Air India shuts overseas offices
New Delhi: Air-India has decided to close most of its ticketing offices abroad. Of Air India's 34 ticketing offices abroad, 20 have been shut down while 10 will be downsized. With this move, 52 employees will lose their jobs.
AI branch offices abroad will not be spared either and thirty-three of the branch offices will be downsized in two phases. Ninety employees, some from India, will be retrenched.
"The decision to shut down or downsize has been taken after a realistic, cost effective study. It will not affect our revenue earning significantly. All these steps of reduction and downsizing in online and offline stations will save Air India 21 crore rupees a year," said Jitender Bhargava, director of public relations Air India.
Most of the ticketing offices which are to be closed down are in Europe. Some of the main branches which will be downsized include Washington, Toronto and Sydney.
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Boeing to cut 12,000 jobs
Seattle: Boeing will retrench about 12,000 employees from its commercial airplanes and shared services divisions by December 14 in the first round of layoffs prompted by the terrorist attacks. Boeing's commercial airplanes division employs around 93,000 people, most in the Seattle area. The Chicago-based company has 199,000 employees worldwide.
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DaimlerChrysler to close 3 plants
Frankfurt: DaimlerChrysler on Friday said it would cut 2,700 jobs and close three plants in a plan meant to restore the company to profitability in 2003.
The plan envisions annual savings of $850 million in materials, production costs and overheads, the company said in a statement. It said it would close plants in Woodstock, Ontario and Kelowna, British Columbia in the fourth quarter of this year.
A plant for building parts in Portland, Oregon, also is to be closed by the middle of next year.
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Ford to develop new hybrid engine
Detroit: Ford Motor said on Friday it has signed an exclusive agreement with the US Environmental Protection Agency to develop a new kind of high-mileage "hybrid" engine for trucks and sport utility vehicles.
Many automakers have been developing so-called hybrid cars and trucks that marry a gasoline engine with an electric motor and battery pack.
The electric motor acts as both a booster and an energy recovery device, increasing fuel economy by reducing the workload of the gasoline engine.
Instead of electric batteries, the Ford-EPA system uses a pressurized liquid to store energy.
Only Toyota Motor and Honda Motor currently sell small numbers of hybrid cars in the United States. Ford, General Motors and the Chrysler side of DaimlerChrysler AG all have plans to sell limited numbers of hybrid trucks or SUVs by 2003.
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Tata to invest Rs 3,555 cr in phone services
New Delhi : Tata Teleservices will invest Rs 3,555 crore over the next five years to roll out basic phone services in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Gujarat, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
Tata Teleservices has already invested Rs 1,100 crore in the Andhra Pradesh circle and will invest a further Rs 500 crore by the end of this financial year to March 2002.
The new investments would be funded by an equal mix of debt and equity and the Tata group is not expected to take on any investment partners for the next two years.
Services in the four new states would be rolled out in the April-June quarter of 2002.
In August, Tata Teleservices signed an agreement with the US-based parent of Hughes Telecom to combine their businesses.
Tata Teleservices is also evaluating an entry into the domestic long-distance telephony business and should be applying for a licence shortly.
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Tatas to decide on Spectranet buyout
New Delhi: The Tatas are expected to decide before the end of this month whether to buy Delhi-based broadband service provider Spectranet. Spectranet has more than 600 km of commissioned optic fibre cables in Delhi and is laying more in Bangalore and Punjab. Spectranet provides high-speed internet access to more than 700 corporates and over 50,000 retail customers.
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Tata Sons open offer for 16.69% in CMC
Mumbai: Tata Sons made an open offer on Friday for acquisition of 16.69 per cent stake in Computer Maintenance Corporation (CMC) Ltd at a price of Rs 281.26 per share. The company informed the Mumbai stock exchange about the offer and also filed the offer document with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on Friday. The offer opens on November 27, 2001 and will close on December 26, 2001.

Tata Sons acquired majority stake (51 per cent) of the government of India at Rs 152 crore in CMC Ltd last week.

The total fund requirement for acquiring 25.27 lakh shares from public shareholders under the offer in CMC at Rs 281.26 per share is Rs 71.10 crore.
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Tatas to merge Net firm with Teleservices
New Delhi: The Tatas have decided to merge Tata Internet with its basic telecom services arm, Tata Teleservices.

