Coca-Cola director assaulted
New Delhi: Coca-Cola India director Vinay Kapoor was attacked by a group of unidentified assailants in Greater Kailash II on Wednesday night.

He has been admitted to the Indraprastha Apollo Hospital with multiple fractures and has already undergone a surgery. His driver was also seriously hurt.

Kapoor had dropped off Natasha Singh, estranged wife of Jagat Singh, son of Congress leader Natwar Singh. His Opel Astra had gone some distance from Natasha's house when it was stopped by some men who remain unidentified. The interceptors smashed the car's windscreen and pulled out Kapoor and his driver from the car, attacking them with sticks.
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ITDC eyeing new areas
New Delhi: India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) is trying to cut its losses, looking to convert its divisions into business units and seeking a foothold in new areas of business.

The ITDC is approaching state governments with offers to take up projects, trying to get into event management and hopes to get into marketing trains and private hotels. It is seeking a toehold in the construction business, looking at food plazas on railway stations, motels and fast food joints at petrol pumps, even joint ventures in restaurants abroad.
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Wipro to acquire US firm
Mumbai: Wipro has decided to acquire the US-based consulting company, the Management Network Group at an estimated $80 million.

TMNG is a provider of strategy, management, marketing, operational and technology consulting services to the telecommunications industry. TMNG has more than 500 consultants and its client list includes AT&T, Intelsat, Bell Atlantic, Quest Communications and MCI Worldcom, among several other blue-chip telecom majors.The acquisition will be an all-cash deal.
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Hughes, Motorola sign 3G solutions pact
New Delhi: Hughes Software Systems has teamed up with U.S. telecoms giant Motorola to provide advanced third generation (3G) mobile data platforms.

Hughes said in a statement that its software used with Motorola's platforms would help equipment makers save time and money in deploying next generation mobile data solutions.

Infosys, co-founded in 1981, was the first Indian firm to be listed on the Nasdaq.

Carlos Ghosn, Nissan CEO, tops the list followed by Gates, Microsoft CEO, and the richest man in the world.

The others to figure in the list include AOL chairman Steve Case, and AOL CEO Jerry Levin along with the media moghul, Rupert Murdoch of News Corp.
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Kale consultants bag $2m order from Air Luxor
Mumbai: Kale Consultants has bagged a $2-million contract from Lisbon-based Air Luxor.

Kale will provide outsourced revenue accounting processing service to Air Luxor, the company informed the Bombay Stock Exchange here on Thursday.

Kale would implement the order by using an imaging technology, which ensures that the documents need not be sent by the customer airline to India, it said.

Air Luxor would retain coupons in Lisbon for reference purposes, but electronically transferred to the APC via the company's management centre based in UK, it added.

Kale had secured its first order from Qatar Airways for outsourcing of various services including revenue accounting, recovery services, deal management among others, the company added.
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Kiwis in talks with TCS, Wipro, Infosys
New Delhi: New Zealand is in talks with three leading Indian IT companies - Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro and Infosys for strategic alliances and setting up of development centres.

While TCS is considering setting up a high end software development centre in New Zealand, talks with Wipro are on for strategic alliances for software in finance, banking, health and gaming. Talks are on with Infosys for e-governance.

TCS already has a office in New Zealand with over 100 programmers working with a major insurance company tower insurance.
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BILT to hike stake in Crompton Greaves
New Delhi: Ballarpur Industries is keen to increase its stake in Crompton Greaves India.The total promoter holding in CGI as on 30 September this year was 43.79 per cent, of which Indian promoters held 28.36 per cent while the foreign promoters has 13.75 per cent of the company's equity whereas 1.68 per cent was held by persons acting in concert.

Thapars effectively hold 43 per cent stake, since they hold pre-emptive rights over the 13 per cent stake of CGI's UK-based partner Invensys.
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ABCL plans IPO
New Delhi: The Amitabh Bachchan Corporatin Ltd is all set to launch an initial public offering in 5 months time.

"We have already started the groundwork and the public issue will mark its debut in five months," according to AB Corp director and Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh.
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IFCI file suits against 100 defaulters
New Delhi: IFCI has filed legal suits against 100 erring companies while engaging specialised agencies to recover non-performing assets which stood at about Rs 3,937 crore till March 2001.

