UB pins hopes on 330-ml pints to boost sales
Bangalore: United Breweries (UB) Ltd sees nearly 10 per cent of its sales coming from pints within three years. The company took the first step amongst the domestic brewers to aggressively push 330 ml pints at a competitive price to rev up beer volumes. Kalyan Ganguly, President, UB Ltd, said pints were one of the reasons for the company's impressive growth in the last two financial years. UB closed 2002-03 with sales of 30.5 million cases, up from 26 million cases. The total beer consumption in the country during the year was estimated at around 82 million cases. The company's 17 per cent jump in volumes was higher than the industry average of 12 per cent.
Back to News Review index page  

Travancore Rayons revival — HC grants one-month time to submit report
Kochi: The State Government has been given time up to June 5 to take a final decision on the proposal to revive Travancore Rayons Ltd (TRL), which was ordered to be wound up by the BIFR (Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction) in April last. On a request made by the State Government, the Kerala High Court had granted one-month time for submitting its report on the revival package, official sources said.
Back to News Review index page  

Mirc Elec meet on May 29 to consider bonus
Mumbai: The board of directors of Mirc Electronics is scheduled to meet on May 29 to consider the adoption of annual accounts for the year ended March 31, 2003, and to recommend dividend and the issue of bonus shares, according to the company. This is the first time that the company will be issuing bonus shares since going public in 1992. The manufacturer of the Onida brand of TVs, Mirc Electronics, recently diversified into air conditioners, and the impact of that will be reflected in the current financial year, the company added.
Back to News Review index page  

DHL Danzas ties up with Lemuir group
Mumbai: DHL Danzas Air and Ocean, the logistics arm of Deutsche Post World Net, and the international freight divisions of the Lemuir group have joined hands to form a joint venture, DHL Danzas Lemuir Pvt Ltd. The joint venture will commence commercial operations from June 1. According to Snehal Parikh, managing director, Lemuir group, the joint venture will offer air and ocean freight services, integrated intercontinental services including international transportation along with customs clearance, warehousing and distribution provided in cooperation with Lee & Muirhead Ltd, the ocean and freight logistics arm of the Lemuir group.
Back to News Review index page  

MRF mulls Rs 200-cr testing track
Chennai: MRF Ltd is looking at setting up a Rs 200-crore testing track near Chennai, according to reliable sources. The company is believed to have approached the Government to help it acquire the land required for setting up this facility. The facility is expected to come up in an area of about 1,000 acres to test the tyres that MRF manufactures. At present, MRF sends tyres to Europe for testing and it generally takes at least four months to get the results and carry out the necessary changes and send them again for testing. Apart from the time involved, the cost is also huge, the sources say.
Back to News Review index page  

Majors eyeing 26 per cent Godavari Fert stake
Hyderabad: The South African fertiliser major Fosker Ltd, an Israeli consortium of companies of Rotem Amfert Negev Ltd, and a Tunisian company Groupe Chimique Tunisian are among six major firms which have evinced interest in the strategic divestment of 26 per cent stake in the State-owned Rs 994- crore Godavari Fertilisers and Chemicals Ltd (GFCL). The Principal Secretary to the Andhra Pradesh Government Public Enterprises Department and Chairman of Implementation Secretariat (IS), Deepak Kumar Panwar, said that this development is significant considering the ongoing plans to divest the stake worth Rs 32- crore of the State Government in GFCL.
Back to News Review index page  

Dr Reddy's board meet on May 30
Hyderabad: The board of directors of Dr Reddy's Laboratories Ltd, the Hyderabad-based pharmaceutical major listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), will meet here on May 30 to discuss and take on record the audited financial results for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2003. In a communiqué to stock exchanges, the company said the board would also consider declaration of dividend for the year under review at this meeting.
Back to News Review index page  

