Stemcor to have majority stake in Essar Minerals
Mumbai: Stemcor Corporation of the UK will take a 51 per cent stake in Essar Minerals, reducing promoter Essar Steel's stake in the joint venture to 49 per cent. The proposal and the funding pattern for the joint venture have been cleared by the financial institutions.

An Essar spokesperson said offering a majority stake in Essar Minerals to Stemcor has been the financial institutions' a condition for considering fresh funds for the Essar group. Stemcor is an international trading company in steel and metals, offering specialist service in marketing, shipping, engineering and trade finance.
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Divestment panel moots Bhel's privatisation
New Delhi: The Disinvestment Commission has recommended that the government must give up its majority 67.7 per cent stake in Bharat Heavy Electricals by offloading its shares to domestic financial institutions, foreign private equity funds and multilateral institutions -- giving them 10 per cent in each category.

The commission has also suggested induction of financial institutions as strategic partners through an offer of 20 per cent of Bhel's equity.

The commission also recommended that, along with Bhel, the government sell up to 51 per cent in Rashtriya Ispat Nigam, Hindustan Insecticides and Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilisers and up to 33 per cent in Hindustan Organic Chemicals. It has classified all these companies as non-core to the competition in the market for their respective products.
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Ranbaxy to receive $65 million for drug delivery system
Mumbai: Ranbaxy Laboratories is likely to receive $65 million from Bayer as upfront and milestone payment for a novel drug delivery system modification of ciprofloxacin which it has developed.

A report in The Economic Times said Ranbaxy is in the process of obtaining Reserve Bank of India clearances to receive this amount. Bayer is also likely to pay royalties of about 8 per cent on sales of the new single daily dose form of ciprofloxacin to Ranbaxy for a 20-year period.
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Dabur to get finance for cancer drug project
New Delhi: Dabur India will receive a $8 million loan for its anti-cancer project in the UK from ABN Amro. The Indian ayurvedic medicines company has set up a wholly-owned subsidiary, Axol Laboratories, in the UK to manufacture and market anti-cancer drugs.

This will be Dabur's first manufacturing facility in the developed world.
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Mahindra infotech unit to set up bourse
Mumbai: The Mahindra and Mahindra group's infotech holding unit Mahindra Information Technology Services has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Punjab State Warehousing Corporation to establish an exchange for trading in all commodities at present permitted in the country.

The company will provide a platform for trading and doing futures in commodities. The exchange is expected to come up Mohali in Haryana.
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ICICI, Shoppers Stop eye Crosswords
Bangalore: ICICI Venture and Shoppers Stop are investing in Crosswords, the high-profile bookstore of India Book House. It is expected that ICICI Venture will pick up around 20 to 25 per cent and Shoppers Stop may get a majority stake.

Crosswords is an India Book House division with a presence in Delhi and Mumbai and franchise arrangements in Goa, Pune, and Nashik
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TCW/ICICI to buy stake in Creative Eye
New Delhi: TCW/ICICI, Mauritius-based foreign institutional investor, is all set to acquire a 28.41 per cent stake in Creative Eye, a television software company in Mumbai.

According to the  proposal, Creative Eye will allot 4,81,700 and 2,04,000 equity shares of Rs 10 each at a premium of Rs 65 per share on preferential basis to TCW/ICICI India Private Equity Fund and TCW/ICICI India Private AMP Fund respectively.

Creative Eye proposes to set up a post-production studio and undertake production of mega TV serials, involving large working capital, for which it wants to have foreign participation. Its proposal, cleared by the Foreign Investments Promotion Board, envisages initial foreign investment of about Rs 5.14 crore.
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Astra gives marketing rights to Astra IDL
Mumbai: Sweden's Astra AB has offered exclusive rights to market its products in India till end-2004 to Astra-IDL, its joint venture with the Hindujas' IDL Industries. Astra is willing to have the arrangement in spite of the joint venture passing on to a reputed multinational, provided the MNC does not have any conflicting interests with Astra.

Astra has also offered IDL the option to buy out its 25.75 per cent stake in the joint venture before 30 June 2000.
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Taj plans 10 new hotels
Mumbai: The Taj group of hotels is planning to add 10 new hotels to its strength of 48 hotels. The new hotels will be built from scratch or acquired. They will mostly be in smaller cities where the group does not have a presence, Taj officials said.
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Speech software in automobiles
Mumbai: Speech & Software Technologies India is planning to develop a speech-recognition software for automobiles.

The company is working with Tata Engineering and Locomotive Company on this project. The project will help Telco introduce global positioning system-based speech recognition software, which will aid navigation and work out route maps to reach a destination. The product is meant for trucks as well as other automobiles produced by the company. Telco has taken a sizable stake in Speech and Software India.
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NEPC reschedules debt
Chennai: The troubled NEPC group is rescheduling its Rs 120-crore debt, excluding additional and penal interest. A spokesperson of the group said NEPC has already rescheduled debt to the extent of Rs 25 crore, and this will be repaid over the next two years.

