3 BK Modi officials suspended
New Delhi--The board of directors of Modi Rubber Ltd (MRL) has suspended three top MRL officials of the BK Modi camp, including chief executive officer (tyre business) BK Gupta, for failure to follow the instructions of the board.
T Panduranga Rao, MRL chairman and a UTI nominee said, "no employee can challenge the board’s authority. In case anyone does that, the board will not be a mute spectator". The reason for the suspension is the fact the officials were asked to appear before the board on Thursday by the board of directors but they failed to do so. MRL sources said the board, which transferred all powers of managing director BK Modi to his brother and vice-chairman and managing director VK Modi at a special board meeting on Thursday, had also suspended RL Ahuja and Atul Prakash. Mr Ahuja was heading the finance department till recently and was succeeded by Mr Prakash.
Says Mr Rao, "The only interest of the board meeting was to get details and clarifications of income and expenditure for the period in which MRL suffered losses," said Mr Rao. MRL suffered Rs 38.09-crore loss during the year ended September, 2000.
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IDBI can take over DPC if Enron pulls out
Mumbai—The chairman of the Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI), SKChakraborti says lenders to the 2,144 MW Dhabol Power Company can run the project if Enron pulls out.
Earlier, he had indicated that some US power producing majors have shown interest in stepping into Enron’s shoes in the 2,144 MW power project in case the main promoter decides to get out of it.
Enron spokesperson refused to comment on the issue. Chakaraborti said the lenders would not allow the project to fail as balance sheets of IDBI, ICICI and State Bank of India will be severely affected in case the project fails.
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ICI India acquires majority stake in Quest Intl India for Rs 152 crore
New Delhi--ICI India has acquired a majority stake in Quest International India Ltd for Rs 152 crore.
Quest International India is a joint venture between ICI India, Quest International BV and Hindustan Lever Ltd.
While ICI India will hold 50 per cent stake in the joint venture, Quest International will hold 1 per cent stake and Hindustan Lever the remaining 49 per cent equity.
This acquisition follows the worldwide acquisition of Quest International by the ICI Group.
Quest International is wholly owned subsidiary of the ICI group and has an annual turnover of about $1 billion. It is a leading fragrance, flavours and food ingredients company with particular strengths in flavour and fragrance creation. Quest's fragrance division creates and manufactures fragrance compounds and materials, cosmetic ingredients and dental flavours for use in a wide range of customer products, in end uses which include snacks, sauces, soups, meat products, bakery products, dairy, ice creams, confectionery, soft drinks and alcoholic beverages.
While further strengthening Quest's global position in the food and fragrances industry, this JV is a strategic milestone in the portfolio reshaping exercise of ICI India. The company has made this investment through deployment of surplus cash generated from disposals of its surplus properties and non-core businesses.Quest International India declared revenue of Rs 90 crore last year.
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Star lines up new programs for weekend viewers
Mumbai—Star TV has a number of programs lined up for its weekend schedule seeking to build on its hugely successful weekday lineup of soaps and gameshows.
Six new shows are to be launched from July 8 featuring a mix of dance, horror, travel, music, games and mythology. Star’s shows aired from Monday to Thursday rate among the top three of the 10 in the weekly television-rating chart.
Said Sameer Nair, head of programming Star TV, "We want to turn Friday into an entertaining night" with the three new one-hour shows.
The channel's prime-time slot on Friday at 8 pm will feature Bollywood STAR Sonali Bendre anchoring a one-hour fun-and-dance talent show Kya Masti Kya Dhoom.
A new gameshow "Khulja Sim Sim" is aimed matching the success of its "Kaun Banega Crorepati" hosted by Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan.
"Kulja Sim Sim", a big budget show based on the popular U.S. game show "Let's Make a Deal", will be hosted by TV actor Aman Verma. The show's key attraction is that every participant will win a prize that could even be a new car.
The horror show "Ssshhhh...Koi hai..." will feature eerie stories about ghosts and monsters meant to keep children and teenagers on the edge of their seats.
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Tata Power to lay optic fibre network on 12,00 cr investment
New Delhi—Tata Power has decided to invest up to Rs 1,200 crore in laying a fibre optic cable network by 2004-05 and plans to start making profits from selling bandwidth to telephone and internet companies in four years' time.
Tata Power plans to link 50 Indian cities with a fiber optic network. It already has a 250-mile network in Mumbai, scheduled to come into service in August for which it has signed up Bharti Telecom, a mobile and fixed-line telephone service operator, as a lease customer, officials said.
