Satyam Info plans equity issue
Mumbai: Internet services company Satyam Infoway, is planning a four million equity share issue to fund its acquisition and alliances plans, for which it is seeking shareholder approval.

"The company plans to expand its operations by making further investments in its various businesses, through expansion programs and strategic mergers and acquisitions in India and abroad," Satyam Infoway said in a filing with the Securities Exchange Commission of the United States.
It also plans to raise its authorised share capital to Rs 35 crore from Rs 25 crore.
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Kouni to acquire Eco Adventure Tours
New Delhi: The latest in the string of acquisitions planned by Switzerland based Kuoni group is adventure tourism company, Eco Tours Adventure Tours. The company specialises in arranging activities like mountaineering, river rafting and camping.
Kuoni has been actively buying out companies such as SOTC, Sita Travels and Mumbai based Tours Club (the last of which specialises in arranging in-bound tourism in India for people in the Gulf), and plans to acquire about six more companies in the incentive travel, adventure travel and tourism businesses.

It has already spent Rs 200 crores in acquiring SOTC and Sita Travels, and another Rs 18 to 20 crores for Tour Club. It is carrying out the acquisitions through Kuoni India, a 100 per cent subsidiary of Kuoni Holdings.

Kuoni is also said to be strengthening its conference services division, while it has shelved plans for a listing on the Indian bourses. Other plans include buying out a finance company to provide credit to its customers.
The company has been credited with introducing the concept of `Happy Holidays’ for middle-class families for trips to Europe or cruises, using its credit facilities.
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Bajoria flouted takeover code, says CLB
Mumbai :The Company Law Board (CLB) has upheld Bombay Dyeing’s contention that jute baron Arun Bajoria and his associates contravened the provisions of the Takeover Code in not disclosing their acquisitions when it crossed critical threshold limits.

The CLB has also ruled that Bajoria and associates will have to reduce their holding to below the specified trigger point of 5 per cent. But since Bajoria has already diluted his stake in Bombay Dyeing to below 5 per cent, the CLB noted that it was not taking any action.

Bajoria had pleaded before the CLB that his acquisition was of a creeping nature and it may have exceeded five per cent without the company being informed.

In any case, the situation was corrected later and as the holding was below five per cent at present, there was no cause for action at this stage.
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Chandra sells 50 lakh ZTL shares
Mumbai: Subhash Chandra is said to have sold 50 lakh shares in Zee Telefilms (ZTL) to a US-based institutional investor, to pay back the Essel group's outstanding liabilities with the group flagship which stand at around Rs 160 crore.

The shares represent 1.3 per cent of ZTL’s paid-up capital and lowers the promoters’ group stake to around 59 per cent.

The Essel group promoters had earlier raised around Rs 220 crore from ZTL and had announced that the entire amount would be returned by June 30. However, they could only pay back Rs 60 crore, the group has said.

The sale was reported to have been struck through a block deal at Rs 99.80 a share, and is expected to have brought the promoters around Rs 50 crores.
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Shanta to set up new biotech unit
Hyderabad : Shanta Biotechnics Private Ltd, a market leader in the Hepatitis-B vaccine segment, is setting up a Rs 60 crore multi-product biotech production facility.

The facility, which includes a production unit for Hepatitis-B vaccine and a research and development laboratory, will come up at Medchal locality in the outskirts of Hyderabad, which is a Genome Valley area identified by the Andhra Pradesh government to promote biotech. The company plans to roll out half a dozen products in a year and a half.

Additionally, the company is also negotiating with a Chinese company for technology to manufacture typhoid vaccine.
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Boots brands launch planned
Mumbai: Boots Piramal Healthcare, a joint venture between Boots Healthcare International and the Piramal group, will launch two new products from the Boots' international stable. These would be in the dermatology segment, and include Aknemycin+ and Akneroxid, which are prescription products for skin problems like acne. The plan is to manufacture them locally.

The company has two arms, one of which operates in the prescription market selling products like Lobate and Melalite, and the other in the OTC segment which markets brands such as Strepsil, Sweetex Ice candy and Clearasil.
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SKF Bearings plans rights issue
Mumbai : SKF Bearings India plans to float a rights issue to raise Rs 88 crore to fund its expansion and retire high-cost loans. Of this, Rs 50 crore will come from an equity issue, while the balance will come through non-convertible debentures with detachable warrants, convertible into one equity share each.

The existing equity shares with a face value of Rs 100 each will also be sub-divided into 10 shares of Rs 10 each, according to a company release.

As part of ongoing revamp, the company has already taken initiatives such as the Pune 2000 programme (for upgrading its plant at Pune), introduction of new, higher value-added products, services and production channels, implementation of advanced IT systems and supply chain solutions for improving its customer service.

The company has also reduced its workforce by 30 per cent thus far through voluntary retirement schemes.
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Alcatel to cut 2,500 US jobs
Paris: Alcatel plans to shed 2,500 of its employees in the US. This is in addition to the 2,200 positions the French telecom-equipment-maker has already shed in the US this year. After the cuts, 12,500 of its roughly 110,000 employees worldwide will be in the US.
The company also plans to close down its facility in Raleigh, North Carolina, and consolidate those activities into existing plants in Texas and Mexico. The move will affect about 700 of its 1,400 employees in Raleigh.
Following the breakdown of its merger talks with Lucent Technologies in May, Alcatel said it planned to sell assets in an attempt to better focus the business and predicted a 3-billion-euro net loss for the company’s second quarter.
The company’s chief executive said last month he hoped to sell roughly half of Alcatel’s 100 factories worldwide and outsource production to buffer the company from future market swings.
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J&J to launch global brands
Mumbai : Johnson & Johnson (J&J), the Indian subsidiary of the US multinational, is planning to launch a range of international skin care brands in the country.

These could include brands like RoC, Neutrogena, PH 5.5 and Johnson Pure Essential.

In India, its flagship skin care brand is Clean n Clear, targeted at teenagers, but is losing market share to Hindustan Lever's (HLL) Pond's and Lakme.
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Cipla cuts AIDS therapy prices
Mumbai: Cipla, India’s third largest drugmaker, has slashed the prices of its anti-AIDS drugs in the country for the fourth time in the past nine months. This time round, the company has cut prices of its triple-drug regimen by as much as 39 per cent. The three-drug combination of lamivudine, stavudine and nevirapine which has the potential to reduce the HIV virus in the body to very low levels, will now cost the patient Rs 2,130 per month down from Rs 3,495 per month. Cipla has also cut prices of other anti-AIDS drugs zidovudine, indinavir, and didanosine, which it sells in India, where the price reduction is between 14 per cent to 54 per cent, across the board.
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Six new vehicles from Telco
New Delhi: Auto major Telco is expected to roll out six new commercial vehicles in the third quarter of this fiscal. These would be specialised and focussed products to address the fragmented market , from two tonners to the 40 tonne segment and include tractor trailers, tippers, dumpers and multiaxles.

The company is also planning at improving some of its existing products particularly in the light and medium range.
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