Moody's upgrades ICICI credit ratings
Mumbai: ICICI has become the only Indian company to be assigned an international credit rating higher than the sovereign rating.

Moody's investor services has upgraded ICICI's long-term foreign currency bond ratings from Ba2 - the sovereign rating for India - to Ba1. According to Moody's, the new rating takes into account ICICI's inherent financial strength, its strong management as well as some asset quality concerns.
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HDFC net profits jump
Mumbai: HDFC Bank has beaten market expectations with a 43 per cent jump in net profits. The figure has now gone over Rs 75 crore as compared to Rs 52 crore clocked in the same quarter the previous year.

The banks income shot up by 41 per cent to reach Rs 525 crore. The earnings per share has now moved up to Rs 2.50 per share.
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Hughes Telecom reports huge losses
New Delhi: Hughes Telecom in its third quarter reported losses of Rs 37 crore, which is almost 3.5 times what it was in the same quarter last year. However, the company has made an operating profit of Rs 7 crore as opposed to a Rs 6 crore loss last year.

Total Income on the other hand has gone up by about 7 per cent to Rs 74 crore.
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IOC, Reliance mull 2-year agreement
New Delhi: Indian Oil Corporation and Reliance Petroleum are contemplating retaining the existing commercial arrangement of offtake from RPL's Jamnagar refinery for a two-year period from April 2002 after which the private sector refiner would be free to market its own products.

The two companies are actively working on a proposal that envisages retaining the present offtake by PSU marketers for the two-year 'transition' period beyond dismantling of the Administered Pricing Mechanism (APM) from 1 April 2002 

Presently, IOC sells 12-13 million tones of RPL products from its 7,549 retail outlets and 3,436 gas agencies across the country while the remaining products from the Jamnagar refinery are marketed by Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL).
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Chatterjee group to run Haldia Petro
Kolkata: Soros-Chatterjee Group, one of the major stakeholders in Haldia Petrochemicals (HPL), will take over management control of the company.

The $1.2 billion HPL project, which began commercial production on August 1, has a debt burden of about $960 million.

HPL has been in talks with Indian Oil Corporation to acquire a stake in HPL and help the project ease its massive debt burden.

The West Bengal government will buy out the stake of the Tatas and sell it to the Soros-Chatterjee group.
The Tatas have a 14 per cent stake in HPL's equity component of $240 million and both the West Bengal government and the Soros-Chatterjee Group hold 43 percent each of the equity.

Tatas stake would be bought by the state-run West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation and then transferred to the Soros-Chatterjee Group.
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Skoda to roll out Fabia
New Delhi: The Czech -based Skoda Auto is all set to launch its mid- sized Fabia priced at Rs 7 lakh in India by the third quarter of 2002.

The company is also planning to introduce a higher-end version of Octavia, Elegance, in April this year followed by Laurin and Klemen (L&K) version in October.

All the new models will be locally assembled. The auto maker is currently operating in India through a wholly-owned subsidiary Skoda Auto India Pvt Ltd.
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DaimlerChrysler India doubles profit
New Delhi: The German auto major, DaimlerChrysler has doubled its profits from India operations in 2001. The company is planning to introduce a slew of new models, including a jeep and a multi-utility vehicle.
DaimlerChrysler India makes a series of Mercedes in India including S-class, E-class and C-class Mercedes. It also sells M-class, C-class SLK and CLK-Cabrio series Mercedes by importing completely built units.
DaimlerChrysler has doubled its profits in 2001 to around Rs 41 crore over a turnover of Rs 345 crore.
DaimlerChrysler India has a manufacturing facility at Pune.
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Delphi introduces green engines for two-wheelers
New Delhi: Delphi Automotive Systems has introduced an emission management system technology which would enable two-wheelers to provide better fuel economy and clean emission levels.

The product would be displayed at Auto Expo beginning here on 15 January.

The company has reached an agreement with a domestic two-wheeler maker to supply the EMS technology.
Delphi Automotive Systems, a wholly owned subsidiary of US auto component giant Delphi, has six manufacturing facilities in India and a software development centre.
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Eicher to invest Rs 40cr
New Delhi: Eicher Motors plans to invest an additional Rs 40 crore to manufacture medium and heavy commercial vehicles slated to be launched by March this year.

The first six-cylinder commercial vehicle Eicher 20.16 is scheduled to be launched by the first quarter of 2002.
Eicher has a 34 per cent market share in the seven and 11 tonne LCV segment.

