Tata, Reliance in race for VSNL
New Delhi: Tata and Reliance were in race for acquiring control of Videsh Sanchar Nigam (VSNL) as they submitted their price bids for 25 per cent of government stake in India's international communication carrier.
The race for buying out VSNL came down to just two groups, Reliance and Tata as the third bidder Sterling decided to opt out.

The financial bids by the companies were submitted to the government and a final decision on who gets to buy the company will be known on February 5.

VSNL's monopoly on international long distance comes to an end on 1 April and the government is reducing its stake in the company by 25 per cent from the existing 53 per cent.
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Tata Power joins PowerGrid in Bhutan project
Mumbai: Tata Power and PowerGrid Corporation of India will jointly invest Rs 1,100 crore to build a system to transmit power from Bhutan to Delhi.

The project involves setting up of a 1,200 km 400 kV transmission line from Bhutans 1,020 MW Tala hydroelectric project to Delhi.

The lines will carry surplus power from India's eastern grid to the power-starved northern grid.
This is the first inter-state transmission project with private-sector participation.
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BBL to increase stake in Vysya
Bangalore: Bank Brussels Lambert has approached Vysya bank to increase their stake in the equity of Vysya bank and also acquire its management control.

The management group of Vysya bank comprises G M Rao, other directors, their friends, relatives and associates.

The management group has 23 per cent stake and the International Finance Corporation 10 per cent. The balance is held by the public, NRIs and others.
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Govt to hold talks with Suzuki for Maruti sell-off
New Delhi: Government will start negotiations with Suzuki Motor Corporation of Japan on disinvestment of stake in Maruti Udyog after deciding on the strategic partners for privatisation of Videsh Sanchar Nigam and IBP Co.

The scheduled meeting of the two JV partners for 28 January has been put off in view of the disinvestment ministry officials' preoccupation with closing of the price bids for VSNL and IBP.

The negotiation with Suzuki would start a few days after February 5 when cabinet committee on disinvestment will meet to take a decision on strategic partner for IBP and VSNL.
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IndianOil net up 9.32%
New Delhi: IndianOil posted a 9.32 per cent rise in profit at Rs 568 crore during the quarter ended December 2001 against Rs 519 crore during the corresponding period last financial year.

Company's sales dipped by 10.96 per cent at Rs 28,416 crore against Rs 31,914 crore in the review period.
Income from sales and operations in April-December 2001 stood at Rs 86,788 crore compared to Rs 89,808 crore during the corresponding period of 2000.

The gross turnover also declined by 7.57 per cent to Rs 28,083 crore in Q3 against Rs 30,382 crore during the same period last fiscal.

Gross profit in Q3 rose by 28 per cent to Rs 870 crore compared to Rs 679 crore during the same period last fiscal.

Company's refineries achieved higher output at 25.03 MMT during the first nine months of the current fiscal compared to 24.73 MMT during the same period last fiscal.
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Union Bank's profit up 77.4%
Chandigarh: Union Bank of India has recorded Rs 99 crore net profit during the third quarter ended December 2001 against Rs 55.80 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year, an increase of 77.4 per cent.
The operating profit was up 63 per cent increasing to Rs 225.40 crore from Rs 138.50 crore.

The total income of the bank has shown a growth of 14.7 per cent during the nine months rising to Rs 3,345 crore from Rs 2,916 crore.

The aggregate deposits went up by Rs 3,000 crore reaching Rs 36,750 crore - an increase of 9 per cent till December 2001. The year on year growth over December 2000 was 15 per cent.

In advances the bank achieved a year on year growth of 24 per cent with total advances being Rs 20,860 crore, an increase of 15 per cent.
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3 sign confidentiality pact for DPC sale
Mumbai: Three prospective bidders for the bankrupt Enron's Dabhol Power company (DPC) have signed the confidentiality agreement to carry due diligence for the buy-out of the troubled project.

The entire process was scheduled to be completed in six to eight weeks, with the first batch of bidder proceeding to the London data room for conducting due diligence. Final bids will be invited next month.

The lenders' consortium will soon appoint a financial advisor to assist in the bidding and financial restructuring process of DPC.
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Gail plans major telecom investments
New Delhi: Gas Authority of India said it planned to invest Rs 800-1,000 crore in the country's telecom sector in the next two to three years and Rs 3200 crore by 2010.

Gail plans to spend up to Rs 300 crore in the financial year 2002-03.

The company is making these investments to lay a fibre optic cable network across the country running along its gas pipelines.

In the first phase, Gail is planning a network that will span 3,600 km and cover 36 cities. This will spread to 7,300 km and 60 cities in the second phase and to 10,000 km and 96 cities in the third.

Gail will then lease out bandwidth to others, mainly telecom service companies, from its network.
Gail has already signed an agreement to provide bandwidth to two mobile phone companies of India's Escorts group, a deal expected to fetch it Rs 5-10 crore annually for the next five years.
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Bajaj Jan bike sales zoom 91%
Mumbai: Bajaj Auto has reported a 91.04% increase in motorcycle sales at 62,665 units in January 2002 when compared with 32,797 units in January 2001.