Telco April sales surge 55 per cent despite truck stir
Mumbai: Tata Engineering & Locomotive Co Ltd (Telco) on Wednesday said that total vehicle sales in the domestic market rose 55 per cent to 14,979 units in April 2003, against 9,660 units sold in April 2002. The company, in a press release, said that incoming material and outgoing dispatches at the Jamshedpur, Pune and Lucknow plants were impacted due to the transport strike, which lasted for over 10 days. The company said commercial vehicle sales rose 9.3 per cent to 7,048 units in April 2003, against 6,447 units sold in April 2002. Medium and heavy commercial vehicles (M&HCV) sales at 4,539 units remained flat, while LCV sales at 2,509 units were up 33.2 per cent over last April sales. The passenger car business recorded total sales of 7,931 units in April 2003, a jump of 147 per cent over 3,213 units sold in April 2002.
Back to News Review index page  

Ispat to start energy project after PFC nod
Mumbai: Ispat Industries Ltd (IIL) is all set to put up its energy project - Ispat Energy Ltd - in the next 14 months once it receives Power Finance Corporation’s (PFC) nod. IIL director (finance) & secretary Anil Sureka said that ICICI has sent its approval and now all that was left was PFC’s approval on the matter which should take three to four months. He also said that Ispat is steadily working towards corporate debt reconstruction which is on in full swing. He said that Ispat Energy is a project that is being revived. "Work has begun on this project. Currently, the sea work is being carried out at the site and at the same time we are talking to the lend-ers," he added.
Back to News Review index page  

Guinness UDV uncorks flavoured vodka with Smirnoff Citrus twist
Mumbai: Guinness UDV, a part of international spirits major Diageo Plc, has unveiled its first flavoured vodka -- Smirnoff Citrus Twist-- in the Indian market. The company plans to launch another three variants of flavoured vodka during this year. Guinness UDV managing director Amar Raj Singh said, "Our business focus is to align Indian business in line with Diageo and focus on premium international brands. Smirnoff Citrus expands Smirnoff’s product portfolio to pave way for the brand’s growth in India. We have set a target of achieving 2,00,000 cases of vodka by this year." With this, the company unveils a new dimension in flavoured drinks in the country. The Citrus Twist preludes the launch of other Smirnoff Twist flavours in the country. Globally, the product is available in Raspberry, Orange and Vanilla flavours.
Back to News Review index page  

India Cem debt restructuring gets clearance from CDR cell
Chennai: It was welcome news for a company which was driven to the extent of curtailing despatches on account of working capital constraints. Southern cement major India Cements Ltd’s (ICL) corporate debt restructuring (CDR) programme, effective from January 1, 2003, has got the necessary approvals from the Corporate Debt Restructuring Cell constituted as per the guidelines set by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). This development is expected to considerably ease ICL’s working but the success of the programme would however hinge on the ability of the companyand its lenders to identify buyers for its assets such as Visaka Cements and other non-core businesses such as sugar. The CDR package involves restructuring of its operations lock, stock and barrel. Among other things, ICL will have to introduce Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS), sell assets, restructure debt including working capital facilities.
Back to News Review index page  

Samsung launches ‘BuildurPC’
Pune: Samsung Electronics India Information & Telecommunication Ltd (SEIIT) is graduating from components to vending full-fledged personal computers. It launched sub-brand, ‘BuildurPC’ (BUPC), in the Maharashtra market and will be launching it across the country in the next three months. The commercial launch comes after nine months of test marketing across the country during which SEIIT sold 23,000 units. The PC segment is also expected to drive its component business in the country. BUPC aims at leveraging SEIIT’s strength in the PC components and peripheral business and combine it with the advantages delivered by a local level assembler with affordable manufacturing and logistics support. SEIIT has invested $500,000 in the project and is slated to invest an additional $500,000 on expanding the reach and awareness of the brand, BUPC- SEIIT country manager Princy Bhatnagar said.
Back to News Review index page  

Graphite India net down 1 per cent
Kolkata: Graphite India Ltd on Wednesday posted a net profit of Rs 33.39 crore for the year to March 31, 2003, a one per cent decline on the figure of 33.70 crore for the previous year. Profit before tax declined by three per cent to Rs 36.42 crore from Rs 37.49 crore. Total income, however, increased by 11 per cent to Rs 418.35 crore from Rs 376.06 crore the previous year. Of this, sales accounted for Rs 410.08 crore against Rs 368.44 crore, an increase of 11 per cent. Profit before interest, depreciation and tax declined by four per cent to Rs 79.44 crore from Rs 82.97 crore. Its graphite and carbon business fetched sales of Rs 387.27 crore, the power business Rs 60.67 crore and others Rs 22.65 crore.
Back to News Review index page  

