Essar to have BancAm as advisors
Mumbai: Essar Steel has appointed Banc of America Securities LLC, (BAS) based in the US, as its financial advisor to prepare a plan to restructure and reduce its debt and financing costs.

BAS will head a team of auditors, legal consultants and technical experts, including PricewaterhouseCoopers -- the company's auditors, Hunton & Williams -- legal advisors, and Bedows & Company of Canada -- technical advisors.

An Essar spokesperson said the company intends to prepare a comprehensive plan of repayment to the floating rate notes creditors. It will explain to the creditors the company's profitability and cash flows before the creditors can actually agree to give more time for repayment of the FRNs.
Back to News Review index page

Chevron to become equal partner in JV with MRL
New Delhi: Chevron of the US, which already holds 40 per cent of the equity of  Indian Additives Ltd. (IAL) -- a joint venture with Madras Refineries, will become an equal partner in this venture.  This will be done through an acquisition of a further 10 per cent stake in IAL from Madras Refineries which will be divesting in favour of its partner.

This comes on the heels of the restructuring of Lubrizol India, where Indian Oil and Lubrizol of US became equal partners. This exercise, initiated by the Government,  is aimed at making the oil sector competitive in a market dominated regime.
Back to News Review index page

Tata companies sign brand equity agreement
Mumbai: Five Tata group companies, Rallis India, Indian Hotels, Voltas, Tata Finance and Tata Infotech have signed the brand equity and business promotion agreement with the holding company, Tata Sons. The agreement enables the companies to use the Tata name and trademark and officially call themselves Tata group companies. The agreement which  comes into effect from 1 July, involves payment of a subscription fee to Tata Sons based on revenue from business operations. With this, all the top Tata companies have signed the agreement.

Along with the agreement, the members of the senior management staff of the companies have also signed the Tata Code of conduct.
Back to News Review index page

Escorts to seek more cellular licences
New Delhi: The Escorts group will seek cellular licences in two circles, one in the north and another in the south. It has decided to have a significant presence in the telecommunications business.

The licences will be procured by the group's Escotel Mobile Communications, which already provides cellular services in the circles of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Kerala.

The group will spend Rs 300 to Rs 400 crore for the licences. It will also increase the capital of Escotel by adding Rs 150 crore equity.
Back to News Review index page

Spic to spin off pharma, bio-tech units
Chennai: As part of its restructuring exercise aimed at focussing on its core competency in agri-business and fertilizers, Spic is all set to have separate entities for its pharma and bio-tech businesses. The company has already spun off its petroleum division into a joint venture with Caltex and the engineering contract division into another joint venture with Technip of Italy.

The present plan involves setting up Spic Pharmaceuticals, which will unify the pharma manufacturing facilities at Cuddallore and Maraimalainagar and Spic Biotechnologies, which will unify the Coimbatore, Porur and Hosur plants. To begin with, Spic will hold the entire capital of the two companies.
Back to News Review index page

Godrej Agrovet gets patent for crop product
Mumbai: Godrej Agrovet has secured a patent for technology to manufacture a plant growth hormone that improves the output of a number of crops. The patent, granted by the government of India, is valid for 14 years, but the effective period for the company will be about nine years as it had made the application in February 1994.

The company took about 10 yeas to develop the product, which involved chemical synthesis of brassinolides. The product, brand named "Double" will be launched shortly. The company claims that the product will enhance crop output by 30 to 40 per cent without deterioration in quality.
Back to News Review index page

Pentafour system for textile industry
Coimbatore: Pentafour Software and Exports has developed a packaged product for the textile industry to cover the core functional areas of finance, materials management, production, sales and distribution, quality, maintenance and human resources and payroll.

Called Penta Works-Textiles, the product is a cost-effective model and has in-built fine-tuning flexibility for addressing specific requirements of customers. It has been developed after mapping the complex manufacturing system, including spinning, weaving/knitting and processing.
Back to News Review index page

Tata Electric plans investments
Mumbai: Tata Electric Companies, comprising Tata Power, Andhra Valley and Tata Hydro --the country's largest private sector power supplier -- is planning investments worth Rs 4,800 crore in the next three years as part of its expansion program.

