Cadbury may introduce its global brands in India
Mumbai-- Cadbury India is planning to launch some of its global sugar confectionery brands in India in order to increase sales.
Cadbury India, a subsidiary of Cadbury Schweppes, currently has chocolate brands such as Dairy Milk, Five Star, Perk, Milk Treat, Eclairs and Gollum in its local portfolio.
Its global collection includes confectionery products such as Flake, TimeOut, Wispa, Caramel, Fuse and Cherry Ripe.
In sugar confectionery, its brands are Bassett's, Maynards, Pascall and Trebor. The products range from wine gums, fruit pastilles and liquorice allsorts to sugar-free mints and bubble gum. Other confectionery brands include Maynard Wine Gums, Bassett's Liquorice Allsorts, Trebor Extra Strong Mints, Trebor Mighty Mints (sugar-free mints) and Trebor Softmints.
In Argentina, Cadbury’s brands include Beldent and Bazooka. It recently entered the Chinese gum market through the acquisition of Wuxi Leaf and Sportlife brands.
Cadbury India has a dominant 70 per cent market share of chocolates in India. Nestle, with about 20 per cent market share, has emerged as a strong competitor in recent times.
In a recent presentation to analysts, Cadbury India said that its strategy is to increase the share of chocolate purchases in the total impulse purchase category, which is currently at 6.1 per cent. To achieve this, it plans to drive volumes by focusing on areas such as impulse snacking, child connectivity, gifts and new channels.
Cadbury’s has a market share of 4 percent in the sugar confectionery market and is attracted by this segment particularly because it is growing at 15 per cent per annum. However the presence of the unorganised sector makes it a difficult market to crack for the company.
The domestic sugar confectionery market is five times bigger than the premium chocolates segment.
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Tata Tea to phase out 4 brands
Kolkata--Tata Tea is phasing out support for four brands--Brahmaputra, Lucky Cup, Leo and Chola - as part of its brand rationalisation.
P Siganporia, deputy-managing director, Tata Tea said these brands had shrunk in terms of potential for growth as well as profitability.
While Leo catered to the economy segment of Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, Brahmaputra, a strong 100 per cent Assam tea, was marketed in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, while Chola was sold in Tamil Nadu.
The company plans to focus fully on some existing brands, namely, Tata Tea, Kanan Devan and Agni. Kanan Devan also happened to be Tata Tea's first brand to be packed in polypacks, followed by Tata Tea Premium.

Tata Tea is also thinking of launching Tetley brands in India. Tata Tea already has a joint venture with Tetley, Tata Tetley, in south India, which is an export-oriented unit.
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Honda mulls setting up umbrella firm for Indian operations
New Delhi--Honda Motor Co Ltd of Japan is thinking of setting up an umbrella firm in India to manage investments in its four ventures in the country, managing director and deputy chief operating officer for regional operations (Asia and Oceania), Satoshi Toshida, said. He said though the plans were not concrete as yet but this a synergy could be about in its businesses in India adding that Indian operations were very important in Honda's global portfolio and were growing at a considerable rate.

Honda Motor has four joint ventures in the country -- a wholly-owned subsidiary Honda Scooters and Motorcycle India Ltd which manufactures scooters; Hero Honda, a motorcycle manufacturing JV with the Munjals; Honda Siel Cars India Ltd, an existing joint venture with Siddharth Shriram group for manufacturing cars; and Honda Power Equipment, another JV (Siddharth Shriram enjoys a representation on the board of directors) for manufacturing gensets and motors.
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ICICI out of Wipro's net ventures arm
Mumbai--ICICI has divested its 8 percent equity from Wipro Net, the Internet ventures arm of Wipro.
With this from June 1, 2001, Wipro's stock in Wipro Net has gone up to 100 per cent from the earlier 92 per cent.
ICICI had in 1999 purchased 1.79 million shares of Wipro Net at $11.85 per share in a Rs 99.42 crore deal. According to the option agreement signed, ICICI returns would be computed at 13.75 per cent, compounded quarterly, in case it exercised the put option. On the other hand, Wipro would have paid 14.25 per cent interest, compounded quarterly, if it had chosen to exercise the call option.
Wipro Net was originally formed as a 55:45 joint venture between Wipro and KPN Telecom. Subsequently, Wipro acquired the 45 per cent stake of KPN Telecom for Rs 108.8 crore to increase its stake to 92 per cent.
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Peerless, Iffco Tokio enter into co-branding alliance
Kolkata--Peerless General Finance and Investment Company Ltd (PGFICL) has signed a MoU with Iffco Tokio General Insurance Company Ltd (ITGIC) a joint venture between Indian Farmer Fertiliser Cooperative Ltd (Iffco) for jointly developing co-branded, innovative financial products.
While Peerless will provide the marketing network for ITGIC, the latter will provide the expertise in developing general saving product with in-built insurance benefits.
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Cairn Energy to explore oil and gas in Krishna-Godavari basin
New Delhi—UK company, Cairn Energy will invest $300-400 million in deep sea oil and gas exploration in the Krishna-Godavari basin on the east coast during the next four years.
Cairn Energy India, executive director Rich Paces said the investment will be made in the KG-DWN-98/2 block in the basin where the company has made a major gas discovery within one year of starting exploration.