The FI, which plans to bring down its NPA level from over 20 per cent last fiscal, has stepped up recovery efforts for bringing down NPA to less than 10 per cent in 2-3 years.

IFCI, whose outstanding loan assistance to industry stood at Rs 19,953 last fiscal, was saddled with a net NPA of Rs 3,937 crore.

IFCI had to make a higher provision of Rs 252 crore for bad debts as against Rs 74.4 crore during first half of 2000-01, which resulted in a Rs 441.49 crore loss during April-September as compared to Rs 31.1 crore profit during the same period last fiscal.
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SBI interconnects ATM in 9 cities
Chandigarh: State Bank of India on Thursday completed the inter-linking of 149 automatic teller machines located in nine cities across the country.

The networking of ATM services in Chandigarh with eight other cities of Chennai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Pune, Bangalore, Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai was inaugurated by Punjab governor J F R Jacob here on Thursday.

The ATMs in Bhopal, Bhubaneshwar, Guwahati, Lucknow, Patna and Thiruvananthapuram would shortly be networked on all India basis to provide ATM banking facilities to the customers at any of these places.
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Tatas give up on Air-India
New Delhi: The Tatas have decided to give up their bid to take over Air-India.

In their letter to the disinvestment ministry, the Tatas have said they have been unsuccessful in bringing together a consortium, and cited the ongoing slowdown in the aviation industry following the September 11 attacks on the US, as the main reason.

The Tata group is reported to have informed the divestment ministry that it has been actively evaluating various options to bring together another consortium after the withdrawal of Singapore International Airline (SIA) in September this year.
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AmEx in talks with Tatas
Mumbai: American Express (AmEx) is in talks with Tata Finance (TFL) to buyout the latters stake in their joint venture, Tata Finance-AmEx (TFL-AmEx). TFL and its affiliates have 74 per cent stake with AmEx holding the remaining stake.

TFL-AmEx had started out with a paid-up capital of Rs 15 crore. The company is in the money changing and forex services business and operates in both the retail and the wholesale segments.
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Polygenta to make CTV for LG
Pune: LG Electronics India Ltd (LGEIL) has tied up with Nashik-based Polygenta Technologies Limited for contract manufacturing of colour television sets.

Polygenta has a capacity to manufacture 1.5 lakh CTVs per annum of which LG would be utilizing around 30 per cent.

The company will start manufacturing TV sets for LG from December 15.
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Shaw Wallace begins recast
Mumbai: Shaw Wallace, the second largest alcoholic beverages company, has begun its second phase of restructuring. This entails merging all the manufacturing subsidiaries of the company into two entities: Maharashtra Distilleries and SKOL Breweries.

The company also plans to sell off its other non-core businesses, gelatine and agro-chemicals.

The company had roped in McKinsey for sharpening its focus on core areas of liquor and beer.
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Fedex set to expand operations
New Delhi: Fedex has decided to expand its operations by entering into four new segments - automobiles, pharmaceuticals, engineering and gems and jewellery segments - for its freight services. The four new sectors will represent a new dimension on segmentations of Indian express cargo shipments as manufactured exports are yet to take off with garments and perishables dominating the scene till now.

The company, which operates a 310 freighter daily into the country, is hopeful of posting an above industry average growth rate.

Fedex, which launched its operation in India in 1997, has its own sales office in the country across five cities with 180 people mainly in sales and marketing.
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APL to raise fund privately
Hyderabad: The Rs 1,000-crore Aurobindo Pharma Ltd (APL) has proposed to raise finances through private placement route to part finance the ongoing expansion programme. The company has communicated to the stock exchanges on Thursday that its board is meeting on December 13 to discuss the issue.

The company has drawsn up a plan to rationalise its manufacturing facilities, involving closing down some of them, relocating a few and expanding some of them
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MusicWorld, Coke join hands
Kolkata: MusicWorld of the RPG Enterprises and Coke have decided to jointly undertake promotion of their brands in India.

The agreement involves use of MusicWorld stores as a launch-pad for Coca-Colas new products amongst a focused consumer target group.

Coke, on its part, has agreed to carry MusicWorld hoardings on the back of its trucks and also provide support in print media. Coke will also participate in all new MusicWorld store launches as well as engage in tactical promotions.
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Reliance, BSNL forge pact
New Delhi: Reliance Telecom has signed a three-way interconnect agreement with Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) over sharing of the revenue from long-distance calls made in all the 18 circles where it holds licences to offer basic telecom services.

