Zee, Turner joint venture close at hand
New Delhi: The board of Zee Telefilms will meet on 13 December to consider a joint venture with Turner International, a group company of AOL-Time Warner. The proposed joint venture will market and distribute channels of Zee, Turner and third parties. While Zee operates 15 TV channels, Turner India manages CNN, HBO and Cartoon Network.

AOL-Time Warner had expressed interest in entering the Indian market both in media and internet space.
Zee has a country-wide distribution arm in the form of Siticable.
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GM mulls introduction of trucks into India
New Delhi: General Motors Corp is contemplating entering the commercial vehicle market in India. This is inspired by growth in medium and heavy trucks sales over the past few months. M&H truck sales have witnessed a 5.4 per cent growth in the first eight months of the current fiscal to 43,264 units. Telco, the countrys largest truck maker itself recorded around 10 per cent surge in sales during the period.

GM is likely to look at the fully built unit import route initially for introducing the commercial vehicles in India.
The company is also considering introducing a series of models through the completely built unit route in India. These include Saab, Cadillac and the new-generation Vectra.
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IDBI plans to cut costs
New Delhi: IDBI is exploring the introduction of voluntary retirement scheme as part of its efforts to cut costs by 30 per cent.

The cost cutting exercise comes in the wake of financial strain that the FI is undergoing due to the ongoing recession resulting in the reduction of net profit by 47 per cent to Rs 207 crore last half.

IDBI's total expenses increased by about 4.0 per cent to Rs 7,100 crore last fiscal from Rs 6,833 crore in 1999-2000, while total income dipped to Rs 7,835 crore from Rs 7,860 crore resulting in reduction in its profitability.

IDBI plans to bring down its total expenses to about Rs 5,000 crore while striving to increase its income to post a net profit this fiscal.
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Cadbury to fully acquire Indian arm
Mumbai: Cadbury Schweppes has offered to buy the remaining 49 per cent stake in Cadbury India at Rs 500 per share. Cadbury Schweppes currently owns 51 per cent of the Indian company and the offer price is about three per cent higher than Cadbury India's current market price.

Shares of Cadbury India surged 4.7 per cent to Rs 495 immediately after the announcement.
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Marks & Spencer enters Delhi, Mumbai
New Delhi: Marks & Spencer, the $8-billion UK-based clothes retailing giant, which owns 302 stores in the UK and operates 131 franchise outlets in 30 countries, has made its entry into India.

The company has opened a store in Ansal Plaza in Delhi and at Crossroads in Mumbai in partnership with Planet Sports India. The retailer is already looking at issues of supply chain and setting up hubs. The sourcing for India will be from M&S Worldwide.
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Hyundai mulls Kia SUV
Chennai: Hyundai Motor is evaluating a couple of sport-utility and multi-utility vehicles from its parent and Kia Motors for its next launch.

The company was looking at Kia's 2.0 litre Sportage SUV and Hyundai's H-1 multi-purpose vehicle as possible choices for either direct import or local assembly.

Hyundai, which currently builds and sells the mid-sized Accent, Sonata sedan and the Santro 1.0 litre hatchback cars in India, expects to decide on the new utility vehicle model by end-February or March.
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DPC investors to meet in Singapore
Singapore: Dabhol Power will attend talks in Singapore this week with foreign and domestic creditors about its troubled power project in Maharashtra.

Representatives from Dabhol and its lenders will meet Thursday and Friday to assess the future of the 2,184-megawatt power project, India's biggest single foreign investment.

Enron wants to sell its 65 per cent controlling stake in the $2.9 billion power project because the plant's sole customer - the Maharashtra State Electricity Board - has failed to pay its bills and the Indian federal government has not honored payment guarantees.
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Net4India to apply for ILD licence
New Delhi: Internet company Net4India plans to apply for international long distance licence and has started talks with domestic financial institution and global voice carrier companies to raise part of the funds needed for licence fee and bank guarantee.

Net4India is also looking for a partner for call origination and termination in case of international subscriber dialling service.

The company is consolidating its data centre business by finalising an investment plan of Rs 30 crore over the next 18 months.

The company has two gateways in Chennai and Delhi providing 45 mbps apart from leasing from VSNL.
Net4India has data centres in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad and Chennai.

