RBI injects life into IDFC
Mumbai-- The Infrastructure Development Finance Co has been given another lease of life by the Reserve Bank of India. The latter has effectively extended the tenure of the Rs 350-crore loan it had given to the institution when it was set up a few years ago. The tenure has been extended from 15 years to 50 years!

Moreover, the interest charge on the debt has also been changed. Till now, the interest was equivalent to the dividend paid by IDFC to its equity holders. Now, this has been pegged at 25 basis points over the yield of a five-year government bond.
Besides the Rs 350-crore, tier II capital from the central bank, IDFC also had a Rs 300-crore subordinated debt from the government. The debt from the government becomes repayable on March 17, 2012. The original repayment date -— before the maturity was stretched to 50 years —for the capital from the RBI was October 29, 2012.
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Singapore Airlines denied 49 percent stake in Air-India
New Delhi-- Singapore Airlines' demand for picking up a 49 equity stake in Air-India has been rejected by the government, which has taken the stand that Air-India divestment programme cannot be altered midcourse and the Tata-SIA consortium has to settle for 40 per cent equity on sale now.
In addition, the government has informed the airline that cannot offer any assurance of offering additional equity stake after the current strategic sale is completed.
Singapore Airlines' demand for picking up a 49 equity stake in Air-India has been rejected by the government, which has taken the stand that Air-India divestment programme cannot be altered midcourse and the Tata-SIA consortium has to settle for 40 per cent equity on sale now.
In addition, the government has informed the airline that cannot offer any assurance of offering additional equity stake after the current strategic sale is completed.
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Jisco rolls over Rs 125 crore NCD issued to UTI
Mumbai--Jindal Iron & Steel Company (Jisco) has rolled over the Rs 125 crore non-convertible debenture issued to the Unit Trust of India (UTI) maturing in January 2001. The coupon of the NCDs has been stepped up from 10.5 per cent to 13.5 per cent and the debenture has been rolled over for five years with a 2-year moratorium on interest payments.

Institutional sources say that the rollover is in the wake of Jisco’s inability to pay the debt immediately to UTI.

The NCDs were issued to raise funds for Jindal Vijayanagar Steel’s (JVSL) hot-rolled coils project at Bellary in Karnataka. Jisco’s total investment in JVSL is around Rs 550 crore.

The NCDs are a part of the Rs 445 crore-secured loans raised at 10.5 per cent through bonds carrying a face value of Rs 500 each redeemable at par in three instalments on the expiry of sixth, seventh and eighth year from the date of allotment (between January 14 and 18, 1995). The first instalment was due on January 2001.

With the recession in the steel industry, Jisco is drafting a debt rescheduling package for the loans that are due for repayment in the next two to three years and plans to seek a moratorium of 2-3 years.

According to sources, the company is designing a debt restructuring package.
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Jisco shelves Tarapur project
Mumbai--Jindal Iron and Steel Company (Jisco) has shelved plans to set up an organic-coated 1.25 lakh tonne sheet project at Tarapur in Maharashtra.

According to Jisco, this is because of the uncertain outlook for organic-coated sheet in India and also the prevailing recessionary conditions in the steel industry.

The Rs 150 crore project was a part of its forward integration step for galvanising operations.

Recently, Jisco acquired the 50 per cent stake held by British Steel Plc of the UK in JBS Steel Products, after the termination of the 50:50 joint venture company.
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Automartindia to set up 48 outlets in three years Pune--Automartindia, jointly promoted by the Mahindra group, HDFC and Sah & Sanghi expansion plans include setting up a total of 48 outlets over the next 3 years.

Out of the 48 outlets being planned, 22 would be owned by Automartindia while the balance would be operated through franchisees countrywide.

Automartindia was started in August 1999 with on-line operations through its website automartindia.com followed by opening up of outlets in Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai in 2001. Automartindia's fourth outlet with a total area of 20,000 square feet became operational in Pune from July 4.

Currently Automartindia offers both on-line and off-line buying and selling of used cars. The on-line channel has an inventory of over 7,000 vehicles and over 80,000 registered users.

The company claims that its interactive website attracts over 5,000 buyers and sellers every month, making it the largest platform for interactions. These on-line queries are fulfilled through retail outlets.

The entire project is being financed by Automartindia through its equity capital involving a total investment of Rs 25 crore in the first phase.

The company has already invested Rs 15 crore and the balance amount will be invested by December 2001.

