United Distillers' plea to import liquor concentrate rejected
New Delhi: The directorate general of foreign trade has rejected an application from United Distillers India to import alcohol concentrates and bottle them and sell them in the country. The brands include Black Dog, Black and White, and Vat 69.

The DGFT feels that the proposal does not amount to manufacturing, that it will mean only trading, and as such does not benefit the Indian liquor industry.

Company sources said the rejection of the company's application will not have an immediate impact as it has enough stocks to last for one year.
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Wipro, KPN in joint venture
Bangalore: Wipro and KPN (Royal Dutch Telecom) are coming together to offer internet services in India through Wipro Net, a subsidiary of Wipro Corporation.

Wipro and KPN will hold stakes in the new company in a ratio of 55:45. The current management structure of Wipro Net will be expanded with functional experts from KPN. All the services like e-mail, intranet, extranet and enhanced fax services now being offered by the company will be branded under the Wipro name. Wipro Net will have connectivity with KPN's internet protocol network.
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Essar Oil to forfeit 61.9 million equity shares
Mumbai: Essar Oil has decided to forfeit 61.9 million equity shares of Rs 10 each, amounting to 16.21 per cent of the company's equity, on which shareholders have failed to pay allotment call monies. The board of the company has informed the Bombay Stock Exchange about this.

Essar Oil said these shares were to be issued as part of its optionally fully convertible debentures issued to about one lakh individuals at Rs 47.5 per share. The company has accepted 50 per cent of this amount.
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GE to market Satyam product in US
Mumbai: Satyam Computer Systems and General Electric have entered a tie-up for marketing Satyam Vision Compass, a software package, in the US.

Satyam Vision Compass is a performance evaluation product, which is meant to help organisations align operations with strategy. The software tracks the performance of an employee or team with respect to strategic goals. The company has invested close to Rs 10 crore in the development of the product.
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German Remedies, Ethypharm in tie-up
Mumbai: German Remedies has concluded an agreement with Ethypharm SA of France to register, manufacture and market Ethypharm's drug delivery system in India.

The tie-up is expected to be functional this year. German Remedies has also signed an agreement with Ethypharm's wholly-owned subsidiary in India, Lloyds Laboratories.
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ICIL in strategic pacts with Oracle, Microsoft
New Delhi: International Computers India Ltd has concluded strategic alliances with Oracle Corporation and Microsoft to create what it calls a holistic business entity by 2002.

ICIL's enterprise applications group has signed a pact with Oracle as applications reseller and implementation partner, under which the company will offer enterprise resource planning services for the implementation and integration of financials, manufacturing and supply-chain management to Indian companies.

Under the alliance with Microsoft, ICIL will leverage its expertise with that of Microsoft technologies and tools to create products and solutions for e-commerce markets worldwide.
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SRG Infotech buys PC Point
Mumbai: SRG Infotech has bought PC Point, a hardware training institution, for Rs 4 crore. SRG will add to the portfolio of PC Point software training and use its recently acquired Datapro for this purpose.

The company is also talking to a US-based software company for a $5 million acquisition. SRG Infotech has a strategic alliance with the Bureau of Information Technology Services for establishing a countrywide network of software education centres.
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23% growth rate for TVS Suzuki
Chennai: TVS Suzuki recorded a growth rate of 23 per cent in July 1999 over sales recorded in July 1998. The company's sales of two-wheelers also crossed the 75,000 mark for the first time in its history in July.

The company sold a total of 2,69,195 vehicles during the first four months of the year ending 31 March 2000.
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Permit given to Nippon withdrawn
New Delhi: Nippon of Japan has been prohibited from making and marketing such products as would compete with its existing joint venture, Madhusudhan Nippon.

The government will amend the existing approval given to the Japanese auto component major by the Foreign Investments Promotion Board to set up another joint venture for activities that are similar to those being pursued by the existing joint venture. Madhusudhan had taken up the issue with the industry ministry about a year ago.

The joint venture is in the business of making auto components, and Madhusudhan claimed that the proposed venture between Nippon and Machino would affect its market.
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Go2Net acquires Dogpile
Seattle: Internet portal company Go2Net Inc is acquiring Dogpile in a $55 million deal. This will link two popular metasearch engines. Go2 Net will add Dogpile to its MetaCrawler service, which will help provide combined reports from a wide range of websearch engines.

Go2Net chief executive officer Russel Horowitz said metasearching is becoming important, and with the acquisition of Dogpile, the company has gained a very strong position in the market.
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Sega ties up with AT&T for web game
San Francisco: Sega of America, the US unit of Sega Enterprises of Japan, said it has aligned with AT&T to provide internet access for its new Dreamcast video game console. Dreamcast, to be launched in September 1999, will be the first gaming console capable of logging on to the internet with a 56K modem. It has a price of $199.

Dreamcast subscribers could sign up to AT&T's WorldNet internet service under several plans, including a standard plan of 150 hours a month for a monthly fee of $19.95, or unlimited access for $21.95.
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Regulator tells Daewoo to sell good units first
Seoul: The Korean regulator, the Financial Supervisory Commission, told the beleaguered Daewoo group to sell profitable units first. The Chaebol group does not want to do this. Meanwhile, a group of foreign bankers have sent a letter to Daewoo warning that ties with Daewoo and the Korean business community as a whole would suffer if foreign creditors were not accommodated.

Daewoo had submitted a restructuring plan to local creditors, but this was rejected on grounds of being vague.
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Microsoft founder to invest in telecom company
San Francisco: One of Microsoft's founders and billionaire, Paul G. Allen, is buying a stake valued at $355 million in a Dallas telecom company. This is his first major investment in this field.

Mr Allen is spending $75 million for 1.5 million shares, at $50 each, in Allegiance Telecom. He has an option to buy another 5 million shares at $56 each. If he exercises all options, Mr Allen would have 10 per cent of Allegiance and a right to nominate a person on the company's board.
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DaimlerChrysler to reduce board strength
Michigan: DaimlerChrysler is planning to reduce the number of directors on its management board to between 10 and 13 from the present 17.

Gary Valade, DaimlerChrysler's executive vice president of procurement, and a board member, said the reduction would be done between now and the third year of the amalgamated company's operations, and an effort would be made to keep a balance of American and Germans now. But in the long term, it will be the best persons, irrespective of nationality, who will fill the slots.
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