Paces said the initial reserve estimates were in the range of 0.75 to one trillion cubic feet (21-28 billion cubic metre) of dry gas. The "R" discovery will be appraised by a second well to be drilled later this year. Making a presentation on the discovery, Paces said, "We have made oil and gas discoveries in six of the eight exploratory wells drilled during the past 13 months. Cairn Energy is at present developing five blocks in the country."
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Adhikari Bros bag get two prime time DD-Metro slots
Mumbai—Sri Adhikari Brothers has emerged the highest bidder for the two primetime 8 to 10 pm slots on Doordarshan’s Metro channel. The Adhikari bid carried an offer of Rs 9 crore for each of the two one-hour slots.
Prachar Communications, on the other hand was the sole bidder for for the 7-8 pm and 10-11 pm slots with offers of Rs one crore and Rs five crore, respectively, for the two time slots.
Hence the maximum annual revenue DD can now expect to harvest from the four-hour time band is Rs 24 crore.
This is just over 20 per cent of the original floor price of Rs 115 crore fixed by Prasar Bharti for the four-hour time band. The contract with the highest bidder will be for three years, with a 10 per cent appreciation of the bid amount for each subsequent year.
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Modis fight over suspension of CS
New Delhi—The tussle for hiking a stake in MRL between the brothers VK and BK Modi gets murkier by the day. Now V K faction says B K Modi had no right to suspend the company secretary SN Ghosh when B K himself has been stripped of his powers on the MRL board.
Meanwhile, B K Modi said from Mumbai his company was preparing a legal document to explain its stand on the issue adding that Ghosh has been suspended and declined to give further comments.
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Saregama opens first digitalised retail kiosk
New Delhi-- Saregama India today launched India’s first digitalised retail kiosk for music buffs.
Saregama has forayed into e-commerce by launching the concept of ordering customised CD through the Internet on a specially created site, hamaracd.com, company vice-chairman Sanjiv Goenka said.
The newly inaugurated kiosk here offers music buffs instant access to the Indian music catalogue of HMV from which a selection can be made to create a 60-minute CD of one's own choice.
After selection on a computer the customer can simply click, 'buy' and get an order confirmation for Rs 375 per CD and deposit the money at the store. The CD would be given doorstep delivery in five days, a company official said. The service is currently available in India only.
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Honda launches Accord
New Delhi--Honda Siel Cars India Ltd has launched its second offering --Accord, a three-box luxury sedan -- for the Indian market, marking its entry into the D-segment of the market.
Honda hopes to sell 2,500 Accords during the current financial year and together with the City, expects to sell over 11,000 cars during the year.
The price tag, ex-showroom Delhi: Rs 14.95 lakh for the MT version and Rs 15.75 lakh for the automatic variant.
The car, however, bears a striking resemblance to the other offering in the Indian market, Honda City.
Honda Siel is planning to ramp up its distribution network from the current 26 to 30 outlets for the 2.3 litre car and is targeting sales of 2,500 units for this fiscal. The local content in the car, to begin with, will be 30 per cent and the Accord will debut with a one-year warranty.
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IBM India announces range of PCs
New Delhi-- IBM India has launched a range of PCs -- Netvista I – that are manufactured in India for the consumer PC market.
Said Abraham Thomas managing director, IBM India, "The Netvista I range has been designed to make computing easier for Indian consumers."
Priced at over Rs 36,000, the range contains five models each targeted at the small office home office and home segment.
While two models would sport AMD Duron and Intel III processors, other models would include IBM Netvista A60I and IBM Netvista X40I.
The model with Pentium III processor would come with two speeds -- PIII 866 MHz and PIII 1,000 MHz.
"The features for Netvista I range varies from fully integrated multimedia PCs with CD-ROM, speakers, and fax models for internet modem to enable internet access," he said.
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Kopran may tie-up with Ranbaxy, Morepen
New Delhi-- The Somanys-promoted Kopran Pharmaceuticals is reportedly scouting for a strategic partner and is learnt to be in talks with some MNCs and domestic companies including Pharmacia & Upjohn, Ranbaxy and Morepen.
According to sources, Kopran, part of the Rs 950-crore Parijat group, has mandated Rabo India Finance to look for a partner and finalise the deal.
Alternatively, Kopran is said to be looking at divesting some of its brands for mobilising resources for funding the clinical trials of its new chemical entity in the anti-infective segment, sources said.
Kopran’s brands include Aten, a leading player in the domestic cardiovascular segment.
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