The company is in the process of negotiating the repayment schedule for the remaining amount, with both IFCI-led financial institutions and other non-banking financial companies.
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HPCL, BPCL to sign pact with RPL
Mumbai: Hindustan Petroleum Corporation and Bharat Petroleum Corporation are likely to sign an operational agreement with Reliance Petroleum to offload petroleum products from Reliance's Jamnagar refinery.

Indian Oil Corporation has already signed a marketing agreement with RPL to sell 50 per cent of the refinery's output of controlled petroleum products such as LPG, diesel, kerosene, aviation turbine fuel and petrol.
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TTK Pharma-Biomed equity swap
Mumbai: TTK Pharma will issue TTK Biomed shareholders 12 shares for every 50 shares they hold  in TTK Biomed as part of the merger of Biomed with itself. TTK Biomed has notified the Bombay Stock Exchange of this swap.

The merger is the result of the TTK group's plan to consolidate its manufacturing and marketing businesses into a single entity. The two companies will have a turnover of Rs 150 crore.

TTK Biomed is a loss-making company, manufacturing condoms and disposable gloves marketed by TTK Pharma.
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SAP aligns with Leading Edge Systems
Mumbai: Leading Edge Systems has become a local resource partner for SAP AG, the German software company. SAP will provide software while Leading Edge Systems will offer implementation support to small and medium enterprises.

The Indian company is targeting an income of around Rs 2 crore in this segment by this year-end. It is also planning to become a national implementation partner for SAP.
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Alcoa-Reynolds deal through
New York: Alcoa, the world's largest aluminium producer, said it has reached an agreement to buy Reynolds Metals in a $4.4 billion all-stock deal

This ends Alcoa's plan for a hostile bid on the No 3 aluminium manufacturer in the world. The deal will create a global aluminium giant to rival the company that Canadian firm Alcan Aluminium plans to create with the acquisition of France's Pechiney and the Alusuisse Lonza group of Switzerland. Alcoa and Reynolds said they will have about $20.5 billion in annualised revenue, while the other three will have combined revenue of $21.6 billion.
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Glaxo, AHP in merger talks?
New York: The UK's Glaxo Wellcome and the New Jersey, US-based American Home Products are rumoured to be in merger talks. However, both the companies refused to comment on the reports.

Both companies had earlier been candidates for merger --  with drugmaker SmithKline Beecham. AHP has been in merger talks with Monsanto too.
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Texas Pacific may acquire Piaggio
Milan: Italian scooter maker Piaggio is an acquisition target for US fund Texas Pacific Group, which had earlier taken over Ducati, the Italian motorcycle maker, and Motorola's semiconductor unit.

Texas Pacific is understood to have offered $651 million for nearly 100 per cent of the privately held scooter group -- the largest manufacturing company in central Italy. Piaggio has confirmed that it is in advanced talks with the US group. David Bonderman, founder of Texas Pacific, had earlier rescued Continental Airlines of the US.
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AES buys UK power station
Houston: US power producer AES is buying the Drax power station of National Power of the UK for $3 billion. The purchase will help AES to have a powerful presence in Britain's lucrative power market.

The Drax power station is the largest coal-fired power station in Western Europe, generating 8 per cent of the electricity in England and Wales. AES said with this acquisition it is all set to buy other assets in the UK and Europe.
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Foreign banks not ruling out action against Daewoo
Seoul: Foreign banks that have financed Daewoo group companies said they do not rule out legal action against the group now undergoing restructuring.

The banks will clarify their position to the Korean government and the Daewoo group sometime next week. Daewoo owes $5.05 billion to foreign creditors, of which $2.95 billion is due by the end of this year.
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Mitsubishi plans partnership with Volvo
Tokyo: Mitsubishi Motors is planning a partnership with Volvo for trucks. The partnership is expected to extend to other areas in future.

Yuzo Murata, executive vice president of Mitsubishi, said the two companies have agreed to cooperate in engines and other wide range of areas such as transmission, future safety technologies and noise prevention. There is, however, no equity alliance planned between the two at the moment. Mitsubishi has been reported in the press to be planning to sell its troubled truck and bus arm.
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Cisco buys MaxComm
Palo Alto: Cisco Systems is buying the rest of the closely held MaxComm it did not acquire in the $143 million in stock.

Cisco said it bought Chelmsford, Massachussets-based MaxComm to give it a further advantage in the consumer market for voice and data services. MaxComm has technology that allows as many as four voice lines over regular telephone lines that have already been converted to high-speed DSL internet access.
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Suez Lyonnaise to acquire Tractebel
Brussels: Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux plans to acquire 9 per cent of Belgian Tractebel in a share swap offer.

A Suez takeover of Tractebel, Belgium's fourth largest company with a market capitalisation of around $13.5 billion, will put the control of the Belgian energy sector virtually in French hands. Suez already holds 50.39 per cent of Tractebel through its wholly-owned Societe Generale de Belgique.
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