IT searches HCL investment companies
New Delhi: Income tax authorities searched premises of some companies of the HCL group for alleged bunglings in share transactions with some overseas corporate bodies in Mauritius.

The action by the IT department was a limited one and confined to only seven premises of the company in the capital. Mauritius is considered to be a tax haven for money laundering.
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ICICI net rises 1.27%
Mumbai: ICICI reported a net profit rise of 1.27 per cent in the October-December quarter from a year ago.

ICICI posted a net profit of Rs 2,56.15 crore in the December quarter compared with Rs 2,52.93 crore a year ago.
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Tisco Q3 net falls 73%
Mumbai: Tata Iron and Steel Company reported a 73 per cent drop in October-December net profit from a year earlier.

Tisco reported a net profit of Rs 34.54 crore, down sharply from Rs 127 crore recorded in the year-earlier quarter.

Sales rose 1.8 per cent to Rs 1,902 crore.
The company made a profit from the sale of long-term investments in the October-December quarter of Rs 3.23 crore versus nil a year earlier.
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Tata Power Q3 net below forecast
New Delhi: Tata Power Company unveiled a sharply lower-than-expected 5.9 per cent rise in earnings for the December quarter.

The companys net profit rose to Rs 108 crore in the October-December third quarter, from Rs 102 crore a year earlier. Sales rose 4.8 per cent to Rs 930 crore.
Tata Power generates thermal and hydro-electric power and distributes electricity across Maharashtra, including its capital Mumbai.
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GujAmbuja Q2 net up 76%
Mumbai: Gujarat Ambuja Cements net profit rose 75.6 per cent in October-December from a year ago.
The firms second-quarter net profit was Rs 57.16 crore compared with Rs 32.55 crore a year earlier. Net sales were Rs 399 crore against Rs 341 crore last year.
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Max New York Life launches new products
New Delhi: Max New York Life has launched three more products and two riders, taking the total to eight products and nine riders in the country.

The three new products included children endowment at 18 years, children endowment at 24 years and endowment to 60 years, apart from payer benefit rider and five-year term renewable and convertible rider.
The children endowment products would be offered in two variants of 18 and 24 years along with a payer benefit rider, which at a nominal charge, provided for waiver of future premiums upon death or disability of the parent or guardian paying the premium.
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HDFC Mutual declares 6.75% dividend
New Delhi: HDFC Mutual Fund has declared a 6.75 per cent annualised tax free dividend for its liquid fund under the weekly dividend option.

The per-unit dividend under the scheme works out to Rs 0.012195 for the week ended 21 January.
The scheme, launched in October 2000 as an open ended scheme, has assets worth Rs 1308 crore in its kitty.
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Apollo demerger approved
Chennai: An extraordinary general body meeting of the Apollo Hospitals Enterprise has approved the demerger of Apollo Mumbai Hospital and the Apollo Hospitals Enterprise.

The scheme of demerger was before the High Court of Madras whose sanction was awaited for proceeding with further formalities of the demerger.
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Colour-Chem Q3 net at Rs 56 lakh
Mumbai: Colour-Chem has posted a net profit of Rs 56 lakh for third quarter ended December 2001 compared to net loss of Rs 80 lakh for the same period last fiscal.

Net sales for period under review were down to Rs 75.72 crore as against Rs 82.83 crore in same period last year.

The marginal fall in turnover was due to lower exports on account of sluggish demand in the global market.
For nine months ended December 2001, the net profit stood at 8.14 crore (Rs 6.36 crore) while net sales were at Rs 248.72 crore (Rs 260.67 crore).
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Varun Shipping Q3 net down 14.95%
Mumbai: Varun Shipping Company reported a 14.95 per cent drop in its net profit to Rs 2.55 crore during the quarter ending December compared to Rs three crore in the same period last fiscal.

Total income for the quarter was up marginally to Rs 53.21 crore (Rs 51 crore).

