Godrej group sells stake in Godrej Pacific
Mumbai: Godrej & Boyce Mfg Co says it is selling its 50 per cent stake in joint venture Godrej Pacific Technology to Tech Pacific for over Rs 100 crore. With this, Godrej Pacific will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tech Pacific. Godrej Pacific is a Rs 728-crore firm engaged in the import of computer hardware and software products from leading international companies for sale in the Indian market.

The move is in line with the Godrej group's recent announcements of intentions to focus on core activities, mainly on its own branded products. However, the divestment does not signify the Godrej group's total exit from the infotech sector. The group has two subsidiaries, Godrej Infotech and Geometric Software, in this business.

The Godrej group's nominees on the board of Godrej Pacific have stepped down. The company has named Shailendra Gupta as managing director in place of Manu Parpia.
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Infosys' profit goes up by 131% in Q2
Bangalore: Infosys Technologies has posted a 131 per cent increase in profit after tax in the second quarter of the financial year 1999-2000 compared to the corresponding period in 1998-99. The company's income too showed an 81 per cent increase in the period and it has pleased the shareholders by announcing an interim dividend of 30 per cent.

In tune with its excellent showing, the Infosys scrip went past the Rs 8,000-mark on Indian bourses, while on the Nasdaq, its ADR closed at $157, after touching a high of $163.

The company announced a total income of Rs 217.88 crore in the second quarter (against Rs 120.44 crore in Q2 of 1998-99), while profit after tax from ordinary activities soared to Rs 65.71 crore (against Rs 28.40 earlier).

The company announced that it is setting up its software development centre in Canada.
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Shaw Wallace plans ad campaign
Calcutta: Shaw Wallace and Company is countering Vijay Mallya's hostile acquisition bids on three of its liquor brands through a subtle marketing blitz. The effort will initially cover the Director's Special and Royal Challenge brands.

Company officials said the campaign will have punchlines like "India's Most Wanted" (even -- would love to own them) and "Competitors' Envy, Owners Pride (those who cannot create success want to steal it)".
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G.P. Goenka group sets up supervisory board
Calcutta: The G. P. Goenka group is constituting a supervisory board for all its group companies with management guru Sumantra Ghosal as chairman.

This is described as the first step by the family-owned group to bring in professional management and corporate governance into group companies. The supervisory board will be responsible for all strategic issues relating to the group, G.P. Goenka, chairman of the group, was quoted as saying by The Economic Times.

Besides Mr Ghosal and Mr Goenka, the board will have P.K. Kaul, former cabinet secretary, Srivardhan Goenka, son of Mr G.P. Goenka, Bhaskar Banerjee, senior managing director of Duncans Industries, R. M. Pandya, managing director of Herdillia Chemicals, and V.P. Kaushik, managing director, Duncans Industries, as members. The board may co-opt other members from time to time.
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GKW asked to open Bhandup unit
Mumbai: The Bombay High Court has directed Guest Keen Williams to lift the lockout at its Bhandup plant in Mumbai effective from 18 January 1998. The court has given the company four weeks to restart its operations. It has also ordered the company to pay its workers for the locked-out period from 18 March 1998 in two equal instalments.

The court allowed two petitions, one by the recognised union of the company, and another by a group of clerical staff, and set aside an order of the industrial court holding that the lockout was legal.

The company had declared the lockout on the contention that the workers had continuously obstructed the removal of material and machinery from the factory, which was integral to its business activity. The workers' union had contended that the lockout was an attempt to close down the unit since material was continuously being evacuated to its Bangalore and Pune works.
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Asta Medica hikes stake in German Remedies
Mumbai: Frankfurt-based Asta Medica, one of the six collaborators of German Remedies, is increasing its stake in the company from 6.92 per cent to 11.5 per cent by picking up equity from another collaborator, Chemiewerk Homburg.

It is not clear whether Asta has bought the entire stake of Chemiewerk in German Remedies. Other collaborators in the company are Beecham Wulfing, Boehringer Ingelheim International, Heller Vermogensverwaltungs and Schering. Together the foreign collaborators own 40 per cent of the company's equity.
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Microsoft India plans Windows course
Bangalore: Microsoft India is offering a course in Windows Distributed Internet Applications architecture through its certified technology education centres. The company is in the process of shortlisting certified technology education partners and equipping them with various components of the course.

