HDFC Bank to open office in Dubai
Dubai: HDFC Bank will open a representative office in Dubai shortly.

The office will canvass corresponding banking business and market NRI business products in the UAE.

HDFC has a customer base of 5,500 people in the Gulf who have taken housing loans totalling Rs 400 crore since 1996.
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Tata is top Indian-owned brand
New Delhi: Tata has emerged the top Indian-owned brand in A&M magazine's Top Brands survey. It is ahead of other homegrown brands such as Nirma, HMT, Godrej, Fevicol, Dabur, Amul, Hero, SBI and Bisleri.

Among Indian and foreign-owned brands in India, however, Tata ranks third behind Colgate, the leader, and Dettol. The fourth and fifth spots have been bagged by Hindustan Lever soap brands, Lux and Lifebuoy, respectively.
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Air Sahara to launch fare auction
New Delhi: Air Sahara is launching an air ticket auction scheme, under which customers can bid and buy tickets on all its metro flights.

Passengers need to log onto the Sahara website 15 days before the scheduled flight and bid for a limited number of seats. Ten days before the flight the top 20 to 30 bidders will be offered tickets at their bid price. The company will, however, earmark a reserve price for the bidding.
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Fitch India shifts HQ to Mumbai
Mumbai: Fitch Ratings India has shifted its headquarters to Mumbai from Kolkata. Fitch has presence in all the four metros of the country.

The rating agency, which has been operating in India for more than four years now, is increasing its staff as well. It is putting in place a separate team for rating "structured finance obligation".

In the US, Fitch has 100 per cent market share as far as the structured finance rating is concerned.

In the first week of November 2001, Fitch International had picked up the 67 per cent stake of the Indian promoters in Fitch Ratings India and converted it to a fully owned subsidiary of the US giant.
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Ghais to up stake in ice-cream JV
Mumbai: Ravi and Gaurav Ghai are in talks to buy out the 40 per cent stake of their joint venture partner, Allied Domecq, in the Maharashtra Dairy Products. The Rs 17-crore company markets the Baskin Robbins range of ice-creams.

The Ghais sold their Kwality brand to Hindustan Lever in 1994 and set up the joint venture with Allied Domecq the same year.

Ghais will pay Rs 8 crore for Allied Domecq's stake.

After the deal is completed, Maharashtra Dairy Products will be a 100 per cent licensing operation for Baskin Robbins. While it will continue to receive technical know-how from Allied Domecq, it will pay 2-3 per cent royalty on sales.
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Wella AG to have 100% subsidiary
Mumbai: Wella AG, the German haircolour cosmetic company, is buying out J L Morison India's holding in European Hair Cosmetics India.

J L Morison had entered into a 26:74 joint venture with the German firm to market the Wella brand in India. Raghu Mody holds a 60 per cent stake in J L Morison.

As much as 80 per cent of J L Morison's turnover is from the Nivea brand, which it has licensed from the German company, Beiersdorf AG.
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GKN retains open offer bid at Rs 55
Mumbai: GKN Plc, along with GKN Automotive GmbH, has made an open offer to acquire 4,458,800 fully paid-up equity shares of Rs 10 each of GKN Driveshafts (India) Ltd at Rs 55 a share.

The last date for revision of offer price was 22 February, but the acquirers have not revised the price, which continues to remain at Rs 55. The open offer closes on 5 March.
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BG to to raise investment to $1.3 bn in India
New Delhi: BG Group will raise its investment in India from $500 million now to over $1.3 billion in the next 3-5 years in exploration, production and liquefied natural gas business.

British Gas has planned an investment of $550 million in putting up an LNG import terminal at Pipavav port in Gujarat and more than $300 million in oil and gas exploration.

Besides, BG would be investing over $300 million as its share in expansion and development of Panna-Mukta and Tapti fields over the next 3-5 years.
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A-I to post Rs 30cr profit
New Delhi: Air-India is eyeing ending the current fiscal with a net profit of around Rs 25-30 crore.
A-I officials attributed the profits this year to high non-operative income, an across-the-board 10 per cent fare hike and an increase in seat load factor for most months and lower ATF price.
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IPCL bid date on 25 Feb
Ahmedabad: The union government would be freezing the bid date for 26 per cent sale in the Indian Petrochemicals Corporation Ltd (IPCL) on 25 February.

The inter-ministerial group would be meeting on 25 February to decide on a bid date for the IPCL stake.
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MGM to get Sical distillery for Rs 41 cr
Bangalore: South India Corporation (Agencies) Ltd (Sical) is on the verge of exiting its spirits business with a likely sale of its distillery to the Chennai-based MGM Group for around Rs 41 crore.

The company's distillery division is located at Villupuram in Tamil Nadu, and has a monthly capacity of 1.85 lakh cases.

The sale of the distillery is in keeping with Sical's overall restructuring plan of ridding itself of unrelated debt which arose as a result of a series of mergers within the MAC group.
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Leyland readies SCM project
Chennai: Ashok Leyland is set to complete its supply chain management project that links its main manufacturing centres with the vendors.

The project aims at connecting the three truck producing facilities with Ashok Leyland's component suppliers. Later, the dealers would also be linked.

The link-up will make it easier for Ashok Leyland to draw up its schedules and place indents.

The software for the project was developed by Hinduja TMT, an associate company of Ashok Leyland.
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Getit Yellow Pages becomes Getit Infomediary
Coimbatore: Getit Yellow Pages has been rechristened as Getit Infomediary Ltd (GIL).

From being essentially a directory publisher, Getit Infomediary will now focus on its role as an information provider.

GIL proposes to turn itself into a complete information provider in the coming months which will increasingly lay emphasis on B2B, especially to bring the buyers and sellers together.

GIL would come out with new B2B products over the next few months and certain innovative tools through its directory publications.

GIL is also planning to revamp its Getit Yellow Pages telephone directories through B2B and B2C splits for Chennai and Bangalore.
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Mecon bags deal to upgrade WBSEB
Kolkata: Mecon has bagged an assignment from the West Bengal State Electricity Board (WBSEB) for the renovation, modernisation and up-rating of stage-1 and capacity augmentation of both stage-1 and 2 of the Jaldhaka hydro electric project situated in Darjeeling district.

The capacity augmentation will be done by adding one more 9 MW unit to stage-1 and one 4 MW unit to stage-2.

Mecon is currently providing consultancy for executing the renovation and modernisation of unit-3 and 4 of the Hirakud power station of Orissa Hydro Power Corporation.
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Gesco plans housing project
New Delhi: The Rs 400-crore Gesco Corporation plans to start a mega housing project of 561 units with an estimated investment of Rs 125 crore.

The project will take five years and will be completed in four phases. The first phases of 144 units will come up in the next 24 months. Gesco recently merged with Mahindra Reality, the real estate arm of the Rs 5,000-crore Mahindra & Mahindra group.

The project will be spread over 14 acres of land adjacent to DLF Golf course in Gurgaon and name of the apartment will be Central Park. It will have central amenities such as gymnasium, swimming pool, squash court and landscape.

Gesco has appointed Rajender Kumar & Associates and SAA Partnership of Singapore as architects for this project.
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Alps Ind plans foray into retail market
New Delhi: Home furnishing company Alps Industries plans a major foray into the retail market by setting up eight to 10 outlets for fashion accessories and antique furniture in seven metro cities in the next two years.

The seven cities are Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad.

The total investment on each outlet is estimated to be Rs 4 crore, which includes the cost of land.
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