Hindustan Lever may take stake in coffee chain
Mumbai: After Tata Tea, which recently took an equity stake in the internationally renowned Barista Coffee Bar chain in India, it is the turn of FMCG major, Hindustanc Lever.

It is understood that the Bangalore-based Amalgamated Bean Coffee Trading company has initiated negotiations with the FMCG giant for a strategic alliance to expand its Caf Coffee Day retail operations. This alliance may also take the shape of Hindustan Lever taking a stake of up to 26 per cent in the latter.

Amalgamated Bean is a Rs 300-crore company, which has 22 retail outlets mainly spread out in the South and is planning to add another 100 outlets across the country in the next 12 months.

While officials of both companies denied any such talks, informed sources from the investment banking fraternity state that besides HLL, Amalgamated Bean is also looking at roping in private equity funds and other beverage companies, including a soft drink major.

While the current outlets are primarily in the southern states of Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Mangalore, the current expansion will see the company entering North India in a big way. It has already opened an outlet in Delhi.

The company, which is the largest coffee exporter in the country and sells the brand Coffee Day, started its first retail outlet in Bangalores busy Brigade road in November 1996.
Back to News Review index page  

SRF to foray into IT-enabled services sector
New Delhi: SRF Ltd., yet another old economy company, announced its intentions to foray into the IT-enabled services business, through two special companies that have been set up for this purpose - SRF eBiz and SRF Infotel.

According to Arun Bharat Ram, vice-chairman and senior managing director, both the IT ventures together were expected to emerge as a core business area for the group, contributing a revenue over $200 million by 2005, on a conservative estimate.

Sushil Ramola, currently a senior vice president with SRF, will head both IT ventures as their chief executive. However, the two sons of Arun Bharat Ram, Ashish and Kartikeya, will be seen to play a major role in the two companies.

Ashish, the elder son will be director, corporate planning & HR with SRF Infotel and younger son, Kartikeya, is to hold the position of chief operating officer of SRF eBiz.

SRF Infotel will offer remote business process outsourcing solutions in finance and accounts, HR (human resource), payment services, billing services, call centre operations and help desk solutions.

SRF eBiz has already created a horizontal purchasing portal for the manufacturing sector, called materialonline.Com, which was launched in February this year. This portal is likely to help organisations manage their "B" and "C" category purchases.
Back to News Review index page  

Cellular combine to recast debt
Mumbai: The Birla-AT&T-Tata cellular combine, which also includes RPG Cellcom, erstwhile licensee of the Madhya Pradesh circle, has decided to recast its total debt amounting to Rs. 2,000 crore.

The restructuring envisages transferring the existing debt of the three entities to the combined entity, which could result is cost savings of close to Rs. 70 crore. The combine has mandated IDBI, Bank of America and Deutsche Bank to carry out the restructuring and refinancing.

According to a senior official of the combine, the restructuring will put in place one common set of terms for the combined debt, thus resulting in the savings. The combine also stated that it expected to be cash positive in fiscal 2002-03 with the infusion of fresh equity by the promoters.

The detailed restructuring plan will be ready in about three months and presented to all lenders for approval.
Back to News Review index page  

Indian executives quit AremisSoft
New York: Nasdaq-listed software company, the US-based AremisSoft, which is facing questions over various contracts in India, announced that key executives from its Indian operations have resigned. The company has also stated that important financial documents in its emerging markets business could be missing.

The company, which makes software for the manufacturing, hospitality, health care and construction industries, is being investigated by US regulators and only last month replaced its chief executive and chief financial officer.

The company has retained the global forensic accounting division of Deloitte and Touche to assist the management in its efforts to capture the missing information.
Back to News Review index page  

Ranbaxys ciprofloxacin may get approval
New Delhi: The government is likely to shortly approve the first in-house developed drug by leading domestic pharmaceutical major, Ranbaxy. The product, the anti-infective drug, cirprofloxacin, could thus be launched in the country ahead of the international launch of this drug by Bayer, which has been licensed the rights for marketing and development in the overseas markets.

While Bayer is conducting the phase III trials of this drug in the US, Ranbaxy has already successfully completed the phase III trials in India on its own.

In a related development, Ranbaxy is said to be close to striking a co-marketing agreement with Cipla for co-marketing of this drug in the Indian market.
Ranbaxys expected commercial launch of Ciprofloxacin in India comes at a time when it is reported that its deal with Bayer is undergoing some hiccups. Bayer is reportedly trying a similar drug sourced from an unknown company along with Ranbaxys NDDS drug and was still undecided on which one it will finally develop for commercial launch.