Windows DNA is an application development model for the Windows platform.
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Bose headsets for American Airlines
Mumbai: Bose Corporation, maker of high quality audio systems, is aligning with American Airlines to provide headsets for the passengers. The company's acoustic noise-cancelling headsets will be available to first class and business class passengers on selected American Airlines flights. Bose has also created special in-flight audio programming for the airline.
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Jet introduces one-time check-in
Mumbai: Jet Airways has introduced a one-time check-in facility for same-day return passengers. The scheme aims to cut down waiting time for business travellers. A passenger can check in for the return flight at the time of checking in for the first flight. Such passengers can reach the airport just 10 minutes before the return flight takes off, and will have to only go through the security.
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Air-India has profit
Mumbai: Air-India has reported a net profit of Rs 53 lakh for the five months ended August 1999 compared to a loss of Rs 107.4 crore in the corresponding period in 1998.

This is for the first time that the national carrier has reported a profit since 1994-95. During the five-month period, the company  covered its pervious year's losses of Rs 107.4 crore. The profit has been on account of re-deployment of aircraft from loss-making routes in the US and European countries to the Gulf countries and an effective cost-reduction drive.
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Another Melissa on the prowl
Mumbai: MicroWorld has warned that a new Melissa-like worm has been detected and is spreading by an e-mail file, called LINKS.VBS. The worm, VBS/Freelink, written in VBScript, had originated in Europe in July 1999.

The company has warned that the worm will disrupt e-mail communications. When LINKS.VBS files are executed,  a message box with the text "This will add a shortcut to free XXX links on your desktop. Do you want to continue?" is shown. Later it will create a shortcut point to a pornographic website. After this, the worm searches for other machines on the network and copies itself to them. It also checks the address book and mass-mails itself to everyone in the address book.
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Oracle browser for mobile e-shopping
London: Oracle Corporation is launching a product to enable consumers to shop from mobile phones. The company said its 'Portal-to-Go' browser will allow users to buy online in just a few keypad clicks. The product will be on display at the telecom conference in Geneva next week and is due for commercial production from November.

It is estimated that of the 300 million mobile phone users worldwide only 120 million are able to access the net through personal computers. The number of mobile phone users is projected to grow to over 1 billion in the next few years.

The Oracle browser is not tied to a single format standard. It is an "open solution that can be used with all standards", the company said. It can also work on analog and digital phones.
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New net music player from Creative Tech
Los Angeles: Creative Technology has unveiled a new version of its portable digital music player that can be used for net music. The Singapore-based company says its new device, Nomad II, will be in competition with devices that are produced for downloading music from the internet.. At present, chipmaker S3 Corporation and France's Thomson Multimedia RCA unit are leaders in this segment.

The device will play music encoded in the MP3 format as well as in Microsoft's Windows Media Audio. The Nomad II can be programmed to play other audio formats, and will support technologies to prevent unauthorised copying or playback of songs.
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Volvo, Mitsubishi in JV deal
Tokyo: Mitsubishi Motors and AB Volvo are teaming up to form the world's biggest truck and bus group. The deal will expand Volvo's reach in Asia and offer some relief for the debt-burdened Mitsubishi.

Mitsubishi Motors will spin off its truck and bus operations into a separate unit in which Volvo will take a 19.9 per cent stake. Volvo will also take a five per cent stake in the parent company Mitsubishi. Mitsubishi, in turn, will buy one per cent in Volvo.

Volvo is in the process of taking over Swedish rival Scania, and the combination of Volvo, Scania and Mitsubishi will be the world's biggest truck and bus group, with a combined sales of about 253,000 vehicles in 1998.
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Nestle selling frozen food business
Zurich: Nestle is selling part of its European frozen food business and nearly all its Findus brands to US-Swedish investment group EQT Scandinavia BV. This forms part of its plan to exit low-margin businesses.

The deal includes all of Nestle's frozen food activities in Britain and Scandinavia as well as parts of the business, mainly vegetables and fish, in five European countries.

Nestle said 14 factories in seven European countries will change hands, and about 3,500 employees will get a new employer.
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AHP agrees to pay $4.8 billion in damages
Philadelphia: American Home Products Corporation agreed to pay $4.83 billion to people who took its once popular but potentially harmful diet drug 'fen-phen'. The agreement will cover medical procedures ranging from simple medical tests to heart and lung transplants, depending on the severity of the health problems linked to the weight loss treatment.

Fen-phen, the nickname for a drug combination that included American Home Products' Pondimin and Redux, has been cited as a cause of heart valve damage in some of the 6 million Americans who had received the treatment before it was removed from the market in 1997. The company faces as many as 6,500 law suits.
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