The company is evaluating various proposals for ship acquisition and hopes to take maximum advantage of recent drop in prices of second hand vessels in the international market.
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Isagro to hive off distribution setup in JV
Mumbai: Isagro (Asia) Agrochemicals is planning to hive off its distribution set up into a joint venture by roping in a multinational corporation as partner.
The JV would remain subsidiary of the Isagro Asia.
Isargo Asia will be made hub for product development and sourcing crop protection formulations for the Asian region.

The Italian parent has strength in fungicide and hebicides and IAPL would focus on these two areas for product development and business expansion in domestic market.
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PrairieComm opens software centre
Bangalore: Mobile phone software company PrairieComm has launched an Indian software centre and plans to invest up to $10 million in three years.
The centre would start with 20 engineers, increasing to 50 by the end of the year.

Telecoms equipment maker Lucent Technologies is one of the investors in PrairieComm, which supplies software based on a diverse range of cellular telephone standards to handset makers.
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Nokia 2001 net profit falls 63%
Helsinki: Nokia posted a 63 per cent decrease in its fourth-quarter net profit.

Nokia earned 450 million euros ($398.7 million) in the three months ended December 2001, compared with 1.2 billion euros in the same period the previous year.
Net profit for the year was 2.2 billion euros ($1.9 billion), down 44 per cent from 3.9 billion euros in 2000.
Revenues for the fourth-quarter fell to 8.7 billion euros ($7.7 billion) from 9.2 billion euros the previous year. But they rose 3 per cent to 31.1 billion euros ($27.6 billion) for the year.

Nokia said global phone sales in 2001 were around 380 million and that it increased its market share for the full year to 37 per cent.
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Toshiba launches multi lingual speech software
Tokyo: Toshiba has developed a software that can understand voice commands in eight languages for use in car navigation systems and cellphones.

Toshibas version of speech recognition microchip can handle American and British English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch or Chinese.

The software could also be made to respond to verbal commands to select music in the car.
A Japanese-language only version, called Lala Voice, cost 16,000 yen ($119) when it was introduced in October 2000 for installation on personal computers.
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Crisil predicts bleak future for VSNL
Mumbai: Videsh Sanchar Nigam's share of India's international telecom market will plunge by as much as half after April, when its monopoly ends, a research report issued by Crisil said.

New York Stock Exchange-listed VSNL's market share will plummet by 45 to 50 per cent over the following three to four years, Crisil Advisory Services and PA Consulting Group said in a press release.

Indian international phone traffic is expected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 10 per cent over 2003-2010, more than doubling to about 7.5 billion minutes from 2.69 billion minutes.
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E & Y appointed global advisers for HMT selloff
New Delhi: The government has appointed Ernst & Young as global advisers for the privatisation of Hindustant Machine Tools (HMT).

The ministry of heavy industries & public enterprises, which is the administrative ministry for HMT, is carrying out its privatisation.

The advisers have invited expressions of interest from private parties and will soon start the process of shortlisting.

The government is selling 74 per cent of government equity in the tractor business to a joint venture partner. It is also offloading majority stakes in other businesses of HMT.

At present, the Centre holds a little more than 91.56 per cent shares of HMT.
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SmartTrust to set up unit in India
New Delhi: Finland-based SmartTrust is planning to set up a subsidiary in India within the next four months.

SmartTrust is in talks with mobile service operators like Essar, Airtel and MTNL to sell its delivery platform 5, which is an open platform for deploying mobile services applications.

In India, the company is sharing the development facilities of mobile solutions providers like Cellnext, Sycom, Pune-based iSolv and ICICI Infotech.
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Birlas to take control of MRPL
Mumbai: Hindustan Petroleum has agreed to cede majority control of MRPL to the AV Birla Group.
The HPCL board is said to have accepted the AV Birla group's offer for increasing its stake in MRPL with some modifications.

The HPCL board has decided that MRPL should issue additional shares to the Birla group at Rs 10 per share, thereby allowing it to hike its stake to 51 per cent.
While the board has given its consent to the Birlas for gaining management control of MRPL, it has refused to enter into any take-or-pay agreement with MRPL for selling its products.

