Dynegy Inc to buy Enron for $8 billion
Houston: Dynegy Inc. is in negotiations with Enron Corp to buy the energy-trading company for about $8 billion in stock.
If the deal comes through, Enron would receive an immediate $1.5 billion cash infusion from oil giant Chevron Texaco, which holds a 27 per cent stake in Dynegy, the New York Times reported on its website.
Chevron Texaco would provide an additional $1 billion injection at a later date, the Times reported, while Dynegy would assume $12.8 billion in Enron debt, plus billions of dollars in other debt that has been kept off the beleaguered company's balance sheet and has been a significant contributor to its current problems.
Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay would not be given any formal management position in the combined company, although he would have a seat on its board, The Wall Street Journal reported. The boards of both companies were in a meeting since Wednesday.
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MTNL lists on NYSE at 2.5 per cent premium
New Delhi: Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltds American depository receipts on the New York Stock Exchange got off to a start on Thursday at an opening quote of $5.90, a 2.5 per cent premium to closing quote of 138.15 on the Bombay Stock Exchange. Within the first 45 minutes of the listing, 31,000 MTNL ADRs were traded on the NYSE floor.

"The first lot of 500 ADRs was traded at $5.90," MTNL chairman and managing director Narinder Sharma told reporters. Sharma said MTNL may even tap the US market through an IPO at a later stage.

MTNL had 11 percent of its equity capital in the form of global depository receipts (GDRs) and that entire tranche has been converted to ADRs.

MTNL became the ninth Indian company and the second Indian telecom company after VSNL to get listed on the NYSE.

Shyamal Ghosh, Telecom Commission chairman, said that the move would strengthen the Indian telecom sector.
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DaimlerChrysler to stay away from Telco rights issue
Mumbai: DaimlerChrysler, which has a 10 per cent stake in Tata Engineering, will not participate in the Tata majors Rs 978-crore rights issue which closes on Friday.

Some of the financial institutions, which collectively have a little over 21.8 per cent stake in the company, have also decided not to participate in the rights issue.

The Tatas had earlier said they were willing to pick up the unsubscribed portion of the rights issue.

Currently, companies, mutual funds and trusts have a combined 5.17 per cent stake in the company, while non resident Indians and foreign companies (including DaimlerChrysler) collectively have a 18.79 per cent stake.
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Tata Tele, Hughes merger off
Mumbai: The proposed merger of Tata Teleservices and Hughes Tele.com India is off, the Tata company will transfer its basic telecom operations in Andhra Pradesh to Hughes.

The Tatas had earlier contemplated merging Tata Teleservices and Hughes Tele.com.

Tata Teleservices currently holds the licence for four more circles other than Andhra Pradesh and letter of intents for three more, while Hughes operates the Maharashtra circle.

The Tatas and Hughes are exploring the possibility of launching a common basic brand.
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ABB plans mass market products
New Delhi: Asea Brown Boveri Ltd (ABB) is all set to enter the mass market products like low-voltage switches, fuses, circuit breakers and wiring accessories.

These products will be sold under the ABB brand and will compete with upmarket brands like Crabtree.

According to the ABB chief, the company will initially import these products from other group companies abroad.

In another initiative, ABB is getting into annual maintenance contracts with its customers. For this, ABB is setting up a call centre which will provide on-line help to customers.
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Indo Rama in pact with Accenture
New Delhi: Indo Rama Synthetics (India) has entered into a contract with consultancy firm Accenture India for outsourcing its information technology (IT) activities.

This will be Accenture's first contract in the country by which the entire IT-related work of a domestic company is being outsourced.

"The contract will result in improving the management efficiency of the supply chain, cost reduction due to process re-engineering and an improved interface with customers and suppliers," O P Lohia, managing director, Indo Rama, said.

Indo Rama owns about 20 per cent of the market share in the polyester industry. It reported a turnover of Rs 1,986 crore during 2000-2001.
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Hutchison puts IPO on hold
Mumbai: Hutchison Whampoa has put its initial public offering (IPO) plans on hold because of the sluggish primary market conditions.

Hutchison had planned to offer equity to the Indian public through a maiden float in early 2002.

In the holding company, Hutchison was to hold the controlling stake, while other major stakeholders would be the Essar group, Hindujas and other strategic investors.
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Indian Airlines projects Rs 250 crore loss
New Delhi: Indian Airlines has suffered a loss of Rs 250 crores in the current fiscal mainly due to the global recession in airlines industry, social commitments of the airline to serve inaccessible areas without profit consideration and the higher insurance cost after the LTTE attack on Colombo Airport recently.

Indian Airlines chairman and managing director Sunil Arora said: "The only silver lining is that we have managed to stabilise our domestic market share at 56 per cent up from a low of 42 per cent in 1999. We still have the larger share of a shrunken cake."

