RIL, RPL merger on cards
New Delhi: The board of directors of Reliance Industries and Reliance Petroleum will meet on 3 March to consider an amalgamation of RPL, the country's biggest private sector refiner, with RIL.

The amalgamation will be subject to necessary approvals including those of the board of directors and requisite majority of the shareholders of both RIL and RPL, as also sanction of the high courts at Mumbai and Ahmedabad.

The combined entity will be the single largest company in India with a combined turnover of over Rs 55,000 crore.
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Hero Honda sales up 44% in Feb
New Delhi: Hero Honda Motors sold 126,617 motorcycles in February, up 44.5 per cent from the same month in 2001.

The firm sold 87,616 motorcycles in February 2001.

Sales in April-February, the first 11 months of this financial year, grew 38.27 per cent to 1,289,838 units against 932,781 in the year-ago period.
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HLL to pass on tax benefits to consumers
Kolkata: Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) will pass on to the consumers the benefit of reduction of excise duties on various products, including tea.

The company welcomed the reduction of special excise duty on personal hygience products, like skin creams and shampoos. The duty reduction on tea from Rs two to Re one per kg from the garden teas is also a positive step, the company said.
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Bajaj Auto Feb sales up 29%
Mumbai: Bajaj Auto sold 114,274 vehicles in February, up 29 per cent from a year earlier.

Motorcycle sales surged 120 per cent to 62,584. Bajaj said its share of the fast-growing motorcycle market stood at an estimated 23.5 per cent last month, up from 16.6 per cent a year earlier.

Its geared scooter sales fell 21 per cent last month to 29,844 but its ungeared scooter sales rose 9.6 per cent to 4,561 units.
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Maruti launches special edition of Maruti 800
New Delhi: Maruti Udyog has launched a special edition of its highest selling model Maruti 800.

Called Maruti 800 Special, the car has attractive body graphics, body coloured bumper, body-coloured grill, new instrument cluster and would come in two variants - Standard and Deluxe.

The Maruti 800 Special Standard has been priced at Rs 2.31 lakh, about Rs 6,800 more than the existing Maruti 800 Standard.

The Deluxe version would cost Rs 2.79 lakh, about Rs 5,130 more than the current Maruti 800 Deluxe model.
The special edition will have two new colours.
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UTI Bank to issue preferential shares to LIC
Mumbai: The board of UTI Bank has decided to allot 1.35 crore equity shares of Rs 10 each to LIC, GIC and four subsidiaries of GIC at Rs 39.04 per share on a preferential basis.

The move is to garner capital for future expansion plans and reduce the promoters holding to 40 per cent as per Reserve Bank of India norms.

The bank would allot 36.55 lakh shares on a preferential basis to LIC, while GIC and its four subsidiaries including New India Assurance would get 19.80 lakh shares each at a price of Rs 39.04 per share.

The board also approved a proposal to issue 60 lakh zero coupon fully convertible debentures (of Rs 100 each) to AIG India sectoral equity fund.

These debentures would be converted into one lakh equity shares of Rs 10 each at a fixed price of Rs 60 per share by 30 June 2002.
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UTI invests Rs 1700 crore in Essar group
New Delhi: UTI invested about Rs 1700 crore in various Essar group companies including Essar Steel and Essar Oil since July 1990, as part of consortium financing.

UTI disbursed a total of Rs 1520.13 crore to various Essar Group companies like Essar Steel, Essar Shipping, High Grade Palets, South India Shipping Corporation, Essar Power and Essar Oil, minister of state for finance Balasaheb Vikhe Patil told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply.
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Indian Hotels borrow Rs 300 crore
Mumbai: Indian Hotels Company has completed its Rs 300 crore planned borrowing programme.

The funds were raised for the company's modernisation and expansion programme, to reduce existing high cost of borrowings and to provide funds for new acquisitions, IHCL informed the Bombay Stock Exchange.

The company said Rs 100 crore were raised in the form of secured bonds with 9.75 per cent per annum interest rate redeemable at par at the end of five years.

The balance amount of Rs 200 crore was raised through secured bonds with six per cent per annum interest rate redeemable at a premium of 25 per cent at the end of five years with put options at annual intervals with graded redemption premia.
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General Motors sales rise 14.1% in Jan
New Delhi: General Motors India said its car sales have increased by 14.1 per cent in February to 800 units from 701 units sold in the same month in 2001.

The January sales were also higher by 23.4 per cent compared to 648 cars sold in January this year.

