Modis to induct foreign partner, sell stake
New Delhi--The Modi brothers, after their successful open offer, which mopped up the targeted 35 per cent shares in Modi Rubber Ltd, are now planning to induct a foreign partner into their tyre business.

As the largest shareholders, the Modis, now plan to hive off the tyre business of Modi Rubber into a fully-owned subsidiary of the company and offer a controlling stake to an overseas tyre major. The controlling stake is expected to fetch Modi Rubber at least $20 million.

The Modis are rumoured to be in talks with other global tyre majors apart from Continental AG of Germany with which the Modis have a technical collaboration.

A lot hinges on the Modi Rubber board meeting scheduled for July 28 when certain crucial decisions are expected to be taken. On the cards is a restructuring of the company’s board of directors in light of the change in the shareholding.

At the moment, apart from the Modi brothers and the Continental nominee, the board has four nominees of the financial institutions. Chairman T Panduranga Rao is a nominee of the Unit Trust of India.
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Bharti-Singtel exits VSNL race
New Delhi—The Bharti-Singtel consortium is opting out of the race for picking up the government’s stake in VSNL.
With the Birla group already out, there are four bidders left for the 25 per cent stake in the overseas monopoly telecom carrier.

A statement from the company said that the decision was taken in the wake of the emerging prospect of winning six-to-seven mobile licences as a fourth cellular operator. The company would pursue the international voice telecommunications business when it is opened up to private sector participation next year.
Bharti is emerging as a major force in telecom, and would rather concentrate on building simultaneous networks in a short period of time and consolidate its position in the newly acquired Kolkata circle from Spice Cell.
The company is also in the process of building a nation-wide long distance network and has commenced its activities in four circles to provide basic services.
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Videocon withdraws from race for Indian Airlines
New Delhi—The Videocon group has pulled out its bid for Indian Airlines.
A few weeks ago the government disqualified the Hindujas and the Videocon group on the Bofors issue and manipulating stock prices on the stock markets respectively.

However, while the Hindujas announced their intention of contesting the government decision Videocon has decided to pull out.
A letter to this effect has been sent to the secretary department of disinvestment, Mr Pradeep Baijal by the Videocon group today along with a copy to the disinvestment minister, Arun Shourie.
Videocon has, however, not pulled out its bid for the long distance carrier VSNL.

The Videocon group had late last year surprised everyone by making a bid for the company even as another probable bidder ITC was kept out.
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McDowell cancels whisky brands' buyout plan
Bangalore—UB group company, McDowell and Co has cancelled plans to acquire two whisky brands and launch a new brand in its largest selling segment and price its brand in the super-premium category.

McDowell was planning to buy these brands to beef up its super premium and premium categories.

Industry sources said, McDowell had two options: an outright purchase or a long-term lease and a subsequent buy-out. Differences however, cropped up over the valuation of the brands.

The spirits division is also understood to be in talks with a distillery in Andhra Pradesh. At present, McDowell has 12 distilleries in its fold, up from 9 last year.
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Bharti Telenet to invest Rs 1000 crore in first phase
Bangalore--Bharti Telenet, the basic services subsidiary of the Bharti group, plans to invest around Rs 1,000 crore in the initial phase for setting up basic telephony services in New Delhi, Karnataka, Haryana and Tamil Nadu.

A top Bharti Telenet official said in Karnataka alone, over Rs 750 crore will be invested in over three phases. He said Bharti will offer value-added services and provide a bouquet of services which includes, voice, data, Internet and broadband services to our customers.

He said network of backbone infrastructure is being put in place for customers to have last mile access. Bharti plans to lay around 35,000 km of optical fibre cables by March 2003.

Already, 10,000 km of cables has already been laid.

In Karnataka, Bharti has tied up with a consortium which is laying optical fibre cable network in Bangalore. Apart from the work carried out by the consortium, Bharti itself will lay around 1,000 km of cables in Bangalore.

He said that in certain areas in Bangalore, BPL as a consortium member, will partner Bharti for laying optical fibre cables on a cost-sharing basis.

Bharti plans to offer between 64 kbps to 2 mbps bandwidth for customers.

In Bangalore itself, around Rs 200 crore will be invested in the first phase. Services like call hunting number through which the mobile, office and home numbers will be dialled to trace the called party, voice mail services through which customer can access the mail from any part of the country, unique phone number etc will be made available. In Bangalore, the basic services are expected to be unveiled by November.
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RIL achieves Golden Super Star Trading House status
Ahmedabad--Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) has been given the ‘Golden Super Star Trading House’ status by the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) in recognition of its achievements in exports.

