Ceat signs pact with AP firm
Mumbai: Tyre major Ceat India has signed a memorandum of understanding with Hyderabad-based Ace Tyres, formerly Excel Tyres, to market its entire production at a pre-determined price.

Ace Tyres is setting up a new plant with a capacity of 1 lakh tyres per month, which is expected to be operational by July 2002. It can later be increased to a capacity of 2 lakh tyres.

At present, Ceat has a combined capacity of 1.4 lakh tyres in the two- and three-wheeler segments, manufactured in its two plants in Kerala. With this move, its capacity will increase up to 2.40 lakh.

According to the MoU, Ceat will provide raw materials and technical support to Ace Tyres which will manufacture the product under Ceats supervision.
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Dabur India to launch new products
New Delhi: Dabur India Ltd has decided to launch a range of new products in the next five months. These include Dabur Sat Isabgol and anti-cancer drug Vinelvine in the domestic market.

Three new products in healthcare and personal care will be launched by the end of this fiscal. Dabur is planning to develop some of its brands like NatureCare as a separate umbrella brand for premium family and healthcare products.
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MRTPC exonerates Hindustan Lever
New Delhi: MRTPC has dismissed a complaint filed against Hindustan Lever Ltd (HLL) for allegedly increasing prices of its products Glucon-D And Nycil.

Observing that Director General (Investigation & Registration) in its investigative report had already conceded that HLL cannot be faulted for pricing of Glucon-D, MRTPC chairman CM Nayar and member RK Anand said: The trade practice cannot be accepted as a restrictive trade practice unless its adverse effect on competition is specifically demonstrated, which the DG has failed to do in this case.
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Exide puts JV with Jungfer on hold
Kolkata: Exide Industries Limited has postponed its joint venture plans with Jungfer AG of Austria and Nitol Group of Bangladesh for setting up new plants.

The company had expected to finalise the Austrian JV by October, 2001 for setting up a Rs 30-crore plant in Maharashtra to manufacture polyethelene separators for the domestic lead acid battery industry.
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Tatas hike stake in Tata Power
Mumbai: The Tata Group has hiked its holding in Tata Power to 32.36 per cent as on September 30.
The equity held by FIs and FIIs in Tata Power has also steadily increased to 36.19 per cent as on September 30, from 35.15 per cent on April 1. The remaining equity stake is held by mutual funds and the public.

In fact, a year ago, the merger announcement had come as a surprise to many industry watchers, despite the fact that Tatas had contemplated a merger of its three power companies under the TEC (Tata Electric Companies) umbrella for many years.
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Swedish parent to hike SKF Bearing holding to 71%
New Delhi: The $5-billion Swedish engineering major SKF is taking a rather long-winded route to increase its stake in SKF Bearing India from the existing 51 per cent to 71 per cent.

The company plans to increase holding in its Indian arm by subscribing to the unsubscribed portion of its proposed rights issue.

SKF Bearings will soon be launching a simultaneous but unlinked offer of equity shares and non-convertible debentures. The company is coming out with a rights issue of Rs 50.29 crore. The shares will be offered to the existing shareholders in the ratio of four equity shares for every five shares held.
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IA to cancel 56 flights
New Delhi: Indian Airlines expects to save Rs 3 crore by cancelling about 56 flights and clubbing eight flights in a week from its schedule. IA operates more than 250 flights a day.

Flights on Bangalore-Mangalore, Bangalore-Coimbatore, Hyderabad-Doha, Mumbai-Vadodara and Mumbai-Cochin have been knocked off the schedule for now.

A lone flight between Leh and Chandigarh and two late night weekend flights between Delhi-Mumbai have also been dropped.
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Home Store to seek venture capital funding
Chennai: Home Store (India) Ltd is seeking Rs 300-crore venture capital funding for its expansion programme. The company, which has a chain of 16 Home Store outlets plans to set up 150 new stores over the next five years with a view to entering additional retail formats like hypermarkets, apparels, discount stores and supermarkets.

At present the company has five stores in Delhi, one store each in Jaipur and Ludhiana, two stores in Bangalore. The company plans to launch 30 stores Mumbai, Kochi, Coimbatore, Kolkata and other metros in the next one month. The company is also planning to open stores in Sri Lanka, Nepal and Dubai.
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Recron Synthetics declared sick
New Delhi: The Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR) has declared Recron Synthetics Ltd a sick company. BIFR observed that the company will not be able to make its networth positive on its own and appointed IDBI as the operating agency to examine the viability of the company as well as to formulate a scheme for its revival.

The BIFR has directed the company and its promoters to submit their comprehensive rehabilitation proposal with means of finance fully tied-up along with the audited balance sheets for the last five years duly approved by the company's board of directors.
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LIC MF to pay 3.5%
Mumbai: LIC Mutual Fund (LIC MF) has declared a dividend of 3.5 per cent under two of its open ended debt-oriented schemes -- LIC MF Bond Fund and LIC MF G-Sec Fund.

The record date for dividend under both schemes is fixed at November 7 and book closure on November 8. LIC MF said that the two schemes would declare an ex-dividend net asset value (NAV) from November 9 onwards.
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Tatas decide to outsource group PR
New Delhi: The Tatas have decided to outsource public relations services to Vaishnavi Corporate Communications.

Vaishnavi will handle public relations for 12 Tata group companies including Tata Sons, Tata Industries, TCS, Tata Engineering, Tata Finance, Tata Steel and Tata Tea.

Earlier, the group had appointed Media Edge as an agency on record to act as the sole media buying agent for group companies.

Vaishnavi has been promoted by Nira Radia, who is also the chief executive of the company. Radia is also the managing director of Crownmart International India Pvt Ltd. Radia is reported to have advised the Tatas in their proposed foray into the aviation sector.

However, the Tata group's corporate affairs department will continue to handle the promotion of the Tata brand, website, intranet, internal communications and the in-house magazines.
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Tata Elxsi, IBM tie up for digital solutions
Mumbai: Tata Elxsi and IBM have formed a strategic partnership for providing total solutions to the digital content creation industry.

Tata Elxsi will be responsible for the integration, networking, service and support of the customers, whereas IBM would be the exclusive hardware solutions provider in the alliance.

Tata Elxsi is one of the country's premier systems integrator in the digital content creation market and is also the distributor for some of the most popular softwares used.
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