EML will display 'Eicher 20.16' truck, Eicher 20.16 Bus Chassis, Eicher 30.25 multi-axle cabin and chassis, Eicher 15.13 standard cargo body, Eicher MCB medium capacity bus and Eicher Viola passenger bus during the Auto Expo.
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Mahindras to launch Maxx City
New Delhi: Mahindra & Mahindra plans to revamp the utility vehicle, Maxx, for the urban customer. The Maxx City will have an independent front suspension. Besides, the model would have three row of front facing seats to meet the needs of the urban consumer. The Maxx City is likely to be launched in April-May.
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Ashok Leyland to launch Irizar coaches
New Delhi: Commercial vehicles-maker Ashok Leyland is set to announce its three-way coach-manufacturing joint venture later this week. The JV is a three-way alliance between Sundaram Industries, Ashok Leyland and Irizar, the internationally-reputed coach-builder from Spain. The JV will produce a variety of bus products and deluxe coaches.

The JV, in which all three partners have equal equity, was formalised 15 months ago. ALL is showcasing two of its Irizar products at the Expo: the Limo and the Limo RE.
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Telco rolls out six new variants
New Delhi: Tata Engineering and Locomotive Ltd (Telco) unveiled six new vehicles in the light, medium and heavy vehicle segments during Auto Expo here on 14 January.

The new launches include one variant in the heavy category, two medium commercial vehicles (MCVs) and three light commercial vehicles (LCVs), besides a new bus variant.

Among the new launches is LPK 2516 6X4 tipper, a LCV in two sizes with a sandwich floor option.
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Royal Enfield to launch a new bike every 6 months
New Delhi: Royal Enfield Motors plans to launch a new motorcycle every six months. The company plans to invest Rs 30 crore in two years.

The company is unveiling its 350cc 'Thunderbird' at the Auto Expo here. Priced at Rs 70,000, Thunderbird will be launched in Bangalore and Ahmedabad next month and all over the country by the first quarter of next fiscal.
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PowerGrid-Tata Power to form JV
New Delhi: PowerGrid Corporation of India and Tata Power are soon to sign an agreement for the Rs 1200-crore Tala project.

PowerGrid will have 49 per cent stake in the joint venture while Tata Power will retain 51 per cent stake as also the management control. The project would have an investment of Rs 1,200 crore with debt-equity ratio of 3:1.
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Goodyear to invest $36.4 mn in India
Mumbai: Goodyear Tire & Rubber is investing a further Rs 176 crore in its Indian subsidiary, Goodyear South Asia Tyres.

The investment will be in the form of additional equity.
Akron, Ohio-based Goodyear is the largest tyre maker in the world.

In India it has plants in Aurangabad in Maharasthra and Ballabhgarh in Haryana, which make tyres for sale both to auto makers and through the replacement market.
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Nicolas Piramal expects Rs 1000-cr turnover
Kolkata: Pharmaceuticals major Nicolas Piramal, which has recently completed its acquisition of Rhone Poulenc, is expecting its post-merger turnover to rise to about Rs 1,000 crore during current fiscal.

The company, which registered a total income of about Rs 500 crore last year, may witness a near doubling of its turnover to Rs 950-1,000 crore this fiscal.
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Shaw Wallace to set up four breweries
New Delhi: Shaw Wallace plans to set up four greenfield beer breweries with over Rs
100 crore investment. The first brewery will be set up at Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh.

Shaw Wallace already has seven fully-owned brewing units and has contractual agreements with 11 more breweries in India and Nepal. Three more greenfiled breweries are being set up in Kerala, West Bengal and Goa.
 
During 2002-03, while the greenfiled beer projects are expected to produce 2.4 million cases, the planned capacity expansion of existing breweries will add four million cases.
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AV Birla ups offer for HPCL stake
New Delhi: The AV Birla Group has upped its offer to buy out HPCLs stake in MRPL at Rs 10 a share, which is several times higher than its earlier offer of Rs 3.20.

The A V Birla Group is now interested to buy only 13.5 per cent of HPCLs stake in MRPL. HPCLs total stake in the company is 37.5 per cent.
Acquisition of 13.5 per cent stake will raise the Birlas stake in MRPL to 51 per cent from its current holding of 37.5 per cent.
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Tata Nova to launch Internet gateways
Mumbai: Tata Nova, the Internet service provider promoted by the Tata troup, will be commissioning its first internet gateway with a capacity of 34 Mbps in Hyderabad followed by another in Bangalore.
The company plans to invest about Rs 4 crore, excluding costs related to bandwdith, for this purpose.
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HCL Info launches P4-enabled server
New Delhi: HCL Infosystems has launched its latest 'Infiniti Global Line 1400 server', becoming the first in the country to ship the Pentium-4-empowered servers.

Targeted at corporates, small- and -medium enterprises, education, banking and insurance, the servers will be immediately available on the retail front.

Infiniti Global Line is high performance P4 server which enables a quick internet connection and will be used for applications like front-end, web, proxy and messaging and servers.
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