Total two-wheeler sales were up 33.97% at 1,03,041 as against 76,913 units in the year-ago period.
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Rabo to set up rural mktg centres
New Delhi: Rabo India Finance Pvt Ltd is in talks with companies like Mahindra & Mahindra, Escorts and Rallis for setting up agri-service centres in rural areas.
The finance company is offering a 28-29 per cent return for companies investing in such centres. Thus, the investments would attain break-even in about three years.

Each of these centres could cost between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 50 lakh.

Rabo India wants the government to be a minority stakeholder in these centres and declare these as infrastructure projects.

The centre would not only store products that are consumed in rural markets but also provide information to farmers about crops, arrange credit and sell other services like insurance.
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RIL to convert Infocom debt into equity
Mumbai: The Rs 1,600 crore debt provided by Reliance Industries to Reliance Infocom will be converted into equity within the next 18 to 24 months, according to RIL managing director Anil Ambani.

"The infocom venture is a profitable project and the pay back period is expected to be within 4 to 5 years", Ambani said. Ambani said that Reliance Infocom subsidiary, Reliance Communications, would be used for basic telecom services, wireless in local loop and national long distance services.

Shedding light on the shareholding pattern of Reliance Communications, in which telecom major Qualcomm has recently acquired a 4 per cent stake for around $200 million (Rs 1,000 crore), Ambani said that Reliance Infocom holds 70 per cent stake in the company.
The rest is equally divided between Reliance Industries, employees and other promoters each holding 10 per cent.
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Sterling pulls out of race for VSNL
Chennai: Sterling Ltd pulled out of the race for a stake in the VSNL, less than two hours before the 4:00 p.m. deadline for putting in price bids.

Sterling's partners in the bidding for VSNL were two US-based firms, TyCom Ltd and Century Tel.
Sterling had asked the government for more time, until the middle of March, to enable it to finalise shareholding and share purchase agreements with the US partners, but the request was turned down.
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TVS records 48% rise in bike sales
Bangalore: TVS Motor Companys motorcycle sales had risen by 48 per cent (46,196 units) in January 2002 as compared to January 2001 (31,148 units).

Overall sales in January rose by 12 per cent (80,297 units), compared to 71,533 units in the same period last year.

Growth in revenue terms was 18 per cent due to the higher ratio of motorcycles sold.
The company will increase the production of TVS Victor to 25,000 units by March 2002.

Sales of scooters, at 9896 units, had declined by five per cent, compared to 10,435 units in January 2001. Moped sales stood at 24,205 units, as compared to 29,939 units in the same period last year.
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Dr Reddy's files complaint against USFDA
Hyderbad: Dr Reddy's Laboratories has filed a complaint against United States Food and Drug Administration seeking reinstatement of its 180-day exclusive marketing rights for Omeprazole capsules of 40 mg.

The complaint was filed in the United States district court of New Jersey.
Dr Reddy's, which had filed an abberviated new drug application (ANDA) with USFDA for Omeprazole capsules of 40 mg, the generic version of Astra Zeneca's Prilosec in February 1999, was sued by Astra Zeneca for patent infringement.

The United States district court of New York had on 31 May 2001 ruled that Astra Zeneca's patents was not infringed upon by Dr Reddy's.
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Jagson Air to expand fleet
New Delhi: The countrys smallest private airline Jagson Airlines Ltd has decided to add 13 new feeder aircraft to its fleet of three and commence nationwide operations.
The airline is in negotiations with Aviaexport of Russia for procuring the new AN38 25-seater and AN74 50-seater aircraft.

In the first phase beginning mid-February, the company plans to expand its operations to western and central Indian sectors.

In the next phase, the firm intends to start operations to smaller towns in the North East and the South.
Jagson currently operates flights from Delhi to Dehradun, Shimla, Kulu and Lucknow.
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Sahara launches magazines
Lucknow: Sahara Group announced the launch of weekly news magazines Sahara Samay in Hindi with as many as 32 editions and Sahara Time in English with one all India edition and New Delhi and Mumbai editions.

The group has already announced its palns to launch 38 TV news channels, comprising a national news channel and 37 regional news channels.
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GMI car sales rise 16.1% in Jan
New Delhi: General Motors India has recorded a 16.1 per cent rise in January sales at 648 cars over 558 cars sold in the year-ago month.

It included 115 units of the premium mid-size 'Opel Astra' and 533 units of mid-size 'Opel Corsa' and station- wagon 'Corsa Swing' cars.

The January sales were an increase of 58 per cent as compared to 410 cars sold in the previous month.
Cumulative sales (April-January 2001-02) however, dropped marginally by 2 per cent to 6,315 cars from 6,446 cars sold in the year-ago period.

GMI has targeted to sell 10,700 cars during the current calendar year. During 2001, it had sold 8,012 cars.
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PowerGrid to pump in Rs 50,000 cr by 2012
Mumbai:  PowerGrid Corporation of India Ltd has plans to invest Rs 45,000 crore to Rs 50,000 crore out of the total Rs 80,000 crore needed for the development of national grid by 2012.