HPCL intends to retain at least 26 per cent in the joint venture company after MRPL issues additional shares. Currently, it holds 37.5 per cent.
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Jhawars to exit UMTL
Kolkata: The Jhawars of Usha Martin Group will sell their 5 per cent minority stake in Usha Martin Telecom, which operates the Command cellular network in the city.

The Jhawars may extract a shade above Rs 24 crore from the remaining UMTL's stakeholders Hutchison and Kotak Mahindra to completely exit from Command.
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Tatas to infuse Rs 100cr in TFL
Mumbai: The Tata group will infuse another Rs100 crore by March in Tata Finance Limited to beef up the capital adequacy ratio of the company.

Till date, Rs 100 crore has been chipped by Tata Industries into Tata Finance, by way of deposits.
The CAR of the company is at a meagre one per cent, against the Reserve Bank of Indias stipulated requirement of 12 per cent.
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Glenmark Pharma finds new diabetes drug
Mumbai: Glenmark Pharmaceuticals claims to have discovered a new drug that could control diabetes and obesity.

The dual-acting compound showed promise in reducing glucose levels in diabetics and burning fat by targeting a specific receptor in the body.

The new agent is in early experimentation stages, and it could take years before it could be proved on humans..
The company expects to commence phase one of human trials by the second half of this year in Europe.
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P&G to launch new perfumes
Mumbai: Procter & Gamble plans to launch an array of global fragrance brands for men and women.

Among the perfumes is the LaCoste brand. This line will include various perfumes and fragrances and will actually mark the return of LaCoste fragrances after a four year gap. P&G had recently acquired the LaCoste brand in fragrances and the highly expensive, old and natural Jean Patou line.
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Tata Honeywell Q3 net profit up
Mumbai: Tata Honeywell has posted a 120.22 per cent rise in net profit at Rs 1.96 crore for the third quarter ended December 2001, compared to Rs 89 lakh in same period of previous fiscal.

Total income in the reporting quarter was lower at Rs 40.64 crore as against Rs 60.79 crore in Q3 of last year.
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Rediff Q3 net loss widens
Mumbai: Rediff.coms October-December net loss widened from a year ago, but narrowed sharply from the previous quarter.

Its loss was $1.47 million compared with $0.82 million a year ago and $8.82 million in the July-September quarter.

Revenue rose to $6.26 million from $1.75 million a year ago and compared with $6.08 million in the previous quarter.
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Tata Elxsi plans expansion
Bangalore: Tata Elxsi Ltd has forayed into overseas market for the high-margins multimedia services, while consolidating itself in the e-design space.

The company expects an overall growth of 15 per cent with a 30 per cent increase in exports in the current year. The company has set up a design centre at Technopark, Thiruvananthapuram with an investment of Rs 10 crore. It intends to add some 60 design engineers to the existing team of 150 professionals to carry out design and development activities. The company expects nearly 50 per cent of its revenues from the overseas operations to come form the design and development operations.
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Tetley premium launched
Mumbai: Tata Tea Ltd has launched the Tetley brand in the premium segment of the Indian tea market.

Packed in blue and gold-coloured international toptainer format for the 250-gm and 500-gm categories, Tetley tea currently sold in Mumbai, Delhi and Vijayawada, will also be available in packets of 500 gm, 250 gm, 100 gm and 50 gm, besides in tea bags.

It is priced at Rs 58 per 250-gm pack, compared to Taj Mahal's price of Rs 57.50 and Society's price of Rs 53 for the same pack size.
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Silverlink bags Lodhi hotel
New Delhi: The Singapore-based Silverlink Holdings, which owns the Aman group of luxury hotels, is making its debut in India by bagging the India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC)-owned Lodhi hotel in Delhi.

The company has bagged the hotel for around Rs 70 crore.

Silverlink holdings, which is promoted by Adrian Zecha and Shroeders, has 12 luxury properties comprising 430 rooms spread across Europe, Africa, Asia and North America.
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