As per the agreement, revenue from calls made on the Reliance network to the long distance charging areas will be split on a 30:40:30 basis. While the originator of such calls (Reliance) would keep 30 per cent, the national long distance carrier (BSNL) would have 40 per cent and the terminating service provider (either BSNL or Reliance) the remaining 30 per cent.

The agreement stipulates that Reliance would be able to bill and keep all the calls made in the short distance charging area, but would have to surrender the revenue on the basis of the three-way-formula in the case of calls being forwarded to the long distance areas.
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Maruti may hike prices
New Delhi: Maruti Udyog Ltd is raising car prices, most likely from January 2002. The price hike could be of the order of 2.5-3 per cent.

Maruti had undertaken a similar exercise in January 2001 and also in May, attributing the reason for price hike on increase in input costs.

Maruti has been able to buck the automobile industry trend of declining sales by selling 1,90,049 cars in April-October as against 1,79,040 cars sold in the same seven months of last year.

Maruti's price hike could prompt other car manufacturers to do a similar exercise if the past is any trend to go by.
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Nestle to make ice-cream
New Delhi: Nestle India Ltd is soon to make foray into the domestic ice-cream market. Nestle SA recently bought over Haagen Daz, the Swiss major's ice-cream venture, which has been doing robust business in China.

The company needs to stabilise its milk business before going the whole hog in the ice-cream sector in India.

The company has already begun negotiations with Vadilal for manufacturing and marketing ice-cream.
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Overdrive lists Alto as Best Car
New Delhi: Maruti Suzuki Alto has been declared as the car of the year at the annual awards conducted by Overdrive, an automobile magazine.

Alto was adjudged the best car based on affordability, performance and packaging. The others in the race included Wagon R, Fiat Siena, Baleno and Indica V2. In the bike segment, Bajaj Kawasaki Eliminator was adjudged the bike of the year for its technology, performance and pricing.

The best scooter of the year went to Honda Activa on account of its superior design quality and indigenous components.

Ford Mondeo and Bajaj Pulsar were declared as the most exciting new entrants in their respective categories.

For the second consecutive year, Toyota Qualis won the utility vehicle of the year award.
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MICO board okays buyback
Mumbai: The board of directors of Motor Industries Co Ltd (MICO) has approved a buyback of up to 2,00,000 equity shares of the company from its shareholders at a price of Rs 2,500 per share.

The buyback will not exceed 5.87 per cent of the existing paid-up capital of the company. It will be on proportionate basis throughtender order as per section 77A(5) of Companies Act, 1956 andRegulation 4(1) of the Regulations.

The board has fixed 7 January for the purpose of determining the shareholders holding shares in physical form whose names appear in the register of members of the company and those whose names are borne in the records of NSDL/CDSL as beneficial owners as on that date.
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Hertz ties up with Citibank, HSBC
New Delhi: Car renting company Hertz is resuming its Indian operations after a two-year break and has tied up with HSBC Bank and Citibank. From January, these banks will promote Hertz and inform their card holders about Hertz.

Carzonrent is now the master franchisee for the $5-billion Hertz International, the worlds leading car rental company and owned by auto giant Ford Motor Co.

Carzonrent, by virtue of being the master franchisee, has the powers to appoint sub franchisees anywhere in India.
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Lalbhais double stake in Arvind
Mumbai: The Arvind Lalbhai family has almost doubled its direct holding in flagship Arvind Mills to over 35 per cent.

The Lalbhai family held around 17.4 per cent in the company prior to the rights issue. Friends and associates of the family held another 3.1 per cent.

Arvind Mills had raised Rs 75.45 crore through the 3:4 rights issue at par, following which the post-issue equity capital jumped to about Rs 176 crore.

Prior to the rights issue, GDR holders held 6.9 per cent in Arvind Mills, IFC, Washington, held 6.9 per cent, UTI and other mutual funds together held 4.3 per cent, while other financial institutions had a 9.5 per cent stake. The public holding in the company stood at around 55 per cent.
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HLL seeks media link-ups
Mumbai: Hindustan Lever is looking at alliances with media companies.

The company is in the process of striking broad alliances with electronic media groups such as Star TV and Zee, but would not take equity in them. The company has ruled out launching its own TV channel.
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