PowerGrid proposes to mobilise the balance amount through an active participation of private sector in the ambitious national grid development project with a view to carrying bulk power throughout the length and breadth of the country for an optimal development of available energy resources.

PowerGrid proposes to set up the national grid in five phases. HVDC interconnections have been planned to interconnect all the four regions and subsequently, the grid would be strengthened through hybrid systems consisting of high capacity HVDC and EHVAC lines.
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Rallis starts debt recast
Mumbai: Rallis India has kicked off a major debt restructuring exercise for reducing average interest rate cost.

The company is refinancing residual period of earlier loans by raising fresh funds of Rs 121 crore to reduce part of outstanding debt of Rs 494 crore belonging to both Rallis and Ralchem, the wholly-owned subsidiary of Rallis.

The money has been raised through a combination of unsecured loans including FCNR and NCD as structured transaction. The outstanding debt of Rallis India is around Rs 428 crore which the company expects to bring down to Rs 350 crore.
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Hays to expland Indian operations
Thiruvananthapuram: Hays Document Management, the Indian arm of the Hays Plc, UK, will quadruple its operations in India. As the first step of the expansion plans, the global major in the IT enabled services domain has acquired an additional 1.4 acres of land at Thiruvananthapuram Technopark. From 750-people backoffice service-provider spread over Thiruvananthapuram and Chennai, the Indian subsidiary envisages to quadruple its business to employ 5,000 people in the next four years.
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Arena plans to set up more centres
Kolkata: Arena Multimedia has outlined plans to augment the number of Arena Animation Academy centres across the country and in select nations abroad from the present 15 to 50 by August this year.

The AAA outlets offer modular, short-term and full career courses on basic and high-end digital animation. Training is provided on 3D software such as Maya and 2D software like Amino.
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Bharti Teletech plans SMS-enabled phones
New Delhi: Bharti Teletech plans to launch phones that can send and receive e-mails and short messaging service. The company is currently working with 3-4 international design houses, including a Hong Kong-based firm, Rockway Industries, for developing the phones.

The company had last year introduced phones with caller-ID facility, and more recently, ventured into cordless phones.

Bharti has also signed up former Miss Universe Lara Dutta to promote its cordless phones.
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Hotline buys out LG in JV
New Delhi: Hotline Group has acquired the entire 50 per cent equity of LG Electronics, Korea, in their joint venture company LG Hotline CPT.

The initial investment in the joint venture to set up the first line of production facility was Rs 220 crore. The equity component of this was to the tune of Rs 90 crore which was shared 50:50 by the two entities.
The company, which manufactures colour picture tubes, clocked a net profit of Rs 3 crore in 2001.
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A-I plans Kolkata-China flight
Kolkata: Air-India plans to introduce its first ever flight to China this year from Kolkata.

It will explore codeshare opportunities with China Air, which is scheduled to commence three weekly flights to Delhi from 28 March.

The Calcutta-Hong Kong-China (Beijing/Shanghai etc) sector will be examined for its traffic potential, and if the numbers are promising, connections will be introduced.
AI will look at getting some seats on the proposed Air China flight from March through a codeshare pact since the Indian carrier will not be exercising its right to fly on this sector giving Air China a monopoly on the direct service.
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NHPC plans to hold overseas roadshow
New Delhi: National Hydroelectric Power Corporation intends to organise an exclusive roadshow to attract foreign investment for its 12 projects estimated to require over Rs 100,000 crore.

The strength of these projects will be showcased to potential foreign investors at a roadshow during the forthcoming global seminar and business meet on Non-Fossil Fuel Generation.

It is roughly estimated that the 12 hydroelectric projects across three states with 23071 MW combined capacity would require Rs 115,350 crore investment for their completion.
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L&T buys out Caterpillar stake
Mumbai: Larsen & Toubro has bought over US-based Caterpillar's entire 50 per cent stake in its joint venture, Tractor Engineers, for an undisclosed amount.

TENGL was a 50:50 joint venture between L&T and Caterpillar with a paid-up capital of Rs 6.8 crore.

Following this acquisition, TENGL has become a wholly owned subsidiary of L&T.

The company designs and manufactures crawler undercarriage systems for excavators, blast hole drills, bulldozers, amphibious dredgers and mobile crushers.
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BPL Mobile earns Rs 725-cr revenue
Mumbai: BPL Mobile has reported gross revenues in excess of Rs 725 crore for the period April-December 2001. The company's operating profit is in the region of Rs 200 crore for the same period.

BPL Mobile expects to touch Rs 1,000-crore revenue by March 2002 with an operating profit of Rs 240 crore for financial year 2001-02. This would represent a 37 per cent growth in revenue and 72 per cent growth in operating profit respectively over the previous year.

BPL Mobile has added nearly 5,70,000 gross subscribers during this period and expects to touch 8,20,000 by March 2002.
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