Reliance to invest $5b in telecom
Mumbai—Reliance said that it would invest more than $5 billion during the next five years in setting up a domestic telecommunications network.
According to Dhirubhai Ambani group, chairman Reliance Industries, Reliance will be a leading player in the infocom landscape and the telecom venture would be carried out by group subsidiary Reliance Infocom in which parent company Reliance Industries has a 45 per cent stake.
He said, "The Indian infocom market presents a unique opportunity, with significant potential for sustained growth over the medium- to long-term."
Ambani said Reliance's telecom plans would cover all of India. The company aims to provide services in basic telephony, mobile telephony, national and international long-distance, data and value added services.
Back to News Review index page  

Reliance bags 18 LOIs for telephony
Mumbai-- Reliance has received letters of intent for providing basic telephony services in 18 out of 21 telecom circles in the country. This is apart from the Gujarat circle where Reliance is already offering services.
According to the company, it currently has 212,000 subscribers for its mobile phone network, which covers 106 cities and towns.
The group is laying 60,000 kilometres of optic fibre cables across the country as part of its telecom venture.

The Reliance Group has interests in textiles, petrochemicals, plastics, oil and gas, telecoms and power.
Back to News Review index page  

Bayer ABS MD found guilty of insider trading
Mumbai—Securities and Exchange Board of India is initiating tough action against Rakesh Agarwal former managing director of ABS Industries, (now Bayer ABS) charging him with insider trading.
This action is a result two years of investigations by Sebi against Agarwal.
Sebi says that the transactions violating insider-trading rules go back to August 1996 before Bayer Industries picked up a stake in ABS Industries.

Agarwal was a promoter of ABS Industries. In August 1996, the price of the company’s scrip started rising and went up to Rs 82 in October 1996 from Rs 48 earlier. There was a simultaneous rise in volumes of shares traded as well.
In October 1996, Bayer Industries was allotted about 55 lakh shares as preferential shares at Rs 70 per share. Later in the same month, Bayer followed this up with a public offer to pick up 20 per cent shares in ABS Industries at Rs 70 per share. The offer was later revised to Rs 80 per share.
Suspecting informed buying, Sebi launched an investigation into the price spurt. The regulator has said its investigations revealed that the major buying at the time was carried out by two brokers on behalf of a client, I P Kedia, the brother-in-law of Agarwal. He also offered a large number of shares in the open offer.
Agarwal, in his replies to the regulator, has denied all charges of insider trading by Sebi.
Back to News Review index page  

Fitch India to become wholly owned subsidiary of parent company
Mumbai—Fitch Ratings Inc, the world’s third largest rating agency with headquarters in both New York and London, is hiking it's 33 per cent stake in Fitch Ratings India, FRI, to 100 per cent by buying out the other shareholders including Nimesh Kampani, chairman of JM Morgan Stanley, Abhijit Sen of the Kolkata based Nicco Uco Alliance Credit, Nikhilesh C Roy, managing director of FRI and other non Fitch shareholders.

The Fitch global CEO Robin Monro Davies said that Fitch India would become a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Fitch Ratings Inc and the likelihood of the deal going through was very high.
It's learnt that given the profitability indicators of the closely held entity, the Indian shareholders backed by FRI chairman BR Sule were pushing for a price of Rs 400 per share, though market sources say, the final agreement has been arrived at a much reduced price.
FRI has quickly built up its market position based on its unique positioning, a result of a name licensing and technical alliance it has, with Fitch.
Back to News Review index page  

Nortel to lay off 10,000 personnel
New York—Nortel Networks is laying off 10,000 more personnel and eliminating its stock dividend as it expects a second-quarter loss of $19.2 billion.

Its shares tumbled 16 per cent in early trading.
The job cuts disclosed on Friday are expected to be completed by September and are in addition to 20,000 jobs already eliminated this year, mostly through layoffs.
The expected loss is as a result of both a deficit from operations and write-downs related to the diminished value of investment in the once high-flying technology businesses.
Back to News Review index page  

GE, Honeywell refuse to meet EU conditions for merger
Brussels—The General Electric and Honeywell International merger seemed to be in jeopardy on Friday as the companies refused a European Union offer to make more concessions to meet the antitrust concerns of the 15-nation bloc.
After EU Commission spokeswoman Amelia Torres said Friday both firms still had "limited opportunity to submit modified proposals," a GE spokesperson said the companies wouldn't make changes to the divestiture plan they had already submitted, which it says did not come close to meeting conditions set by the Commission, and that the negotiations were over.
After spending two days in Brussels trying to salvage the deal, GE chairman and chief executive Jack Welch said the companies could not agree to terms laid down by EU regulators.
Honeywell said it was now considering its future as a stand-alone entity.
The proposal submitted by GE and Honeywell to the European Commission included $2.2 billion in divestitures.
GE said regulators were demanding billions more in divestitures of virtually all of Honeywell's aviation electronics business and its production of generating systems that provide power to planes while they are on the ground.
Back to News Review index page  

BPL net drops 24 percent in fiscal 2001
Bangalore—Indian consumer electronics major BPL'S net profit dropped 24 per cent to Rs 81.2 crore in 2000-01, against Rs 107.1 crore in 1999-00. Turnover declined by over 15 per cent to Rs 1,804.2 crore from Rs 2,128.5 crore in the previous year.
The company has recommended a 25 per cent dividend. In the fourth quarter of 2000-01, BPL's net profit declined to Rs 19.5 crore from Rs 29.9 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year. The respective tally for sales was Rs 448.3 crore and Rs 502 crore.
Back to News Review index page  

Oracle slashes prices
California—Oracle has slashed prices of its database software, Thursday by nearly 50 per cent to offset recent price cuts by rivals IBM and Microsoft.
With the price cut Oracle’s main database product that cost $326,000 a month ago, would now be available for $160,000
In recent months, both IBM and Microsoft have been emphasizing the lower prices of their database products, and industry analysts said the message seemed to be resonating with increasingly budget-conscious corporate customers.
Back to News Review index page  

Tata Infotech steps up hiring drive
Mumbai—Tata Infotech may hire up to 300 employees more this fiscal, taking its employee strength to 4000.

