UB group acquires Traditional Beer
Bangalore: National Sorghum Breweries, a UB group company in South Africa, has acquired Traditional Beer Investments from South African Breweries. A deal of acquisition was signed by Vijay Mallya, chairman of the United Breweries group on 9 September.

Traditional Beer Investments will be the biggest acquisition for National Sorghum Breweries in South Africa. The merged entity will be named United National Breweries. Both Traditional Beer Investments and National Sorghum Breweries operate in the wet sorghum beer market. Sorghum beer, an opaque beer made from sorghum grain, and with a limited shelf life, is a popular drink in South Africa.

Under the deal, National Sorghum Breweries has sold its trade marks to South African Breweries for 33.5 million rand, and paid 30 million rand to acquire Traditional Beer Investments' assets. The agreement provides for South African Breweries to license back all National Sorghum Breweries trade marks it has acquired in perpetuity to National Sorghum Breweries. The latter has the option to purchase these trade marks from South African Breweries after five years.
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Reckitt & Colman unit's plea rejected
New Delhi: Reckitt & Colman subsidiary Madison Square Holding's application to manufacture over-the-counter drugs in India has been rejected by the Foreign Investments Promotion Board on the ground that it is not in line with the country's drug policy.

The department of chemicals and petrochemicals had earlier decided not to support the proposal. However, the FIPB has cleared Madison's proposal to manufacture soaps and hair preparations. The company has also been permitted to set up a wholly-owned subsidiary to form alliances with Indian businesses.
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AP Rayons to be Thapar group holding co
New Delhi: The L.M.Thapar group is planning to convert AP Rayons into a holding company for the group. The Rs 190-crore company will be delisted from the stock exchanges and will act as the investment arm for five group companies.

The proposal comes in the wake of the group's earlier decision to merge the pulp making division of AP Rayons with Ballarpur Industries. This leaves AP Rayons with no manufacturing portfolio. The merger proposal is awaiting approval of the shareholders of Ballarpur Industries.
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Reliance mooring system ready at Jamnagar
Ahmedabad: Reliance Petroleum has commissioned the single point mooring system and associated pipeline network at its Jamnagar refinery complex. Crude oil is now being loaded through the mooring system for delivery to the refinery site.

The company now proposes to discontinue the lighterage system for unloading the crude.
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Warburg makes first IPCL presentation
Baroda: Warburg Dillon Read has made its first presentation to one of the four contenders shortlisted by the government for the disinvestment of the government holding in Indian Petrochemicals Corporation Ltd.

The global advisor engaged by the government has made the presentation to Reliance Industries. Similar presentations will be made to Mitsubishi Industries, the Soros-Purnendu Chatterjee group and Dow Chemicals. The presentations and due diligence studies are expected to be completed by the first week of October 1999.
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Workers take over sick Raghuvanshi mill
Mumbai: Workers of Raghuvanshi Mill, a sick textile mill under closure for the last couple of months, have taken over the mill. The workers are planning to form a workers' cooperative to run the mill. The mill was first shut down a decade ago and was referred, at the instance of the workers, to the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction as a sick company. The owner of the mill, Hemal Thakkar, had submitted a proposal to the BIFR, which the workers allege was to prevent them from taking over the mill.

However, since no concrete plans were forthcoming, and the owners had started construction activity in the mill premises, the workers decided to take control of the mill. The workers have filed a petition before the Bombay High Court seeking a court directive to permit them to run the mill on a cooperative basis.
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LG Soft plans e-com bureau
Bangalore: LG Soft India of the LG group of South Korea is launching the first electronic commerce service bureau in India. The bureau will offer secure order management services like buyer registration, order capture, credit card verification, payment processing, right up to the delivery of the product to the customer. Retailers who wish to offer web-based sales can outsource the entire operation to such an e-commerce service bureau.

LG Soft India has set up an e-business division to provide a complete suite of specialised e-commerce services. Besides the required infrastructure, the company has secured high bandwidth telecom circuits and associated services. It has spent $2 million for the infrastructure and proposes to invest another $10 million in the next couple of years.
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General Motors  plans India base for small car
New Delhi: General Motors is planning to make India one of the production sites for its Asia car, manufactured in association with the Suzuki Motor Corporation. India is among the five nations being considered as a possible base for the Asia car, General Motors' officials said at Frankfurt where an international automobile show is in progress.

The car will be positioned at the bottom end of the small passenger car segment. The other countries being explored are China, Indonesia, Thailand and Taiwan.
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SAIL seeks higher borrowing limit
New Delhi: The Steel Authority of India Ltd has sought to increase its borrowing limit by Rs 2,000 crore to Rs 20,000 crore. The company plans to seek shareholders' approval for the purpose at its annual general meeting on 22 September.

SAIL has a borrowing limit of Rs 18,000 crore at present. The company has an interest outgo of Rs 2,000 crore on its Rs 20,000 crore loans.
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Indian Oil rejects Kuwait Petro condition
New Delhi: The Indian Oil Corporation has rejected the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation's condition of guaranteed profits for becoming a joint venture partner in the Rs 8,000 crore Paradeep refinery. Indianoil said it is going ahead with the project on its own. Kuwait Petroleum can still participate, Indiaoil's chairman and managing director M.A. Pathan said.

