Indian Oil to acquire stake in Lubrizol India
New Delhi: Indian Oil Corporation will to buy the government's stake in Lubrizol India, a joint venture between Lubrizol Corporation of the US and the government of India.

The government, as part of its divestment proposal, is offloading its stake in Lubrizol India in favour of Indianoil and Lubrizol US. With this acquisition, Indian Oil will have a 50 per cent stake in the company. The American company will increase its stake by 10 per cent.

Lubrizol India produces additives at its plant near Mumbai.
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IOC offered equity in Haldia Petro
Mumbai: Indian Oil Corporation may get an equity stake in Haldia Petrochemicals. The Chatterjee-Soros group is considering offering a stake to the Indianoil, which will strengthen its relationship with the new project beyond the fuel supply agreement that is being finalised.

The Rs 5,170-crore West Bengal-based company needs about Rs 969 crore in equity funding. It also requires marketing arrangements. The Indianoil tie-up, it believes, will possibly help it overcome both problems. 
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Financial institutions tell Essar to opt for roll-over
Mumbai: The heads of financial institutions have maintained their earlier stance that Essar Steel opt for a "roll-over" of the $250 million floating rate note issue which is due for redemption on 20 July. The matter came up at a meeting of the heads of the institutions.

Essar Steel has already crossed the 21-day deadline on 29 June for informing the bond holders of a roll-over and seeking their consent in a general meeting. Although the company can still move for a roll-over, under the terms of the trust deed this will not be deemed to have the consent of the bond holders. 
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Kale Consultants, Microsoft in tie-up
Mumbai: Software producer Kale Consultants will have a strategic tie-up with Microsoft India to design and deliver specific solutions for the banking and financial sector.

The company intends to make use of Microsoft's digital development architecture to develop new products. The products will use the component technology of Microsoft, which enables reuse of components to deliver solutions for different usage.
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Bhel to make fabric filters
Chennai: The public sector Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd has signed a technical collaboration agreeement with a German company, Apparatebau Rothemuehle Brandt Kritzier GmbH, to make fabric filters used in pollution control equipment. The filters will help reduce atmosphere poluting emissions from industries and power stations.

The filters can be used either in conjunction with electrostatic precipitators or as independent systems. They will be manufactured at Bhel's boiler auxiliaries plant at Ranipet in Tamil Nadu.
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IOC not happy with Petronet offer
Kochi: Indian Oil Corporation is understood to have informed the government that the new equity subscription plan proposed by it for Petronet LNG is not acceptable to it.

Under the original plan Indian Oil and Bharat Petroleum were the two important equity holders in the LNG project. However, the National Thermal Power Corporation has staked a claim for equity on the basis that it is an important user of LNG -- and the government had modified the original capital structure to accommodate NTPC.

Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum, Gas Authority of India and Oil and Natural Gas Corporation are the original promoters of Petronet LNG, a project to import, store and supply LNG.
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Redrock in deal with Weikfield
New Delhi: Pune-based custard-maker Weikfield and Sidharth Burman of Dabur India have struck a deal in the UAE. Redrock Ltd, a company in which Mr Burman holds a 20 per cent stake, is acquiring an 80 per cent holding in Weikfield International UAE.

Weikfield International UAE produces and markets Weikfield food products in the UAE. Redrock had earlier purchased a 50 per cent holding in the company from a UAE partner. Mr Burman is the chairman of Redrock. 
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Intel acquires stake in Eastern Software
New Delhi: Intel Corporation has acquired a 55 per cent stake in Eastern Software Systems.

Under the two-level transaction, Intel Pacific, a unit of Intel Corporation, will acquire 3.5 lakh shares of the company from Citicorp Information Technology Industries, a Mumbai-based company, in the first phase. Later fresh equity will be issued to Intel to take the total stake to 51 per cent.
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Siemens Matsushita hikes stake in International Ferrites
Calcutta: Siemens Matsushita Components of Germany has hiked its equity participation in International Ferrites from 26 per cent to 59 per cent.

International Ferrites, manufacturer of soft ferrites, is a joint venture between Associated Cement Companies and Webel, the West Bengal industrial promotion agency. It has a technical collaboration arrangement with Siemens Matsushita Components.

The company has one of the largest components manufacturing units in West Bengal. ACC's stake has come down to 35 per cent and Webel's to 14 per cent.
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Bonfiglioli sets up unit near Chennai
Chennai: Bonfiglioli group of Italy, which is in the power transmission equipment business, is entering the Indian market for mechanical power transmission products. It is setting up a manufacturing facility near Chennai.

The plant will be built with an initial outlay of Rs 35 crore, which would go up to Rs 100 core in less than five years, according to M.Ganesh, CEO of  Bonfiglioli Transmissions Pvt Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Italian group.
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Intel servers from SGI India
New Delhi: SGI India, formerly Silicon Graphics, and a subsidiary of US-based SGI Inc, will launch Intel-based servers in India in the first week of August 1999.