It plans to extend the service to southern cities, including Pune, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai.

Tata Power needs to diversify because its main business supplying power to railways, ports and offices in Mumbai, has slowed. Its fourth quarter sales fell 23 per cent as some of its big customers bought less power.
Tata Power had begun selling power outside Mumbai to affiliate Tata Steel, India's biggest private steelmaker, and to Associated Cement Cos, a cement maker, officials said, adding Mumbai's stagnant demand has forced it to look for new customers.
The company's 240 mw power plant for Tata Steel in Jharkhand would reach capacity in December, they added.
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Dunlop petitions AIFR against BIFR order
Kolkata--Dunlop India Ltd has appealed before the Appellate Authority for Industrial & Financial Reconstruction (AIFR) to stay the March 28 order passed by the Board for Industrial & Financial Reconstruction.
A Dunlop spokesperson said the appeal had been made for expediting the draft rehabilitation scheme. The hearing is scheduled for the first week of July.
In the March 28 order, the BIFR had directed Dunlop to submit a draft rehabilitation scheme (DRS) to the operating agency Industrial Development Bank of India Ltd.
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DRL gets cautious nod from US FDA
Hyderabad—The United States Food and Drugs Administration gave a tentative approval to Dr Reddy's Laboratories (DRL) Omeprazole 40 mg capsules and Fluoxetine 40 mg capsules on June 27. Dr Reddy's says it is probably is the first company to file status on both the capsules and will receive 180-day marketing exclusivity on successful outcome of the patent litigation.
The company is fighting patent litigations with the inventors of both the products, namely Eli Lilly and Astra Zeneca, respectively. The Fluoxetine capsules will be marketed through Pharmaceutical Resources Inc, while DRL will market Omeprazole capsules itself.
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HDFC Bank to file ADR in July
Mumbai--HDFC Bank thinking of a public filing of its offer document for its maiden ADR issue with the US Securities and Exchange Commission in and around second week of July. Soon after the filing the company will hold road shows for the $150-mn issue, while the listing is scheduled for the second fortnight of July.
The bank wants an early listing against a possible dip in the domestic bourses once the rolling settlement system is in place from July 2.
The share price of the bank is down to Rs 211 from the recent levels of over Rs 230. It had slipped close to its 52-week low of Rs 206 following profit booking by some investors.
The HDFC Bank scrip has appreciated at a compounded annual growth rate of 47 per cent in the last five years. After touching a high of Rs 287 in July ‘00, the stock has come down 28 per cent to Rs 206 currently.
The total foreign holding in the bank stands at 33.53 per cent. It has been permitted by the cabinet committee to increase foreign holding up to 49 per cent.
However, even at the lowest price a $175mn ADR would keep the bank well within the 49 per cent cap on foreign investment. The $150mn ADR issue has a greenshoe option, which allows the bank to retain an additional $25mn.
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Thermax posts Rs 13 cr loss in 2000-01
Pune--Thermax has declared a net loss of Rs 13 crore in 2000-01, as against a net profit of Rs 32.3 posted in the previous year and the board has decided to slash the dividend to 10 per cent against the 35 per cent declared last year. The company made an operating profit of Rs 8 crore, as against an operating loss of Rs 21 crore registered in the previous year.
Sales increased from Rs 406 crore in the previous year to Rs 473 crore this fiscal, a growth of 16 per cent. Export income increased by 32 per cent to Rs 101 crore.
For the past year, Thermax has been in a turnaround mode. While business portfolios have been streamlined the group has exited non-core businesses; like transmitters, fans, lease financing, software and electronics and is now fully focused on its businesses in energy and environment.
As part of a turnaround strategy, Thermax has directed its business divisions and subsidiaries to cut their operational cost by 20 per cent. It has also told them to improve topline growth by 10 per cent in fiscal 2001-2002.
The cost-cutting measures and realignment of businesses are expected to enable the company to post operational profits. The company has also decided to realign its businesses into five groups called special business units (SBU) which are
boilers and heaters (formed with the merger of process heat, energy systems and co-generation units); absorption cooling; water and waste solutions (consisting of solid waste and waste water treatment); chemicals (ion exchange resins, oil field chemicals, fuel additives and speciality chemicals), and air pollution control (supply of equipment for air polluting industries).
The merger of Thermax's business units into five SBUs is expected to bring in substantial savings for the company as they will reduce overhead costs and enable them to bid for projects in a co-ordinated manner.
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