Mumbai HC bars DPC from pulling out
Mumbai: Dabhol Power Company on Friday said a court had stopped it from pulling out of its beleaguered $2.9 billion power project until December 3.
The Mumbai High Court, which on Friday heard a petition against Dabhol by a group of Indian lenders to the project, prevented the company from issuing a final notice to terminate its contract with the Maharashtra State Electricity Board, a Dabhol official said.

The court order is a blow to Enron, which owns 65 per cent of Dabhol. General Electric and Bechtel own 10 per cent each, with the Board holding the remaining 15 per cent. The US energy giant's attempts to exit the project by either selling its stake or terminating the contract has become more urgent in the face of its financial troubles at home.
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Star TV to hike rates
New Delhi: Star TV will hike cable subscription rates from Rs 30 to Rs 42 per connection from January 2002. As a result, cable subscription rates across the country will go up by at least Rs 25 to Rs 40 per cable home.

Star India CEO Peter Mukerjea said, We have 38 million cable homes across the country and we receive payment for just 6 million cable homes. Because of the under declaration of subscribers by the cable operators, we have no option but to increase prices.

Star Plus has 34 per cent market share among the Hindi entertainment channel compared to Zees 12 per cent and Sonys 16.

In the news category, Star has 12 per cent market share compared to Aaj Taks 33 per cent and Zee News 23. Over all, Star has 9 of the top 10 entertainment programmes.
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Bhel bonds garner Rs 500cr
New Delhi: Bharat Heavy Electricals has mopped up Rs 500 crore through a bonds issue at an all-time low rate of 8.85 per cent.

"The seven-year bonds issue on book-building basis, which closed last evening, garnered Rs 500 crore at 8.85 per cent interest rate," Bhel director (finance) C Srinivasan said.

The issue got Rs 635 crore in bids at 8.9 per cent interest and between Rs 980-1000 crore for 9-9.5 per cent coupon rate, he said.

Punjab National Bank and Bank of Baroda are the single largest subscribers to the issue, he said adding after the issue Bhel's debt-equity ratio stands at 0.1:1. The seven-year bonds issue has a call and put option after five year.
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Tata Group ups stake in Telco to 30%
New Delhi: The Tata Group has hiked its stake in Telco from 25.35 per cent to 30 per cent. With this, DaimlerChrysler AGs holding in Telco has dropped to 7.5 per cent from 10 per cent.

Telco had launched a twin rights issue comprising fully-convertible debentures (FCDs) with a detachable warrant and a non-convertible debenture with a detachable warrant.

The company will spend the money raised from the issue over the next three years to buy new equipment, develop new car and truck models, repay loan and prepay some costly debt totalling about Rs 500 crore. The issue would also aid in reducing the firms debt-equity ratio.

The company had posted a net loss of Rs 160.73 crore in the first half of the current fiscal.
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Wipro to introduce low cost PC
Kolkata: Wipro Infotech is set to launch a PC for around Rs 20,000 in a few weeks. At present, Wipros home brand Voyager has only Intel-based models, starting from Rs 30,000. According to industry sources, soon Wipros Voyager home brand will have an AMD-based Duron 700mHz processor model targeting the low-end home computing segment.

Wipros initiative comes at a time when various industry reports suggest that, for the first in recent times, the PC market will have a negative growth in the last two quarters of this year.

Wipro Infotech has two PC models, Voyager for the home segment and Super Genius for the commercial segment.
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Rockwell Automation India to expand
New Delhi: Rockwell Automation India Ltd (RAIL) is expanding its industrial automation business in India with an outlay of Rs 35 crore over the next one year.

RAIL has also bagged the prestigious account of electrical automation of Delhi Vidyut Boards (DVB) sub-station coming up in Delhi.

The company has already invested over Rs 70 crore in setting up a manufacturing facility as well as a research laboratory at Bangalore and employs around 200 people.
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SC rejects Zydus Cadila plea
Ahmedabad: Supreme Court has summarily dismissed Zydus Cadila Healthcare Limiteds special leave petition in the contentious Superdac vs Spardac brand name case, virtually sealing the case in favour of Cadila Pharmaceuticals Limited.
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Coca-Cola launches Shock in Andhra
Hyderabad: Coca-cola India launched its energy drink Shock here on Friday. The drink was already launched in Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata. The company proposes to launch the brand in other cities in a phased manner.

The drink, which is available in 250 ml carry-away glass bottles priced at Rs 30 per bottle, is targeted at young adult.
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Emami ties up with CAB
Kolkata: Emami Group has signed a contract with the Cricket Association of Bengal for endorsing the Sona Chandi Chyawanprash brand and sporting its logo for the next two years. The value of the contract is Rs 45 lakh.

The Indian cricket team skipper Saurav Ganguly will now be seen displaying the Indian martial art Kalaripettyu from Kerala, along with Bengal boys in the latest Sona Chandi Chyawanprash campaign.
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McKinsey to set up office in West Bengal
Kolkata: McKinsey & Company will set up an office in West Bengal following state governments request. McKinsey will operate from the present premises of West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC) in the city.

Earlier, the state government had assigned McKinsey to study the prospects of two prominent sectors - food processing and information technology (IT).
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GAIL renews tie-up with Shell
New Delhi: Gas Authority of India said on Friday it had renewed an agreement with Shell International Gas to explore business opportunities.

"The two companies would continue to evaluate and identify various projects in the gas sector covering upstream, gas imports and pipelines," a GAIL statement said.

"These would include discussions on cooperation in Liquefied Natural Gas import projects and the import of gas through pipelines."

GAIL said, the strategic tie up, which has been extended for one year, included some new areas as well.

"The area of cooperation has been further enlarged to include training in the areas of gas contracting and pricing, long-term planning and gas trading practices etc."
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Citi to bring back-end ops to Mumbai
Mumbai: Citi Group is in the process of relocating the back-end operations of its Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa region consisting of 36 countries to Mumbai.

The back-end operations, which until now were based out of various locations spread across the region, are being brought under a single business group called information technology operations solutions (ITOS).
A Citigroup company, e-Serve International, will provide vendor support to the ITOS group. The data processing of Citibanks Indian operations, spread over 12 cities in India, will also be shifted to ITOS.

Citibank India has already taken up 10,000 sq. ft of space for the ITOS division at Wockhardt Towers in suburban Mumbai, a stones throw from its own India corporate headquarters.
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IDBI Bank open 100 branches by March
Mumbai: IDBI Bank has plans to expand its network to 100 branches by March next year as part of its strategy to shift focus from corporate banking to retail banking. The corporate banking would be brought down to 75 per cent and the balance 25 per cent would be accounted by retail activities, according to a senior bank official.

The bank, which had already launched phone banking and mobile banking, has now launched internet banking.
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Levis opens flagship store in Bangalore
Bangalore: Strauss (India) on Friday opened the company's flagship store here increasing the number of its exclusive outlets in India to 22. It plans to open five more stores next year.

The flagship store has a DJ enclosure, a coffee corner, web gaming and digital imaging facilities.

There are some 3,000-odd Levi's products on display. The design has been created by Checkland Kindleysides of the UK, an international firm.
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