Prasad V Medury, managing director of SGI India, said the company will expand its Intel-based offerings and at the same time continue to provide other technologies such as RISC.

The company's demonstration centre in New Delhi, set up in collaboration with Intel Corporation, will showcase Intel architecture.
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Kinetic for European scooter design
Pune: Kinetic Engineering is planning to go for European design for its new scooters and scooterettes.

A.H. Firodia, chairman and managing director of the company, said the company is negotiating with French and Italian design houses. These scooters and scooterettes will be introduced in the Indian market within two years, he said.

According to Mr Firodia, a 73-cc Taiwanese-designed scooterette, Style, made by his company, will be in the market by September 1999.
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Stroh, Mount Shivalik in beer pact
Calcutta: Stroh's Brewery has finalised a 10-year agreement with Mount Shivalik Industries of New Delhi for brewing and marketing its bottled beer.

The launch coincides with Stroh's getting out of canned beer temporarily, following expiry of its contract with Rajasthan Breweries in January. Mount Shivalik will brew as well as market the beer in all parts of the country, except south India.
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Air Liquide, Air Products take over BOC
London: British industrial gases company BOC Group agreed to a $11.2 billion takeover by industry rivals Air Liquide of France and US-based Air Products and Chemicals.

The Franco-US deal at 14.60 per share signals the break-up of the 100-year-old BOC. The Franco-US partners gain almost 40 per cent of the global industrial gases market.

The chairmen and chief executives of Air Liquide, the world's biggest industrial gases company, and Air Products, ranked fourth, said they expected the deal to secure the necessary regulatory approvals in six months.
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Goldman to buy Hull
New York: Goldman Sachs Group said it would buy electronic market maker Hull Group for $531 million. Goldman, after it went public in May, has made a string of smaller acquisitions in electronic stock matching systems. The company is now taking necessary action to enter the electronic era in stock and index options trading, which is a speciality of the Chicago-based Hull.
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Rhone-Poulenc shareholders approve merger
Paris: Rhone-Poulenc said 99.5 per cent of its shareholders have approved its planned merger with Germany's Hoechst.

Rhone Poulenc said its shareholders approved the deal that would create Aventis, which will be the No 1 life sciences company in the world with almost $20 billion in annual sales.
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IBM to buy Sequent
New York: International Business Machines says it will buy Sequent Computer Systems for about $810 million, in a move to cover up weak spots in its computer hardware strategy.

The world's No 1 computer maker said the deal will enable it to have access to Sequent's technology that knots Unix with Windows NT-based machines.

Sequent, the Beaverton, Oregon, based company, is known for its non-uniform memory access technology that can string together scores of mass market, Intel-based computers into a high-performance system capable of running an organisation's key operations.
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Amazon.com into toys, electronics
Seattle: Amazon.com said it is planning to extend its activities to selling electronics and toys over the internet in addition to books. Two new stores, Amazon.com Electronics and Amazon.com Toys & Games are already online.

Amazon.com said it will offer low prices and broad selection of products. Consolidated Stores, eToys.com, Toys R Us Inc and Best Buy Co Inc are some other establishments that sell their wares online.
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Microsoft to invest in Rogers
Toronto: Microsoft Corporation said it would invest about $400 million in Rogers Communications, Canada's No 1 cable firm, in an agreement that will speed the launch of interactive television services for Rogers' customers.

Microsoft will buy C$600 million worth of Rogers' 5.5 per cent convertible preferred securities -- convertible into Rogers class B shares at C$35 a share. Microsoft will also get 5.33 million three-year warrants to buy Rogers class B shares at an exercise price of C$35 per share.
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Cemex forming Asian unit
Mexico City: Mexican cement producer Cemex said it is forming an Asian holding company with $950 million in capital to oversee its business in Asia.

Cemex Asia Holdings, a subsidiary of the Monterrey-based Cemex Sa de CV, was created to take advantage of investment opportunities in cement assets in Asia, Cemex said in a statement.
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Case against Toyota
Washington: The US justice department has sued Toyota Motor US unit, seeking up to $58 billion in civil penalties for 2.2 million vehicles sold with allegedly illegal pollution detection systems.

The department, which brought the lawsuit on behalf of the US Environment Protection Agency, says it seeks a court order that would force Toyota to fix the alleged violations involving the 1996-98 Toyota and Lexus vehicles.
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Air Lanka changes name
Colombo: Sri Lanka's national carrier has changed its name to Sri Lankan Air Lines from Air Lanka.

The airline took delivery of a newly leased Airbus A340-300.

The 40 per cent Emirates-owned and managed airline has ordered nine new Airbus A330-200s to be delivered from October. 
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