Leading mills join hands to promote cotton fabrics via cotton gold
alliance
Mumbai: Ashima Group, Arvind Mills, Century Textiles, Raymonds, Nahar Group, Vardhman Group, GTN Textiles and few other leading cotton consuming mills have for the first time agreed to collectively promote quality cotton fabrics in the country under the aegis of the USA-based Cotton Gold Alliance (CGA). CGA is a joint initiative set up in 1973 of the Cotton Council International (CCI) and Cotton Incorporated (CI), both non-profit organisations with a mission to promote cotton. These companies are currently manufacturing and marketing cotton fabrics under their own brand names like Arrow, Lee, Cotton from Century; Frontline, Icon, Logo, Indigo Nation, Park Avenue and Parx, Loui Philippe and others. These brandnames would henceforth would carry the ‘Seal of Cotton,Trustmark’ considered to be symbol of quality cotton in the USA since 1973. In India, the CGA initiative was first introduced in October 2002 after series of discussions with the industry.
Back to News Review index page  

Grasim may explore synergies with L&T’s cement division
Mumbai: Grasim Industries, which has made an open offer for acquiring an additional 20 per cent stake in Larsen & Toubro (L&T), may look at exploring synergies between L&T and Grasim as part of a consolidation exercise. To a query on whether there would be any kind of consolidation between Grasim and the cement division of L&T, Rajashri Birla said at the inauguration of Karur Vysya Bank’s branch at Prabhadevi in Mumbai: “I think so. That will synergise everything.”
Back to News Review index page  

Bharti Health to invest Rs 9 crore to hike capacity
New Delhi: The Rs 28-crore Bharti Healthcare (BHL) would be investing about Rs 9 crore over the next two years to increase its manufacturing capacity of empty hard gelatine capsules (EHGC) by 25 per cent. The objective is to garner one per cent of global market for these products by 2004-05. Such capsules are sold to manufacturers of medicines only. Bharti is the fifth largest manufacturer in the world and second biggest in the country making 4.2 billion EHGCs last year out of an installed capacity of 4.5-4.9 billion annually. While the domestic market size is estimated at 28 billion units, the global market is 230 billion.
Back to News Review index page  

Cell-to-cell STD rates @ Rs 1.99 per minute
Mumbai: You can call anywhere in India on a GSM cellular phone (C2C) for Rs 1.99 per minute. Earlier, the STD charges alone for domestic long distance calls was Rs 2.99 besides the airtime charges. Cellular operators have finalised their tariffs and filed with Trai on Wednesday, even as uncertainty looms over the limited mobility tariffs. Hutch and Bharti, on Wednesday announced tariffs that would be applicable across all their circles and are inclusive of interconnect user charges (IUC). And they have not forgotten the ‘40 p’ tariff made famous by Reliance.

This number still finds a place in the new plans. According to the latest tariffs announced by Hutch, the cost of local calls to cellphones vary from Rs 1.75 per minute (for a plan with an up front fee of Rs 349) to 40 paise per minute (for Rs 1,699 plan). The cost of local calls from a cellular phone to a landline/WLL phone varies from Rs 1.99 per minute (Rs 349 plan) to 60 paise per minute (Rs 1699 plan).
Back to News Review index page  

STAR may halve programming budget
New Delhi: Anticipating a temporary blip in advertising and subscription revenue following the implementation of conditional access regime from July this year, several television channels are preparing to cut their programming and promotional budget in the coming months. STAR TV, for instance, has sounded producers of serials and film-makers who are associated with its channels that its programming and promotion budget could go down by as much as 50 per cent in the coming months. Other networks such as Sony and Zee too are hedging their programming budgets and adapting a wait-and-watch approach.The four metros - Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata - where the conditional access regime will come into play from July 14th this year, account for over 60 per cent of advertising and subscription revenue for broadcasters, contributing 6.4 million households. The television advertising pie is current pegged at around Rs 4,000 crore.
Back to News Review index page