The company has also started rolling out ATM machines and information kiosks as part of a strategy to expand the scope of its hardware business.
Nirmal Jain, Tata Infotech, managing director said the company expected to sell about 200-300 ATM machines this year to banks, both in the private and public sector.

The company is also collaborating with the Railways to set up information kiosks at select stations in Mumbai as part of its initiative to expand the hardware business.

The company expects a 15-20 per cent growth in topline growth, in the context of the ongoing US economic slowdown. About 70 per cent of the company's revenues last year came from the US, while the balance came from Europe and the Far East.
The revenue mix of the company has 55 per cent coming in from global software services, 30 per cent from systems integration in the domestic market, while the balance 15 per cent was divided between hardware and education.
Back to News Review index page  

Dell launches Dell International Services
Bangalore—Dell, the world's leading computer systems company has launched Dell International Services, a division of Dell Computer India.
The facility in Bangalore will handle both telephone and e-mail enquires on technical support for Dell's home and small business customers in the US.
Currently the facility has about 200 operational seats expected to grow to around 400 within next six months. Dell employs around 150 people in this service operation.
This customer support facility is a step towards Dell's effort in building a global service capability.
A company spokesman of Dell said that the emergence of private computer training institutes in India has helped the country in creating an impressive work force that Dell can train and develop while the English language skills of Indians is another key factor in the company choosing India as a destination to house the support centre, he added.
Back to News Review index page  

DTH hype may fizzle as top players lose interest
New Delhi—The direct to home, DTH, broadcasting seems to have fizzled out. Earlier players like Zee, Sun TV, VSNL and Star had showed keen interest in setting up their platforms.
There is a singular disenchantment over the lack of progress made by players who had evinced interest in this broadcasting technology.

The interested players say there is lack of flexibility for the broadcasters in the regulatory framework and the open-architecture set-top boxes.
Players say the costs involved in subsidising the set-top boxes for 3-4 million households are too high. The risks seem steep when one considers that the policy requires open-architecture set-top boxes and not encrypted types," a Zee source said.
Back to News Review index page  

VSNL to expand facilities, plans to set up international data centre
New Delhi—Videsh Sanchar Nigam said it is setting up an international data center, IDC, with state of the art facilities to expand its existing server co-location facilities.
Thus VSNL plans to expand its existing facilities at Vashi in New Mumbai, said S K Gupta, chairman and managing director of VSNL, at a function here.
VSNL has already started providing Internet services connectivity in the 'b' category cities and so far a total of 11 cities are under VSNL node from where dial up services have been made available, he said.
The setting up of IDC would witness good customer growth after its commissioning, Gupta said adding the centre has been scheduled to be commissioned on August 14 this year.
In Phase I, IDC Vashi is connected through 34 mbps bandwidth and this capacity will be enhanced as and when demand increases, he added.
Back to News Review index page  

Interactive website from DOD
New Delhi—The department of disinvestment has launched an interactive website 'divest.Nic.In' in order be able to spread information on disinvestment policies and procedures.
The department of disinvestment was constituted on December 10, 1999, to formulate systematic policies towards disinvestment and privatization.
Back to News Review index page  

Indian Oil net rises 11 percent
New Delhi—Indian Oil Corporation, IOC, has reported an 11.33 per cent increase in net profit at Rs 2720.33 crore in 2000-01 as compared to Rs 2443.40 crore in the previous year.
The company reported a turnover of Rs 1,13,479.84 crore in 2000-2001, up 20.38 per cent from the year 1999-2000, and net profits of Rs 2720.33 crore, up by 11.33 per cent. Earnings per share (EPS) rose to Rs 34.94 from Rs 31.38, and dividends are up at 95 per cent from 75 per cent last year.
The company registered a decrease in petro-product sales, down from 48.7 mt in 1999-2000 to 47.8 mt in 2000-2001, a fall of nearly 1.8 per cent.
Total crude processing in it’s seven refineries rose by slightly more than 2 per cent, from 32.4 mt in 1999-2000 to 33.22 mt in 2000-2001. IOC’s R&D centre developed 42 new products, and has filed 15 new patents in India and abroad.
Back to News Review index page  

BAT says it may not need NOC from ITC
Kolkata—Michael Scott-Heys, BAT director says, we are considering right now is whether we need to approach ITC at all for a no-objection certificate vis-a-vis the issue of our intending to raise stake in VST Industries.
John Band, who has been advising Bright Star on behalf of ASK Raymond. BAT, also says, "BAT may not need an NOC after all since the UK tobacco company is neither a promoter nor a joint venture partner and is only a large shareholder. Even ITC will vouch for that. So why should it need a NOC from ITC?"
Scott-Heys says that BAT will have to take the matter up with ITC.
Back to News Review index page