Arora allayed fears of any retrenchment to cut cost, stressing that the policy was to redeploy the staff as a few offices were being shut.
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Sterlite emerges as front runner for HZL
New Delhi: Sterlite Industries, which bought Balco six months back, has emerged as front runner for government's 26 per cent stake in Hindustan Zinc amidst speculation that it was the sole bidder, price bids for which closed on Thursday.

Cabinet Committee on Disinnvestment will meet on November 10 to decide on the bids for HZL, ITDC and Hotel Corporation.

Government will offload 26 per cent stake in zinc major to a strategic partner thereby diluting its stake to 49 per cent from the current 76 per cent.
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Jet reduces fares
New Delhi: Jet Airways, which announced introduction of additional capacity in certain sectors effective this month, has reduced its fares on some routes including Delhi-Thiruvananthapuram and Mumbai-Kolkata.

The new fares would be restricted for travel till December 31, the airline spokesman said here.

While the business class fare for Delhi-Thiruvananthapuram has been reduced by Rs 1,300, the Mumbai-Kolkata economy class fare has been reduced from Rs 6,740 to Rs 6,540.

The economy class one-way fares on Mumbai-Chennai sector have gone down from Rs 4,790 to Rs 4,590 and on Mumbai-Hyderabad sector from Rs 4,025 to Rs 3,825.
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Sahara adds new flights
New Delhi: Air Sahara on Thursday announced increase in the daily frequency of its Delhi-Mumbai flight from two to five each way besides giving customised flights, fares, menus, reservations and check- in facilities to travellers.
The airline also added a flight between Delhi and Kolkata and one between Delhi and Lucknow, an Air Sahara statement said here.
The customised travel programme would enable the traveler to make his own combinations of travel plans from various options made available.
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Bharti Healthcare plans expansion
New Delhi: Bharti Healthcare on Thursday said it would invest Rs 9 crore over the next three years to expand its facility for hard-gelatine capsules in Haryana, and would consider setting up a new facility in the western region after 2004.

Bharti Healthcare manufactures hard gelatine capsules and is presently supplying to Indian and foreign pharma players such as Pfizer, Glaxo, Cipla and Ranbaxy amongst others.
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Wipro in outsourcing agreement with Corio
New Delhi: Wipro technologies on Thursday announced an outsourcing agreement with US-based application service provider Corio.

"Wipro would help Corio establish a joint development centre to extend Corio's application service provider services," a company release said here.

Wipro technologies has focussed ASP business division which offers a range of services targeted at ASPs.

These services are specifically targeted to meet the requirements of an ASP for security, billing, infrastructure management and application integeration services.

Corio delivers enterprise ASP solutions over a secure network for a fixed monthly fee.
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L&T to sell glass unit
Mumbai: Larsen & Toubro is in negotiations with the US-based glass major, Owens Corning, to sell its glass unit at Nashik.

L&T has been scouting for a buyer for the glass unit for quite sometime. The company currently markets the glass containers manufactured at its Nashik unit which has been set up in technical collaboration with Vetropack of Switzerland.

The local subsidiary of Owns Corning has manufacturing facilities in Pune, Pondicherry and Rishikesh. Owens Corning, which is mainly into glass and material systems, has annual sales of $5 billion worldwide.
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MM Rubber unit for sale
Chennai: MM Rubber, a Chennai-based manufacturer of rubber products, has put its bi-axially oriented polypropylene film unit on the block. The company has started negotiations with domestic as well as overseas packaging majors for the sale of its unit at Vellore, Tamil Nadu.

The plant, with a capacity of 800 tonnes, was the first of its kind in the country. Marshall & Williams, the companys US-based equipment supplier for the BOPP unit, is now negotiating the sale with a few overseas players on behalf of MM Rubber.
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IFC to invest up to $20m in Continental Carbon
Mumbai: International Finance Corporation (IFC) is planning to invest up to $20.5 million in Continental Carbon India Ltd (CCIL) to support the growth of the carbon black industry in India.

The IFC is providing a $9 million long-term loan for its own account and has mobilised an additional $11.5 million in syndicated loans from Raiffeisen Zentralbank Oesterreich, Bayerische Hypo-und Vereinsbank AG and BNP/Paribas.

CCIL is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the US-based Continental Carbon Company of Houston, Texas, one of the world's leading carbon black producers and technology providers.
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Mudra shuts down market research division
Ahmedabad: Mudra Communications has shut down its 17-year-old market research (MR) arm.
Mudra had changed the name of its market research arm from SAMIR (Scientific Analysers of Market Information and Research) to Indian Consumer Research Group (ICRG) in 1996 and simultaneously shifted the division's headquarters from Mumbai to Ahmedabad.
But the location shift had adverse effect on the revenues which started slipping from Rs 2 crore in 1996 to untenable levels.
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