The company will spread its operations across the country, increasing its power generation capacity by about 25 per cent.

The company's new projects at Jojobera, Belgaum, Kymore and Jamil will be financed through a mixture of equity and debt.
Back to News Review index page

Morganite Thermal to hike stake in JV with Greaves
New Delhi: Morganite Thermal Ceramics of the UK is acquiring a majority stake in the joint venture with Greaves Ltd. through a preferential allotment.

The board of Greaves Morganite Crucible has approved the move to hike the stake to 50.5 per cent.

Morganite Thermal Ceramics will bring in the latest technology and give a boost to export sales through their global network.
Back to News Review index page

Daewoo to hike Matiz output
Bangalore: Daewoo Motors India is stated to have firm orders for supply of 2,000 Matiz cars to Europe and the Middle East in the current year. The company is planning to increase the production of all models from the present 2,500 to 3,000 units to over 4,000 units per month, S.G. Awasthi, managing director of the company, said.

In 1999-2000, the company has set a target of 40,000 Matiz vehicles to be sold, Mr. Awasthi said. In addition, 10,000 Nexia/Cielo cars also will be sold in the country.
Back to News Review index page

Free PC now for internet service
San Francisco: FreeMac.com, a new company will give away Apple Computer's iMacs to consumers who pay for three years of internet service.

The Santa Monica-based company will ship one million Apple iMacs this September.

Currently, there are a slew of "free PC" deals in the US market and the company wants to make a difference by linking the free PC to internet service.
Back to News Review index page

Yahoo considering acquisition of ExciteAtHome
Palo Alto: Yahoo! Inc is considering buying its rival ExciteAtHome. If accomplished, the deal will make Yahoo! a market leader and enable it to offer new services.

Meanwhile ExciteAtHome is planning a new powerful search engine to reach the entire web's millions of pages. The service will be twice as powerful as its present search process, which reaches less that half the content on the web. The service is planned for launch in mid-August.
Back to News Review index page

BAT to acquire Imasco
London: British American Tobacco has said it will buy 58 per cent stake in Imasco that it does not own and break up the Canadian group.

BAT, world's second largest cigarette company, will pay a minimum of C$ 40 cash per Imasco share. The final price will be determined after the planned sell-off of Imasco's drugstore and property businesses, Shoppers and Genstar.
Back to News Review index page

TotalFina-Elf bids become more hostile
Paris: The takeover battle between Elf Aquitaine and TotalFina became more hostile, with TotalFina chairman Thierry Desmarest saying Elf head Philippe Jaffre continued to rebuff offers for friendly talks. Jaffre, in turn, after consulting his board and executives issued a statement denouncing the approach as inappropriate.

TotalFina had made a surprise 42 billion euro bid for national rival Elf, which was rejected by Elf. Elf in turn fired off a 50 billion euro counter-bid for TotalFina.
Back to News Review index page

DaimlerChrysler recast plan by year-end
Detroit: DaimlerChrysler is to announce a plan to realign management structure of the newly merged company as part of its three-year integration process between the former US auto maker Chrysler Corporation and Germany's Daimler Benz. The  plan is expected to be made public by the year end.

At present the company functions as one corporation with two separate automotive operations -- Mercedes Benz, in Europe and its US arm, Chrysler. There have been news stories about plans to reduce the size of the current management board by one-third and eliminate nearly all existing titles and responsibilities.
Back to News Review index page

Nissan to buy Mazda outfit
Tokyo: Nissan Motor Company has confirmed that it will buy all of Mazda Motor's stake in automatic transmission joint venture Jatco Company.

Mazda has 34.7 per cent stake in Jatco and the purchase by Nissan of this stake will take the former's holding in the company to 99.1 per cent. Jatco employees hold the remaining shares.

Meanwhile, Mazda has agreed to sell its automobile loan company Mazda Credit Corporation to Ford Credit Japan for eight billion yen. The deal will strengthen Mazda's group management structure and help in positive cash flow for the company.
Back to News Review index page