Tatas
holds back final decision on VSNL bid
Mumbai:
The Tata group will be taking a final decision on investing in
VSNL after the government spells out is policy on international
long distance telephony, on the licence fees, and other
parameters. However, the group will continue to go ahead with the
pre-bidding process, including due diligence.
The Centre is expected to
come out with a white paper on the opening up of the ILD sector
within a couple of weeks. The Reliance group, the Tatas and the
BPL-Sterling consortium now are the main players in the bidding
process, thanks to considerable delay in framing the policy for
the process, which will remove the monopoly of VSNL in this
sector. The AV Birla group, the Bharti-SingTel consortium and
Videocon were also earlier in the fray.
An expert committee on
Internet telephony set up by the government which has recommended
opening up international voice service has also said that any
licensed ILD/NLD/ISP operator may be permitted to offer net
telephony service as per licence conditions of the respective
services.
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Hyundai to launch
new model of Accent
Bangalore:
Hyundai Motor India is planning to introduce a new sporty model of
the Accent. Code named Tornado, the new model will be powered by a
1.6 litre 16 valve dual overhead cam (DOHC) petrol engine, and is
expected to be priced 15 per cent higher than the top end GLX
model of Accent, which is priced at around Rs 6.6 lakhs. It is
likely that the engine for this model would be imported from
Korea. The other three Accent models in India include Accent
GLE-1, priced around Rs 5.5 lakhs, GVS, at around Rs 5.7 lakhs,
and GLS, at around Rs 6 lakhs.
The company is also
commencing second shift production at its Chennai to raise
production of its super premium D segment car Sonata to about 250
cars a month from the present 120 a month, which will help reduce
its waiting period to a few weeks.
Hyundai has shown a six
per cent growth in sales this year, up from 35,550 vehicles during
April-August last fiscal to 37,700 vehicles in the same five
months this year.
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L&T to cut
managerial staff
Mumbai:
Larsen & Toubro (L&T) is planning to cut its management
cadre by 25 per cent over the next few years.
The total employee
strength of the diversified conglomerate is around 25,000, of
which managerial strength accounts for around 13,000.
The company expects to do
this first through a VRS, this year. There are unconfirmed reports
that this would be followed by a compulsory retirement scheme for
senior staff. The company has just concluded one VRS programme.
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New Mercedes models
via CBUs
Pune:
Mercedes Benz India will introduce the M-class sports utility
vehicle in India shortly, brought into India as a completely built
unit. The vehicle is likely to be priced at Rs 40 lakhs. Following
this, other models such as the CLK and SLK would also be on offer
in the country, also as CBU units.
The company will also
change its name to DaimlerChrysler (India), once all the
formalities relating to becoming a fully owned subsidiary of
DaimlerChrysler is complete. The final formalities of acquiring
the last 14 per cent shares of Telco is now being completed.
Mercedes Benz, however, will continue as a brand name.
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Bajaj team for
China
Mumbai:
A top five-member Bajaj Auto team is heading to China to explore
the prospects of a tie up with a Chinese manufacturer to source
ungeared scooters. The team is to be headed by vice president,
finance, Sanjiv Bajaj.
The company also wants to
explore the possibilities of exporting three wheeler kits to
China, where the three wheeler segment has been growing
significantly, and promises good potential.
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Wipro to enter high
end IT enabled services
Bangalore: Wipro
plans to enter the high end IT enabled services such as software
support, as an extension of its product offering.
Its chairman, Azim
Premji, however, has clarified that this would not be in low or
middle end areas like call centres , but would provide support
services in specialized areas where the skill sets needed are
those of software engineers. The company calls these services
"complex high end software product support", rather than
IT enabled services.
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UTI offloads Rs 200
crore stocks to LIC
Mumbai : Life
Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) has picked up around Rs 200
crore worth of stocks from Unit Trust of India through off-market
deals, priced at 10 per cent discount to the market. This was done
in order to avoid huge fluctuations in the market, if UTI had gone
in for market deals.
The biggest chunk thus
sold was that of BSES, which takes LICs share in the company up
by 1.09 per cent.
An eight-member LIC
investment committee had earlier this month agreed to pick up
select stocks worth around Rs 900 crore from the UTI portfolio in
order to help UTI to meet its redemption obligations in US-64.
With no pressure on this count on UTI, this will be done in
phases. LIC, besides getting hold of good shares at a discount to
the market, also saves on brokerage through this deal.
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Fiat to double
exports after Palio launch
Mumbai :
Fiat India proposes to double its export earnings to 32 million
dollars by the next fiscal, also increasing its export of spares
to some of the 40 countries where the Palio is being offered. The
Palio is produced only in nine countries, including India.
This fiscal, exports are
expected to touch 16 million dollars, which is made up of parts
for the Uno, and components for the Punto, one of Fiat Auto's
popular offerings in Italy.
Fiat India, which will
launch the Palio shortly with around 75 per cent local content,
has plans to increase the localisation to about 85 per cent within
one year of its launch, which will improve its prospects for
exports.
Fiat India is also likely
to consider import of other cars from its stable such as the Alfa
Romeo or the Lancia in the form of completely built units (CBUs),
but this would be after the launch of Palio.
Sachin Tendulkar will be
the brand ambassador for the Palio, which would be offered as an
upper end B-segment vehicle priced around Rs 4.5 lakh.
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H-P may offer
utility pricing in India
Bangalore : Hewlett
Packard is said to be toying with the idea of offering utility
pricing in India, as well as leverage its sophisticated billing
system by selling it off as a stand alone product or become a
billing service provider.
The introduction of
utility pricing would allow customers to increase capacity
whenever required by informing H-P, who would activate extra
processors in the servers, and bill the customers accordingly.
Effectively, this would work as a pay as you use product.
Since utility pricing
systems work on very advance billing systems, which would need to
be imported into India, its introduction would depend on the duty
structure of hardware products.
Such a service would help
industry segments like retail and finance which typically require
more processing power during specific periods in the year.
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