It also has plans to set up internet data centres in Ahemdabad, Kolkata and Chandigarh.

Net4India is also a domain name registration company.
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NIIT bags Financial Times award
New Delhi: NIIT has bagged the Outsourcing Contract Of The year award by Financial Times' business publication The banker.

The outsourcing contract of the year award was given for its partnership with financial service organisation - ING Group, a company release said.

"The award was given in recognition of NIIT's capabilities in legacy technologies and platforms that provides the key to its partnership with ing," it said adding that ING had outsourced a series of major projects to NIIT since 1999.
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StanChart launches online banking
Mumbai: Standard Chartered Bank on 11 December launched its global Internet-banking service.

The new customer delivery channel would provide comprehensive round-the-clock banking services ranging from fund transfer transaction to real-time financial information in a secure environment, a bank release here said.

India is the third country to go live after the successful launch in the group's largest markets of Hong Kong and Singapore as part of the global roll out of the Internet banking brand, the release said.
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TCS sets up regional hub in Singapore
Singapore: Tata Consultancy Services has consolidated its Asia-Pacific operations by setting up a regional headquarters in Singapore. The Asia-Pacific region contributes nearly 10 per cent of global revenues and it expects overall customer billings to exceed US$1 billion by the end of March 2002.

Girija Pande has been appointed as the regional director overseeing offices in Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam, Australia and New Zealand.

Customers in Singapore, where TCS has had an office for 20 years, include Singapore Airlines, Citibank Asia Pacific and Standard Chartered Bank.
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Tarapore panel against UTIs trading positions
Mumbai: The Tarapore committee has suggested several steps to clean up the Unit Trust of India and favoured an in-depth examination of whether UTI should take trading positions in the market. The panel recommended that the internal audit of UTIs accounts should be undertaken by external auditors.

The panel said it is necessary to consider a single trustee company and three separate and distinct asset management companies (AMCs) with firewalls between the trustee company and the AMCs. The panel wants its report to be made a public document so that the investing public has a correct perspective of its findings and recommendations.

The panel was against UTI taking risky trading positions in the market, given its predominant share of the mutual funds business.
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Bio-Rad plans manufacturing base in India
New Delhi: Bio-Rad Laboratories, the $850-million California-based manufacturer of life science research products and clinical diagnostics, plans to shift part of its manufacturing facilities from the US to India. The company is looking at manufacturing select diagnostic kits in India for the domestic market as well as for the Asia-Pacific region.

Bio-Rad will initially look at setting up manufacturing facility for diagnostic kits for diabetes, thalassemia, other infectious diseases, HIV and some life science research tools.
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Thomson to set up 15 retail outlets
Chennai: Thomson Multimedia India Pvt Ltd is planning to add 15 Techno Shoppes across the country to bring to the customer the entire range of consumer electronics products of the company.

The company proposes to open 15 fully owned Techno Shoppes, across the country by December 2002. The company currently has outlets in Calcutta, Chandigarh, Ahmedabad and Chennai. Thomson would be investing Rs 20 lakh per outlet.

These Techno Shoppes would offer the entire range of products of the company right from audio and television to top of the line products.
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Bharti Tele ups SkyCell stake
Mumbai: Bharti Televentures has hiked its stake in SkyCell Communications, the Chennai cellular services operator, to 89.5 per cent by buying out Millicom International Cellular of Luxembourg and BellSouth International of the US for Rs 353 crore. Millicom and BellSouth held 24.5 per cent each in SkyCell.

Bharti has made huge investments in SkyCell after it acquired management control in the company last year. Its purchase of the equity stake held by Crompton Greaves was followed by a prolonged legal battle between Bharti and BellSouth over whether the other shareholders should have been consulted. The dispute was later settled out of court.
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Parry Agro to be delisted
Chennai: The Rs 3,900 crore Murugappa Group has decided to delist its tea plantations firm, Parry Agro Industries from all the stock exchanges, following its move to buy-back the floating stock in the market.
Parry Agro is listed on Bombay Stock Exchange, Madras Stock Exchange and Cochin Stock Exchange. The stock on Tuesday at BSE closed at Rs 49.40.
Parry Agro has decided to acquire the shares at Rs 70 per share.

The promoters currently hold about 77 per cent stake in Parry Agro, while the balance is with the financial institutions and retail investors.
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