GMI sold 650 units of the its station-wagon 'Swing' and mid-size car 'Corsa' during the month while the premium mid-size 'Astra' accounted for 150 units.
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IDL, Gulf Oil set to merge
New Delhi: The board of directors of IDL Industries and Gulf Oil India have decided to merge. The merger of the two companies will consolidate the IDLs presence in the chemical sector.

Gulf Oil India enjoys a market share of over 5 per cent and has an all India distribution network with a modern state of the art manufacturing facility at Silvassa. It is the second largest lubricants company in the private sector.

IDL Industries Limited is a leader in the commercial explosives and initiating devices market in India since 1961 and has recently started mining services on a large scale.

The merged entity will have a turnover of over Rs 400 crore and will have a strong financial base and availability of resources.
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Unicef, Premji trust tie up
Bangalore: The United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) and Azim Premji Foundation would collaborate to support universal education in India.

Unicef and the Azim Premji Foundation would launch a joint programme in Karnataka and subsequently collaborate in other parts of the country.

The joint education programmes and interventions would include formulation of advocacy efforts that relate to the quality of education with a focus on girls' education and would also seek to galvanize the private sector to support initiatives in elementary education.
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Uniglobe-Ritika Modi tie-up
New Delhi: Uniglobe is set to tap over Rs 3,000 crore unorganised travel industry by providing them branding and marketing solutions.

The Canada-based Uniglobe has tied up with Ritika Modi to expand its franchisee network in South Asia.

Uniglobe, which has three franchisees in Delhi and Mumbai, will be adding four more by end of this year.
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Aventis CropScience to sell holding to DBK
New Delhi: Aventis CropSciences is exiting DBK India Technologies, makers of electrical mosquito repellents, selling its 24 per cent stake in the company to majority shareholder DBK Holdings. Aventis will sell its entire holding comprising 24,000 equity shares at Rs 50 a piece.

The Indian shareholder in the company, the Coimbatore-based PL Chemicals, has also decided to sell its holding of 25 per cent to the Amsterdam-based DBK Holdings.
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Andhra Bank cuts home loan rates
Hyderabad: Andhra Bank has announced a reduction in interest rates on housing loans.

For loans up to Rs 5 lakh, the interest would be 11.25 per cent and above Rs 5 lakh and up to Rs 10 lakh, the interest has been fixed at 11.50 per cent.

The special features include extension of finance for up to 90 per cent of the cost of the house/flat, interest on daily reducing balance and scrapping of co-obligation/guarantee and processing charges for loans up to Rs 10 lakh.
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Radico Khaitan to enter African market
New Delhi: Radico Khaitan is all set to begin bottling of its liquor brands in Africa. The company has tied up with a local player there for bottling.

Initially, bottling will only be for the 8PM brand of whisky. However, the company will also begin bottling for Contessa rum at a later stage.

Radico Khaitan plans to focus on brand building activities once production is underway. Other than Africa, the company is also studying other markets for similar tie-ups.
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Meridien to enter Jaipur
New Delhi: The Meridien group plans to have a presence in Jaipur within the next 18 months. The group is discussing with a hotel in Jaipur for a management tie-up.

The group is also looking at the possibility of a hotel in Agra so as to have a presence in each of the three cities of the Golden Triangle, which is popular with foreign tourists.
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Berger acquires ICI's stake in JV
Kolkata: Berger Paints India Ltd recently acquired from ICI Ltd, its 50 per sent shareholding in Berger Auto & Industrial Coatings Ltd, a 50:50 joint venture unit set up by both the companies in May 2001. The ownership and management of Berger Auto Industrial Coatings Ltd now rests entirely with Berger Paints India.

The acquisition would add to Berger's strengths in the industrial paints segment and help leverage its own technological base in the field along with the manufacturing strengths of Berger Auto & Industrial Coatings. Among the customers of Berger Auto are Fiat, Tata Engineering, HM, Hero Honda, Bajaj Auto and Punjab Tractors.

The company also has a technical collaboration with DuPont Performance Coatings GmbH, Germany, in the area of cathodic electrocoats, primer surfacers and automotive topcoats.
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Huawei plans to invest $30 m
Bangalore: Huawei Technologies plans to invest $30 million in India.

The employee strength of the company would go up from 505 to 850 in 2002.

The company invested a total of $363 million in R&D last year.

In 2002, the R&D drive will be towards all optical IP-based network development and wide commercial applications of the 2.5G and 3G mobile solutions.
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