RIL is the first manufacturer-exporter to be given this status. The company has shown consistent growth in exports over the past several years. In 2000-01, it registered total exports of Rs 5,237 crore — a growth of over 100 per cent as compared with Rs 1,811 crore for 1999-2000. Its own manufactured exports were Rs 2,960 crore and Rs 1,478 crore for 2000-01 and 1999-2000, respectively.

RIL’s exports comprise polyester (polyester staple fibre, polyester texturised yarn, partially-oriented yarn, polyester chips), polyester intermediates (purified terephthalic acid, di ethylene glycol, mono ethylene glycol, tri ethylene glycol) polymers (polypropylene, polypropylene value-added products, polyethylene), chemicals (linear alkyl benzene), cracker products (tertiary amyl methylene ether, benzene) and fabrics.

RIL currently exports to 75 countries across the world - North America (USA and Canada), Western Europe (UK, France, Germany, Italy, etc), Middle East (UAE, Oman, Iran, Qatar, etc), South America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, etc), Africa (South Africa, Morocco, Uganda, etc), Asia (Hong Kong, Singapore, China, Sri Lanka, etc) and the Far East.

For the year ended March 2001, total exports from RIL and RPL crossed Rs 9,370 crore, making Reliance Group the largest exporter from India.
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Zydus lines up 13 brands for launch in Southeast Asia
Mumbai—The Ahmedabad-based Zydus Cadila Healthcare has identified thirteen brands for its foray into the Southeast Asian market and has already chalked out expansion plans in Japan, Philippines, Latin America and Nigeria.

Senior Zydus Cadila officials said the drugs included anti-infectives, anti-retrovirals and cardiovascular and pain management brands.

Meanwhile, Zydus Cadila Healthcare posted a net profit of Rs 19.18 crore for the quarter-ended June 30, 2001 compared with Rs 14.33 crore in the corresponding period last fiscal.

Total income increased to Rs 144.18 crore in the quarter-ended June 30, 2001 from Rs 133.31 crore.
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New 10-year wage accord signed by SAIL and Tata Steel
Kolkata--The National Joint Committee for the steel industry (NJCS) today signed an agreement for a revision of the wage structure of the Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) and Tata Steel.
The seventh agreement concluded by the NJCS, the revised wage structure under the present agreement would be applicable for 10 years from January 1, 1997. However, steel-workers will receive actual monetary benefits from January 1, 2001.

The agreement, signed by representatives of the management of SAIL and Tata Steel and trade union leaders affiliated to INTUC, CITU, AITUC and HMS, will benefit around 1.6 lakh workers of the two major steel producers.

The agreement provides for minimum wages of Rs 4,000 at the All India Consumer Price Index (AICPI) 1708. It gives revised rates of increment ranging from Rs 80 in the lowest pay scale (S-1) to Rs 200 in the highest scale (S-10).

Under the agreement, the workers will receive a guaranteed benefit calculated at the rate of 20 per cent of their pre-revised basic pay on December 31, 1996.

The agreement also assures payment of two increments from April 1, 2001 to the workers, as well as an additional amount equal to one increment from April 1, 2002.

Another highlight of the agreement is that all workers would get quarterly dearness allowance neutralisation at 100 per cent for any shift in the AICPI beyond 1708 (base 1960=100).
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Amazon reports lower loss against expectations
Seattle—Beating Wall Street's expectations, Amazon’s second-quarter net loss was lower, as the online retailer announced a partnership with America Online.
The company however, warned that its projected sales for the coming quarters would not meet its own early expectations, sending shares of Amazon down 98 cents, to $15.05, in extended trading Monday on the Nasdaq.
Shares fell 95 cents to finish the regular session at $16.03.
The company also said it expected net sales for the entire year to increase by between 11 per cent and 16 per cent over 2000 figures, while it had previously forecast an increase of 20 per cent to 30 per cent.
The company said it expected net sales for the third quarter to be around $625 million to $675 million, a drop from analysts' expectations of around $700 million to $725 million.
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iBilt ties up with Reliance Infocom
New Delhi-- Reliance Industries’ recently corporatised Rs 25,000 crore broadband network firm, Reliance Infocom, has inducted Thapar group company, iBilt Technologies Ltd to partner in its front-end applications business.
The two companies will jointly execute e-governance applications for various state governments.
MD, Ballarpur Industries Ltd, Mr Gautam Thapar, said the two companies have already signed a memorandum of understanding for partnering in Reliance Infocom’s front-end applications business.
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