The Mahindra group holds 47 per cent equity stake in Automartindia, HDFC 10 per cent, Sah & Sanghi 20 per cent and the balance 18 per cent is held by a financial institution and through employees stock option.
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Tata, Hughes exploring telecoms tie-up
New Delhi-- According to the Tata Group, Hughes Network Systems, a shareholder in Hughes Tele.com (India) and Tata Industries, a shareholder of Tata Teleservices ...are in negotiations for a possible combination concerning the basic telephony services, the company said.
US-based Hughes Network Systems, a unit of Hughes Electronics, is one of the main shareholders in Hughes Tele.com which runs a fixed-line phone service in India's western state of Maharashtra, including its financial hub Bombay.
Other shareholders in the company include Alltel and India's Ispat Group.
Tata Teleservices operates a fixed line network in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh. The Tata Group is one of India's biggest conglomerates.
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Hewlett-Packard scouts for local partners
New Delhi-- Hewlett-Packard is setting up a technical centre and scouting for partners in India to develop software applications for financial services, telecom and network services as well as manufacturing.
The company expects to sign about 200 partners to develop applications and port them on its platform. Its partnering technology access centres are expected to be ready by October, where developers are allowed to test their systems and also give certifications once the porting is complete.

Company officials say 15,000 solutions are already available and HP will be the leader in the market after the launch and will have the partner program ready by the time these systems hit the market.
AlPTAC and H-P’s support network is aimed at assisting developers make a smooth transition to Itanium processor family (IPF), based on which H-P plans to deliver its EPIC (Explicitly parallel instruction set computing) systems. The PTAC network provides technical assistance for Windows, Linux and Unix developers and can be accessed either at a growing number of sites or remotely.
PTAC has a complete infrastructure available to aid in the certification of your H-P-UX applications running on the IPF architecture. Certification services can be accessed locally or remotely. Completing certification allows ISVs access to a series of additional marketing and promotional benefits.
Co-developed by Intel and H-P, the Itanium processor family will take us to 64-bit architecture. Because the IPF architecture is 64-bit, it can offer very large virtual address space and memory space. It can address a theoretical limit of many terabytes of RAM.
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Bharti initiates talks with FIs for Rs 3,000-cr debt
New Delhi--The Bharti group is in discussions with various financial institutions and banks for raising up to Rs 3,000 crore debt to part-fund its expansion plans for cellular, basic and proposed long-distance operations.
The loan would mainly be used for expanding Bharti's network in cellular, basic and proposed long distance operations said Akhil Gupta, joint managing director of Bharti.
Gupta while saying that the structure of the loan would be finalised soon declined to divulge the name of FIs that the company was in talks with.
He said that the total cost of expansion in the three telecom segments at about Rs 6,000 crore, and the proposed Rs 3,000 crore debt would support part of the expansion plans.
The balance Rs 3,000 crore has already been tied-up by Bharti through equity, he added.
The Bharti group is in discussions with various financial institutions and banks for raising up to Rs 3,000 crore debt to part-fund its expansion plans for cellular, basic and proposed long-distance operations.
The loan would mainly be used for expanding Bharti's network in cellular, basic and proposed long distance operations said Akhil Gupta, joint managing director of Bharti.
Gupta while saying that the structure of the loan would be finalised soon declined to divulge the name of FIs that the company was in talks with.
He said that the total cost of expansion in the three telecom segments at about Rs 6,000 crore, and the proposed Rs 3,000 crore debt would support part of the expansion plans.
The balance Rs 3,000 crore has already been tied-up by Bharti through equity, he added.
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Bidders finalized in Hind Zinc selloff race
Mumbai--Seven bidders have been short-listed for the divestment of the government stake in Hindustan Zinc.

These include the AV Birla group, Allied Deal of the UK, Binani Industries in consortium with Korea Zinc, Sterlite Industries, Glencore, Bhushan Steel and the UK-based Metdist in association with Phelps Dodge of Canada.

The finalisation of seven bidders for the final phase of the bidding process is expected to generate more competition among strategic investors, a top merchant banking official close to the divestment process said.

According to the official, all these bidders will be able to submit their bids this month and all the seven have completed the due-diligence exercise.

The Centre is planning to offer its 26 per cent stake in Hindustan zinc to the strategic investor through the bidding process.

The strategic investor will have to make an open offer for an additional 20 per cent in the zinc major as per the Securities and Exchange Board of India guidelines. The centre plans to complete the disinvestment by September-October.
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Crompton Greaves in bid for National Net Backbone Project phase II
Mumbai--Crompton Greaves has submitted its bid for the National Internet Backbone Project (phase II) is currently awaiting Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) to finalise the bids.
The company has already commissioned Internet nodes for international connectivity across 37 cities in the country during the first phase of the project.

Company officials say, after the execution of NIB phase I order the company is confident of bagging the prestigious phase II order.

Crompton Greaves is a leading manufacturer of electrical equipment for power and industrial applications and has a presence in systems integration and production of multi-port switches for long distance data transmission.

The company's nodes provide international data connectivity to ISPs, among others, in addition to providing servers for computing and billing purposes, and routers for WiLL applications to telecom companies, including Bharti Enterprises.

The company also produces optical transmission and terminal equipment for long distance transmission. It has already installed 1,000 WiLL lines for MTNL in Mumbai and is closely working with Bharti for the latter’s basic telephony project.
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