He also said several other foreign companies are interested in the project.
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Acquavit takes stake in Netacross
New Delhi: Acquavit, a US company focusing on net start-ups in India and the US, has taken a 26 per cent stake in Netacross, a Delhi-based information technology firm specialising in e-business solutions.

The equity has been acquired for $1.8 million.
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Gujarat Ambuja's ESOP
Mumbai: Gujarat Ambuja Cements will introduce an employee stock option plan in 1999-2000. The company's board of directors has approved the scheme and it is being placed for shareholders' approval.

The company is planning to issue four lakh equity shares of Rs 10 each for Rs 250 per share. The price is the average price of the company's stock during 1998-99.
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Compaq, Zenith in tie-up
Bangalore: Compaq India and Zenith Computers have signed an alliance to increase their market share. Zenith is a Compaq partner and it plans to offer Compaq products to large and medium companies in the country.

According to Compaq, the partnership will expand its presence in the government sector. Under the agreement Zenith will sell Compaq's ProLiant servers and AlphaServers in addition to the mobile and personal computers.
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Wipro starts internet service
Bangalore: The telecommunications division of Wipro has launched its internet services for the corporate sector. The service is available in eight cities in India and will be expanded to 20 more in 15 months.

Wipro Net, the firm handling the services, has announced a tie-up with KPN Royal Dutch Telecomm to launch the internet services. KPN holds 45 per cent of the equity in the venture.
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Marshal adds value at no extra cost
Mumbai: Mahindra & Mahindra plans to add more value to its Marshal model at no extra cost. The company will equip the Marshal with booster brakes, a new generation chassis, improved instrument panel, and ergonomically designed seats, and an upgraded DI3200 series engine in place of the existing DI series engine. The vehicle will continue to be priced at Rs 3.85 lakh.

The new Marshal will be in the market in six weeks. The company also plans to launch an eight-seater Marshal for the personal segment.
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Zegna suits in Mumbai
Mumbai: One of the famous names in men's clothing, Ermenegildo Zegna, will launch its brands in Mumbai in October 1999. The Italian company's flagship store will be located at the Crossroads Mall. It will launch more stores in other cities in the next three years.

The company will launch its Autumn/Winter collection 1999 in India. All the products offered in the store will be imported directly from Italy.
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MTNL plans partnerships with SingTel
Singapore: Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd is planning strategic partnerships with Singapore Telecommunications in several areas, MTNL's chairman and managing director S. Rajagopalan said. These partnerships could be in marketing cellular services, billing, customer care, leasing satellite space and production of yellow pages, in which SingTel has successes.

There is no proposal for equity partnerships in MTNL's cellular venture, Mr Rajagopalan said.
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AT&T, BT in service pact
Basking Ridge, New Jersey: AT&T and British Telecom have signed a strategic pact for providing seamless global mobile communications services. The terms of the alliance have not been disclosed. The two companies are awaiting regulatory approval for their $10 billion global venture designed to serve multinationals, carriers, and internet service providers.

The new agreement will enable the companies to offer a new mobile global account services package, which will give multinational customers global contracts and consolidated management information, the companies said in a statement.
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Daewoo meets foreign creditors
Seoul: Daewoo group's executives met the group's foreign creditors and sought suspension of payments on foreign debts.

A Daewoo spokesman said the group has asked foreign lenders to freeze repayments of the principal amount and interest on its foreign debts until March 2000. "A Daewoo workout is expected to be finished around March," Moon Ki-hwan, the spokesman said. "We need to be given time until March," he added.
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Mazda, Ford plan joint venture
Tokyo: Mazda Motor and Ford Motor will build new sports utility vehicles on a joint platform at Mazda's Hofu plant in Yamaguchi Prefecture in late 2000. The vehicles will, however, have their own distinct brand attributes and carry their own respective badges, a Mazda spokesperson said.

The models will be different from each other, although they are being jointly developed by Mazda and Ford, the spokesperson added.
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BASF plans to sell fertiliser business
Ludwigshafen: BASF is negotiating with K+S for sale of its fertiliser operations. BASF's fertiliser business is worth around euro 920 million annually.

Both firms have signed a letter of intent under which BASF will retain output sites for fertilisers, while K+S will become sole purchaser of all fertilisers produced by BASF.
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Algroup, Pechiney, Alcan sign pact
Zurich: Switzerland's Algroup, France's Pechiney and Canada's Alcan have signed a definitive agreement on 16 September for a three-way merger. The merger will be through two independent exchange offers to be initiated by Alcan.
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Microsoft to buy Visio
Seattle: Microsoft said it is buying Visio Corporation, maker of technical drawing software, for $1.3 billion in stock. This will be Microsoft's largest acquisition.

The Seattle-based Vision will become a division within Microsoft.
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Nissan plans IT units' merger
Tokyo: Nissan Motor Company said it will merge three information systems units, Nissan Computer Technology, Nissan Ai and Nissan Information Network as part of its efforts to streamline group operations. The merger will take place in April 2000.
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