Tata group exits Goodlass Nerolac
Mumbai: The Tata group is divesting its 28.56 per cent stake in Goodlass Nerolac Paints to foreign collaborator Kansai Paints of Japan, and is thus exiting the paints business. The stake is understood to have been sold at Rs 250 per share of Rs 10. The rate is slightly higher than the current market price.

Kansai Paints' holding in Goodlass Nerolac will now rise to 65 per cent, and the Indian company will become a subsidiary of the Japanese major, the largest paint company in Japan. Financial institutions hold 17.67 per cent and the public around 16 per cent in the equity of the company.

The Tata group's holding  in the company is through Forbes Gokak, a group company.
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Reliance into IT
Mumbai: The Reliance group is diversifying into a non-core area -- information technology. To begin with it, it is creating a venture capital fund with an initial corpus of Rs 250 crore. The group is also understood to have acquired two software boutique companies in Bangalore, one in telecommunications and communications software, and the other in enterprise resource planning systems.

The Economic Times, in a report, said while the venture capital fund is intended to offer seed capital to bright new ideas, the software companies will develop systems and solutions for in-house use initially. The group intends to set up software development centres in cities such as Bangalore, Pune and Hyderabad, with most of the activities headquartered in Bangalore.

There have been reports of the group having already acquired an overseas software company with development centres in Europe and North America. A Reliance spokesman, however, declined to comment on these reports.
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Corporate governance through bourses
Mumbai: The Kumar Mangalam Birla Committee formed by the Securities and Exchange Board of India to make recommendations on corporate governance has suggested that stock exchanges must be involved with corporate governance. The committee feels that defaulters should be delisted from the bourses and the listing agreement should be strengthened to give more powers to the stock exchanges.

The committee has divided its recommendations into mandatory and non-mandatory, and is submitting these recommendations to Sebi for approval. The draft recommendations have been made public to elicit opinion and feedback.
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Royal Holdings finalising ModiLuft buyout
Mumbai: Royal Holdings Services, the US-based, NRI-owned company set up for acquisitions, is finalising its plan to pick up preference shares in ModiLuft, the grounded private air taxi operator in India. The Nasdaq-listed Royal Holdings will raise about $35 million for acquisition of 54 to 57 per cent of the Indian carrier's equity.

Royal Holdings is owned by the Vancouver-based Verus group, promoted by a non-resident Indian, Ajmal Khan. Once Royal Holdings acquires the stake, promoter S.K. Modi's holding in ModiLuft will be diluted from the current 40 per cent to less than 10 per cent.
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Indian Airlines ends fare discounts
Mumbai: Indian Airlines has withdrawn its discount fares from 1 October. With the national carrier announcing this, private carrier Jet Airways has also withdrawn the discounted fares. The domestic airline sector has been witnessing a fare war since June 1999.

The third airline, Sahara Airlines, has announced that it will offer fares that are Rs 500 below its rivals'.

The new Indian Airlines fares in sectors where discounted fares were available are: Mumbai-Delhi Rs 5,110, Mumbai-Kozhikode Rs 4,580, Mumbai-Kochi Rs 5,025, Mumbai-Mangalore Rs 3,610, Mumbai-Ahmedabad Rs 2,535 and Mumbai-Vadodara Rs 2,280.
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Global venture funds invest in ZipFone
Mumbai: New York-based Anderson, Weinroth Capital Corporation and other international venture capital firms, are investing $10 million for a 37.5 per cent stake in Z-Tel, the Mauritius-based parent of Indian payphone start-up ZIP Telecom.

ZIP Telecom has been valued at Rs 130 crore, and the international investors are expected to bring in additional $9.10 million through outstanding options and warrants.

ZIP has 2,000 payphones installed in Mumbai and Pune, running on Hughes Ispat telephone lines, and it is targeting 30,000 locations across India in three years. The ZipFone has a remotely programmable six-inch full colour LCD panel, which can display advertisements relayed from ZIP's control centre.
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Elbee-UPS JV on hold
Mumbai: Courier company Elbee Services has put its proposed joint venture with US-based United Parcel Service on hold. Elbee had obtained shareholders' approval for the joint venture.

Sandip C. Shah, chairman of Elbee Services, said the company has not gone ahead with the proposal because of the economic slowdown. A final decision will be made on the issue in the first quarter of 2000, Mr Shah said.
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GE sets up design centre
Bangalore: GE Transportation Systems, one of the 10 major businesses of GE globally, has set up an engineering design and development centre in Bangalore.