Tata Internet started off as a 100 per cent subsidiary of Tata Industries and Tata Teleservices took a 50 per cent interest in that company this month.
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ABN Amro buys Infosys Finacle
Mumbai: Infosys Technologies has sold its core banking solution Finacle to ABN Amro on a global basis. The bank will be shortly tying up with a large cooperative bank in Maharastra for its Finacle.
The banking business unit has relationships with 45 banks across 15 countries. To make Finacle a global success, ITL is looking to adopt the SAP model by tying up with the Big Five management consultancy firms.
In India, five out of eight new private banks operate on the Finacle software.
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Hind Latex to set up centre in Dubai
Kochi: Hindustan Latex is planning to set up a major packing unit and distribution centre at Dubai to cater to the demand from Middle East, Iran, Iraq and African Countries.
The company will export condoms to Dubai from where it will be packed and distributed in these markets. The company has finalised plans to install 25 electronic vending machines at New Delhi to provide easy access for various contraceptive and health care aids for the masses.
The company has a 36 per cent share in the premium condom segment of the market in the country.
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GE Plastics shuts Baroda rubber plant
Baroda: GE Plastics India has stopped production of ABS rubber at its Baroda compounding plant.
GE has informed its ABS consumers about the closure of the compounding facility at Baroda. However, it will continue to manufacture engineering plastics at the same plant.
GE manufactures approximately 3,000 tonnes of ABS annually, and 13,000 tonnes of engineering plastics.
GE Plastics incurred accumulated loss of Rs 37.3 crore during the year 99-00, on a turnover of Rs 106 crore.
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Stakeholders to decide Panna-Mukta rights
New Delhi: Ministery of petroleum and natural gas will not involve itself in the issue of deciding the rights of operating Panna and Mukta oil fields. The matter has to be resolved by the three existing stake holders - Enron, ONGC and Reliance, petroleum and natural gas minister Ram Naik said.
"It is for the three parties to decide. If they cannot decide and refer the matter to me, we will take care of it, " the minister said.
The recent sale of 30 per cent stake in the Panna and Mukta oil fields by Enron to British Gas ran into a problem after ONGC and Reliance refused to part with the right of operating the two oil fields to British Gas.
British Gas has in turn said that it would not be interested in buying the stake without operating rights.
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Forbes Gokak moots buying Electrolux JV stake
Mumbai: The board of Forbes Gokak on Friday approved a proposal to buy out Electrolux's 40 per cent stake in their joint venture, Eureka Forbes, the Bombay Stock Exchange said.
Forbes Gokak, which makes textiles, engineering goods and appliances, currently owns 60 per cent of Eureka Forbes, which is the country's leading maker of vacuum cleaners and water purifiers. Sweden-based Electrolux AB is the world's leading white goods maker.
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FIs cancel assistance to Hinduja power project
Mumbai: Financial institutions (FIs) have cancelled financial assistance to the Hinduja National Power Corporation (HNPC), which is implementing the 1040-mw coal-based power project at Visakhapatnam.

The HNPC project had a debt requirement of Rs 3,620 crore, while the equity component stood at Rs 1,810 crore. ICICI and HSBC were appointed as financial advisers for the project.

SBI had sanctioned assistance of Rs 500 crore while Canara Bank of India, Punjab National Bank and Bank of Baroda had sanctioned an assistance of Rs 400 crore.
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MusicWorld to set up unit in Bangladesh
Kolkata: The RP Goenka owned music retailer, MusicWorld, plans to set up its first overseas outlet in Bangladeshs capital Dhaka.

The retail outlet in Dhaka could be on a franchisee basis.

In India, it has plans to open outlets in Bhubaneswar, Guwahati, Siliguri and a second store in Kolkata. This year itself, it will add two outlets -- one each in Delhi and Hyderabad.
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Carzonrent to represent Hertz in India
New Delhi: Hertz, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ford Motor Company, has appointed Carzonrent (India) to represent its brand in India.

The Hertz range of car rental services will be available in Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and Bangalore, and then gradually expand to Hyderabad, Chennai, Ahmedabad and Baroda. Over a period of time, it is likely to have a presence in 32 cities.

Under an operating lease to corporates, Hertz undertakes purchase, insurance, registration, maintenance and resale of cars.
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ITC Bhadrachalam net soars 62%
Kolkata: ITC Bhadrachalam Paperboards Ltd on Friday reported a 62 per cent increase in net profit for the quarter to September 30, 2001.The company said significant value-addition and strategic cost and value-chain management helped it increase operational profitability by 48 per cent, excluding other income. At current level of operations, ITC Bhadra is earning a monthly cash revenue of Rs 9 crore.

Net sales during the second quarter was Rs 162.35 crore, an increase of 1.51 per cent from the Rs 159.94 crore recorded in the same period last year. Expenditure declined by 1.83 per cent to Rs 126.66 crore to September 30, 2001, from Rs 129.02 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year.

According to the press release, the improved performance is on account of high-end value-added paperboards like Cyber XL and Indolux in the packaging segment, Pearl and Safire Graphik in the graphic segment.
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