According to market analysts, the launch of the new drug is expected to add to the bottomline of Ranbaxy significantly since the company, a leading player in the anti-infective segment, has been suffering because of the sagging sales growths in this segment in the recent quarters.
Back to News Review index page  

Gesco ropes in Regus for business centres
Mumbai: The Mahindra-Sheth controlled Gesco Corporation is understood to have entered into a 50-50 joint venture with Regus of the UK, for developing and operating business centres in the country.

Regus is Europes largest business centre operator, with a network of 387 business centres offering some 84,000 workspaces in over 50 countries. It is also the worlds largest provider of `public access video-conferencing facilities.

Gesco will reportedly invest about Rs. 10 crore in the venture and will commence operations as soon as Regus receives FIPB approval.

While the operations of the business centre will be under the supervision of Regus, sourcing of the properties would be done with the assistance from Gesco Corporation. The joint venture agreement provides for operations of business centres in cities like Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore.

It is expected that each business centre will offer a range of fully equipped and furnished offices and meeting rooms on flexible terms by the day, week or month, giving customers a low risk, cost effective and immediate route to achieving a national and international presence.
Back to News Review index page  

ITC Hotels pulls out of golf course project
Hyderabad: Following a high court verdict banning any permanent structures around the Hussain Sagar lake, ITC Hotels has pulled out of the Rs. 700 crore integrated business-cum-leisure project for creating an international golf course initiated by the Andhra Pradesh government.

ITC Hotels was the preferred bidder for the prestigious project which envisaged the building of a world-class 18-hole golf course and convention centre, the latter within the heart of the city close to the lake.

The golf course, hotels, villas and residential complexes were to come up at a 250-acre site in Manikonda village, close to other prestigious projects such as Indian School of Business, Indian Institute of Information Technology and the proposed IT projects of Wipro and Infosys.
While the government offered alternative locations to ITC Hotels for the construction of the convention centre attached to the project, the company insisted that it would be only interested in the project only if it was allowed to develop the convention centre near Hussain Sagar Lake as originally planned.
Back to News Review index page  

Bombay Dyeing chalks out buyback plans
Mumbai: Bombay Dyeing has appointed a three-member committee comprising of chairman Nusli Wadia and two non-executive directors AK Hirji and SS Kelkar to recommend the appointment of a merchant banker for its proposed buy-back plan.

According to informed sources, the leading contender for the assignment is likely to be JM Morgan Stanley, which has been leading the fire-fighting exercise in the latest takeover battle with jute baron Arun Bajoria.

The company plans to buy back at least 25 per cent of its total paid-up capital of Rs 41 crore, thus giving its promoters an increase in their stake to 50 per cent. The strategy could be to raise the stake to a level of 50 per cent at the earliest and pursue the ongoing restructuring exercise without any hurdles.
Back to News Review index page  

Usha group charged with forgery
New Delhi: The countrys leading investigating agency, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), has registered cases against Vinay Rai and Anil Rai of the Usha Group charging them with forgery and cheating the financial institutions IDBI, IFCI and LIC to the tune of several crore.

The agency accused them of siphoning public funds along with unnamed officials of the three financial institutions. The CBI said the cases were a follow-up of the raids conducted by the income-tax department on group companies of Usha in February 2001.

According to the CBI as per the documents seized by it, clearly show diversion of funds from public financial institutions through the use of fake bills.

The Rs 4,000-crore Usha Group has diversified interests in steel, electronic equipment, telecom and information technology. Its major group companies include Usha India, Malvika Steel, ITIL and Burr Brown.
Back to News Review index page  

Hindujas keen on Dabhol Power
Chennai: According to RJ Shahaney, the Chennai-based chairman of the Hinduja flagship company, Ashok Leyland, the Group is definitely interested in buying out US energy major, Enron, from the Dabhol Power project.

This becomes the second group to express interest in the power project, with Tata Power earlier stating that it would not be averse to taking over the Dabhol project.

Mr. Shahaney stated that the Hinduja group would only enter if they are sure that Enron is keen on withdrawing. He also stated that any decision on buying Enron stake would depend on tariff proposal which comprise capital and fuel cost and added that the possibilities of alternate fuel for bringing down the cost of power should be explored.
Back to News Review index page