The centre will focus on power and control electronics design, software systems engineering, diesel engine engineering and mechanical design to develop world class locomotive systems and components for GE's global railway customers, the company said.
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VSNL, MTNL sign MoU for joint initiatives
Mumbai: Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd to jointly tap opportunities in India and abroad.

The MoU aims at "capitalising the best of each partner's strength and jointly look for opportunities in India and abroad", a VSNL statement said.

The two state-owned telecom ventures are expected to look at the African continent, combining their expertise in setting up international and domestic telecom infrastructure.
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Toyota vehicles to be available off-the-shelf
Bangalore: Toyota Kirloskar Motor will not adopt the booking procedure for its multi-purpose vehicle coming into the Indian market in January 2000. Instead, the company will offer the vehicles off-the-shelf.

Sachio Yamazaki, managing director of Toyota Kirloskar Motor, said the company will release 1,000 vehicles across the country simultaneously. However, in case demand exceeds supply, customers will be put on a waiting list, but no deposits will be collected, Mr Yamazaki said.
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Aurobindo plans brand acquisition
Hyderabad: Aurobindo Pharma is planning to acquire brands from a couple of Indian drug makers.

Chairman and managing director of the company P.V. Ramaprasad Reddy said the acquisition will be completed in four to five months' time. The company has earmarked Rs 20 to Rs 25 crore for the purpose.

The brands will be in speciality drugs in segments such as cardiovascular and psychotropic segments, he said. The company is also planning to set up joint ventures abroad, especially in China and Brazil, and to acquire a US-based maker of value-added generic formulations.
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Sovika Infotek to sell Mehta CRM solutions
Mumbai: Sovika Infotek, a 100 per cent export-oriented unit, has been appointed as sole distributor for India by US-based Mehta Corporation to sell its customer relationship management solutions. The company has an R&D laboratory to support Mehta's requirements in the US market.

Sovika Infotek is part of the Sovika group of companies with interests in chemicals, air charters, medical diagnostics and aviation-related services.
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Compaq launches commercial PC
Mumbai: Compaq India rolled out Compaq DeskPro EP, its first commercial desktop PC integrated in India.

The company's integration facility at Bangalore has a capacity to produce around 1,50,000 desktop computers a year. The unit at present produces 7,500 personal computers monthly.
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Amazon offers shops for small sellers
New York: Amazon.com says it is opening its cyberstores to small merchants. The plan will speed up customer payments to small businesses and help solve the search for goods sold on the web.

Amazon's founder and chief executive officer Jeff Bezos said at a press conference that the new initiatives include zShops, a shop where anyone can sell any merchandise, excluding guns and animals, on the site. Another proposed service, Amazon.com Payments, will facilitate payments to small businesses. "Anyone from an individual to a mega-conglomerate to a micro-manufacturer can set up shop on zShops, Mr Bezos said.
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ICI selling acrylics unit
London: Imperial Chemical Industries is all set to sell its acrylics unit. The British company, now in the process of disposing of a number of its low-margin bulk operations units in order to prune itself to be a speciality chemicals and paints group, has already announced that it is selling its fluropolymers division to Asahi Glass.

The acrylics business is being sold for a consideration of $822 million to a British businessman, Jim Ratcliffe.
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AT&T selling ExciteAtHome?
New York: AT&T Corporation is rumoured to be in talks to sell its stake in ExciteAtHome Corporation to America Online. However, AT&T has denied the reports. Stock prices of ExciteAtHome went up by 13 per cent on the New York Stock Exchange on the basis of these reports.
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Grupo Mexico says offer to Asarco is final
New York: Grupo Mexico, Mexico's largest mining company, will not raise its bid for Asarco. Daniel Tellechea, director of finance for Grupo Mexico, said the company's $26 a share offer for Asarco is its final offer.

The company is planning to wean Asarco away from a friendly merger with Cyprus Amax, the US producer, and to beat off a hostile takeover offer from Phelps Dodge, the largest US copper group. Grupo Mexico has a 10 per cent holding in Asarco, so even if Phelps tops its bid, it will still stand to gain.
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Volvo to snap Mitsubishi link
Tokyo: Mitsubishi is reviewing its options in Europe after Volvo has rejected its offer to continue building cars together in the Netherlands. Volvo, which was purchased by Ford in April 1999, said it will not extend the contract given to the Japanese car maker to make cars on a shared platform after the agreement expires in 2004.

Mitsubishi and Volvo own equal shares in a joint venture factory, NedCar. The move is a blow to Mitsubishi, which has been struggling to restructure its operations amidst a downturn in Japanese car sales. The bulk of Mitsubishi's passenger cars sold in Europe are produced at NedCar.
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