HFCL acquires 74 per cent stake in HTL for Rs 55cr
New Delhi: The government on Tuesday sold 74 per cent equity in Hindustan Teleprinters for Rs 55 crore to Himachal Futuristics, which immediately announced the constitution of a new board with Mahendra Nahata as the chairman.

The seven-member board will have three HFCL nominees -- including the HFCL managing director, Y S Chaudhary and R M Kastiya -- and two members who are outstanding professionals -- Prof Ashok Jhunjhunwala and Bata chairman A L Mudliya.

The five, along with two government representatives, would complete the board of directors of privatised HTL, which now aims at increasing its turnover to Rs 1,000 crore in 2002-03 from Rs 400 crore this year.
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HLL to issue bonus debentures
New Delhi: Hindustan Lever Ltdon Tuesday decided to dole out bonus debentures of Rs 1,320 crore and announced a 20.5 per cent growth in net profit for the third quarter ended September 30, 2001. Its earning per share also rose to Rs 1.81 from Rs 1.50 a year ago.

HLL's net profit rose to Rs 399.16 crore and neet sales jumped by 7 per cent to Rs 2,635.22 crore while other income for the quarter posted a 23 per cent surge to Rs 113.36 crore.

The company will issue one bonus debenture of the face value of Rs 6 each for every equity share of Re 1 held. The debentures would be secured and redeemable at par in two equal instalments on the second and third years after the issue.
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Zee, Mid-Day moot strategic pact
New Delhi: Zee Telefilms and Mid-Day Multimedia have signed a memorandum of understanding to enter into a strategic alliance. Accordingly, Zee News will host a time-band on its channel with Mumbai-specific content sourced from Mid-Day group.
In a communication to the BSE, Mid-Day said that its board would meet on Wednesday to ratify a strategic alliance with a television channel.
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Air-Indias traffic falls
Mumbai: Air-India on Tuesday said that it expected passenger traffic to decline 5 to 6 per cent. The Indian national flag carrier will cut back flights to Japan to four from five per week because of dwindling demand.
Air-India had already cut the number of US-bound flights to eight times weekly from 10.
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Tata Power Q2 net up 74 per cent
Mumbai: The Tata Power Company on Tuesday said that net profit in July-September rose 74 per cent from a year ago. The companys net profit for its second quarter rose to Rs 2.42 billion from Rs 1.39 billion a year earlier.Sales rose 17.54 per cent to Rs 10.99 billion.
In addition to its core business of power generation and distribution, Tata Power runs captive power units for India's largest private steel producer, Tata Iron and Steel Company (TISCO), and the country's second-largest cement maker Associated Cement Companies.
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Govt to invite bids for VSNL in December
New Delhi: The government will invite bids for the public sector VSNL in December, communications minister Pramod Mahajan said on Tuesday.

The government, which owns 52.97 per cent of Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL), plans to lower its holding to 26 per cent by selling a 25 per cent controlling stake to a strategic partner and another 1.97 per cent to VSNL's employees.
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Exide Q2 net down at Rs 12.25 crore
Kolkata: Exide Industries Ltd on Tuesday reported a decline in net profit for the second quarter of the current fiscal, despite marginal increase in sales.
Net profit for the three months to September 30, 2001, was Rs 12.25 crore on sales of Rs 251.26 crore, against a net profit of Rs 14.03 crore on sales of Rs 247.78 crore for the same period in 2000-01.
The company cited severe slowdown in the economy, the slump in the automotive industry and the absence of orders from the government in the telecom segment for the decline in profit.
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Gujarat Borosil rehabilitation scheme okayed
Mumbai: The Board of Industrial and Financial Restructuring (BIFR) has approved the rehabilitation scheme for Gujarat Borosil Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Borosil Glass Works.

Leading financial institution (FI) ICICI has prepared a draft rehabilitation scheme (DRS) for bailing out the ailing company. According to the package, Borosil Glass will infuse Rs 7.5 crore towards repayment of funded interest of Rs 4.71 crore and part of the interest accrued and due till September 30, 1998.
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Raymond to invest Rs 135 cr to increase production
New Delhi: The Raymond group is planning to invest Rs 135 crore to increase its textiles and denim manufacturing capacities.

According to Raymond executive director (marketing and sales) SK Gupta, the company plans to increase the installed capacity of denim production by 5 lakh metre to 15 lakh metre over the next six months.

The company is also planning to increase its textiles manufacturing capacity by a million metre to touch 24 million metre.
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M&M plans JV with Sun Group
New Delhi: Mahindra & Mahindra is considering a possible joint venture (JV) with Russian-based Indian company, Sun Group for the manufacture of utility vehicles.

The joint venture would go by the name Sun Mahindra.The venture would initially import parts from India but in the long run set up a local assembling unit in Russia.
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Skoda to launch Octavia
New Delhi: German auto MNC Skoda is all set to launch the much-delayed Octavia by the end of this month. The Indian subsidiary Skoda Auto India will assemble SKD kits at its Aurangabad facility and is looking at fresh infusion of funds around January 2002.

The company has two dealers in Delhi, one in Mumbai and one in Goa. The company is planning to introduce the Octavia in two variants - the 1.9 litre turbo diesel intercooler with 90 bhp and the 2 litre petrol variant with 111 bhp.

Positioned at the top end of the C segment, the Octavia will cost around Rs 11 lakh.
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Dr Reddy's gets US FDA nod for 2 drugs
Mumbai: Dr Reddy's Laboratories has received final approval from the US Food & Drug Administration to market enalapril maleate and hydrochlorothiazide tablets. The two drugs are generic equivalents of Merck's anti-hypertensive drug, Vaseretic. The branded product had annual sales of about $69 million in 2000.
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Glaxo, Cipla & Ranbaxy to jointly-market anti-anthrax drug
Mumbai: Glaxo, Cipla and Ranbaxy will jointly market the latter's anti-anthrax drug, Ciprofloxacin, in India.
The once-a-day Ciprofloxacin formulation is a broad-spectrum anti-bacterial dosage from Ranbaxy's novel drug delivery system research pipeline.

As per the arrangement, Ranbaxy will manufacture the drug at Paonta Sahib and supply to Glaxo and Cipla.

For marketing purposes, Ranbaxy and Cipla will sell the the product under their individual brandnames Cifran OD and Ciplox OD, respectively, while Glaxo will launch the drug under C-OD brandname.
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Crown TV makes a comeback
Ahmedabad: Crown TV, one of the oldest indigenous brands in colour and black & white television sets, has relaunched its product portfolio.

Crown TV has leveraged on its technical know-how and developed its own customised versions, through its research and development (R&D) divisions.

The new Crown TV range includes Cleopatra and Concert, both with screen size of 53.5 cm, Corona Super-DX and Clive in the 51 cm category. The other models include Cinderella and Cinderella-DX in 35.5 cm.
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CSE brokers face action
Kolkata: Nearly a dozen brokers of the Calcutta Stock Exchange (CSE), including some former directors, will face disciplinary action for their involvement in negotiated trades in August, 2000.

Financial penalty or suspension on trading, or a combination of both were among the possible punishments. The CSE management has re-opened the inspection report of these 12 brokers following the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the recent stock market scam.
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Mid-day hires PwC for revamp
Mumbai: Mid-Day Multimedia Ltd (MML) has appointed PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) as consultants for business process re-engineering.

The company has decided to move ahead in implementing its strategy of developing the 'multi-media market delivery' business model and create relationships in the market through media products.
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