been the reason for this stake acquisition.
Tata Finance is a non-banking finance company with Rs 3,800 crore worth of assets. It has several subsidiary operations, including Nishkalp (which has ceased to be a subsidiary only from June 28, 2001), which is mired in the unauthorised financial transactions' case.
Among other subsidiaries of TFL are Tata TD Waterhouse, which is a primary securities dealer for the government, newly created joint venture Tata Home Finance and Tata Finance Amex.
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SBI Caps officials under CBI probe
Mumbai--The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) have questioned four SBI Caps officials in the Cyberspace case. The officials called for questioning include the senior vice president and group head of M & A and Advisory, head of research.
The CBI also questioned members of the team who had worked on the private placement of Cyberspace shares with the institution.
According to sources, CBI called in the officials to understand the way in which placement was done.
Around June 2000, Cyberspace roped in SBI Caps and UTI Securities for a Rs 100 crore private placement issue.
To raise the money, the company proposed to place 15 lakh equity shares (amounting to 10-12 per cent of the equity) with qualified buyers.
Sources say SBI Caps only approached SBI Mutual Fund and LIC Mutual Fund for the deal but was unsuccessful in placing it.
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Philips to pick up 47 percent stake in CG Glass
Mumbai—Royal Philips Electronics is acquiring 46.8 per cent stake of CG Glass -- Crompton Greaves (28.8 per cent) and CDC Group (18 per cent) at Rs 13.75 per share.
After this, the Dutch company plans to make an open offer to public shareholders to buy the remaining 53.2 per cent holding at Rs 13.75 per share, the company said in a release here on Thursday.
The offer is scheduled to open on August 28, 2001, and close on September 26, 2001, it said, adding, purchase of promoters holding and the open offer were subject to necessary statutory approvals.
The offer price was at premium of 52.8 per cent over the closing price of CGGL on the BSE on July 25 and at a premium of over 77 per cent over the six-month average price, it said.
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TCS; European push
Mumbai—Indian software giant Tata Consultancy Services’ gambit (TCS) of diversifying its product portfolio in the European market to protect itself from business fluctuations in any particular sector has paid off. It has bagged 15 new clients. TCS is now setting up a demonstration centre in Amsterdam, which will showcase all its products and solutions, and cater to its entire European market. TCS had so far been focusing on the telecom sector in Europe, but now has forayed into other segments.
These include — embedded systems, engineering services, ERP implementation, banking services, insurance, transportation and media.
The 15 new clients that the Tata Group company has snapped up are — Nokia, SAAB, the Swedish automaker including Ericsson, Telenor, the Norwegian telecom company and a Danish media house Sobor in the first quarter of the current financial year.
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Carrier net profit down 75 percent in Q1
New Delhi—Air-conditioning major Carrier Aircon's net profit fell by a huge 75 per cent to Rs 2.55 crore for the quarter ended June 30, 2001, on a 4 per cent fall in turnover at Rs 145.03 crore.
The company had posted Rs 10.17 crore net profit for the corresponding period of the previous year on Rs 151.18 crore sales.
The declining profitability of the company comes even as Carrier International Mauritius, an indirect subsidiary of Carrier, has made an open offer to the public to acquire the remaining 49 per cent stake in the Indian venture and get it delisted from the Indian bourses.
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Exodus from Dunlop
Kolkata—Beleaguered tyre-maker Dunlop India has witnessed a spurt in the exodus of executives since January when production at the company’s plant stopped.
At least 30 middle-and senior-level executives are reported to have left. The company is now plunged in uncertainty, primarily due to the delay in BIFR giving the nod to the draft rehabilitation scheme.
Sources said the level of exodus was of such magnitude that the entire corpus earmarked for gratuity had dried up, which is now to be replenished by selling assets included in the DRS and awaiting BIFR sanction.
Another reason for the flight of executives was non-payment of salaries for the last seven months, the sources said.
In spite of the company stopping production at its two factories in Sahagung in West Bengal and Ambattur in Tamil Nadu since January, it had not been possible for the management of Dunlop to declare suspension of operations for the second time, which according to sources, was mainly due to the request from state government.
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SBI Cards register 20 percent increase in losses
Mumbai--SBI Cards and Payment Services has registered a 20 per cent rise in losses in the second year of operations. Losses rose to Rs 7.09 crore from Rs 5.8 crore the previous year as the company continued to pump up expenses to acquire the targeted card-base.
Debt outstanding from cardholders for less than six months has jumped to Rs 270.2 crore, from Rs 112.15 crore last year. The amount outstanding from cardholders, who have not paid for more than six months stood at Rs 8.3 crore (Rs 39.8 lakh).
Following the increase in the number of cardholders, the provisions for doubtful credits has increased substantially from Rs 1.9 crore last year to Rs 4.9 crore during the 2000-01.
Although income has risen 233 per cent to Rs 88 crore from Rs 26 crore last year, expenses have risen nearly three times to Rs 98.3 crore. The company with a paid-up capital of Rs 100 crore has accumulated losses of Rs 16.7 crore.
The biggest expenditure has been on account of processing services charges, outsourced from GE Capital Business Prices Management Services.
Processing charges have increased to Rs 25.9 crore from Rs 9.3 crore last year following growth in card-base.
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