Hyundai cries foul against two private insurers
Bangalore: IN an unprecedented development, Hyundai Motor has accused two major private insurance companies of unfair practice and plans to take them to court and file a complaint against them with the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA). Without naming the two private insurance companies, the Hyundai Motor India President, B.V.R. Subbu, said that while settling accident claims, these companies were forcing customers not to go to an authorised Hyundai service centre and instead get their cars repaired with only those service centres which offer these private insurance companies huge discounts in return for more business. "Just to save some money, these insurance firms are willing to jeopardise the safety of our customers," Subbu said. "We are contemplating legal action against these two firms and we will file a complaint against them with IRDA," Subbu said.
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Fire mishap at GMR sugar plant
Hyderabad: GMR Technologies and Industries Ltd, part of the GMR group, has informed the stock exchanges that a fire accident occurred at its sugar plant situated at Sankilli village in Srikakulam district of Andhra Pradesh. According to the company, the fire broke out in the biomass yard on May 17, where approximately Rs 2.5 crore worth wood chips and bagasse that was to be used as fuel for the boiler for the 16MW co-generation plant in the off-season was stored. However, the company said there was no damage to the machinery in any way and the production of both sugar and power was going on normally. While confirming that the accident would not disrupt the operations of the sugar and power divisions, the company said: "The loss is fully insured and we do not expect any affect on the profitability of the company because of the above accident."
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ONGC calls bids for developing fields around Mumbai High
Mumbai: Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has invited tenders for development of its oil and gas fields in and around Mumbai High. The exploration major has been trying hard to increase its crude production. ONGC director (offshore) VK Sharma said that the company has invited global tenders for development of the fields. The fields would be given to the bidders only for exploration purposes. The fields and the production will continue to be owned by ONGC. Another senior company official added that these contracts will be different from the production-sharing contracts for discovered fields. Under the contract for discovered fields, the bidders are given equity in the fields. Under the contract for these idle fields, the bidders would be allowed to inspect the fields. ONGC would then set a production target for each of these fields which would have to be met by the bidder. Any incremental production from these fields would be shared between ONGC and the exploring company.
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Tata Engg posts Rs 300-crore net profit in 2002-03
Mumbai: Tata Engineering has turned into the black with a net profit of Rs 300.11 crore for the financial year 2002-03 as against a loss of Rs 53.73 crore during the financial year 2001-02. The company’s net sales also saw an increase of 21.8 per cent at Rs 10,837.01 crore for the year as against Rs 8891.95 crore in the same period last year. Higher revenues and continuing cost reduction enabled the company to post an operating profit of Rs 1139.41 crore as against Rs 741.46 crore in 2001-02. Vehicle sales at 2,19,859 units saw a 20 per cent volume growth over the last year and was the highest in the company’s history. The company’s board of directors has recommended a dividend of Rs 4 per ordinary share of Rs 10 each for the financial year.
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Container Corp plans to set up inland depot at Tiruppur
Chennai: Container Corporation of India Ltd (Concor), one of the leading logistics providers in the country, is planning to set up an inland container depot (ICD) at Tiruppur. The logistics company has obtained the necessary interministerial approval for setting up the facility. Suresh Joseph, chief general manager (southern region), Concor said, “Tiruppur offers lot of business potential for the company. ‘‘And to tap the growing opportunities in the city, during the current financial year, we are planning to open an ICD in about four acres of land. The ICD facility will have warehousing space, administration building, railway linkage and other infrastructure requirements for better logistics solution. ‘‘The cost of the project is estimated to be around Rs 1.5 crore”.
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Shaw Wallace identifies 50 surplus executives iIn staff overhaul
Kolkata: Liquor major Shaw Wallace & Co has identified around 50 senior and mid-level executives as surplus in a major restructuring following the creation of a joint venture between its beer business and Mysore Breweries. With SABMiller Plc, the parent of Mysore Breweries, being in management control of the beer business now, every executive is being evaluated. In fact, while some may leave the beer business, others will be inducted from Shaw Wallace’s headquarters. Shaw Wallace’s spokesman clarified that the personnel overhaul is not taking place only in the liquor division. The company has around 3,800 employees of which around 800 are executives
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Air-India announces special fare scheme on domestic route
Mumbai: Even as Air-India (AI) has announced a fare-cut on the domestic routes for its flights, the travel industry is skeptical about its impact. The new special fares for Air-India flights departing between 8.00 am and 8.00 pm are now five per cent lower than the Apex fares being offered by the domestic carriers, a AI release said. The special night fares for flights departing between 8.00 p.m. and 8.00 a.m. will be further lower by 10 per cent when compared to the special day fare offered by Air-India and 15 per cent lower in relation to Apex fare offered by the domestic carriers. Commenting on the fare-cut, Air-India director (public relations) Jitender Bhargava said, “the idea is to offer the travelling public a reasonable fare which they can afford to travel.” He, however, declined to comment on the load factor of AI flights on the domestic route.
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Lyka Labs close to sign $10-m deal with European co
New Delhi: The Rs 250-crore Lyka Labs Ltd is close to inking a $10-million contract-manufacturing deal with a European company for a drug in the cardio-vascular segment. The contract estimated at around Rs 50 crore ($10 million) would be spread over 18 months, Amit Bhasin, CEO of Lyka Labs, said. As part of the outsourcing contract, Lyka Labs would provide the European MNC with the active pharmaceutical ingredient and intermediates, he said. With a presence in the anti-infective, cardio-vascular and diabetic segments — Lyka Labs exports to more than 25 countries and has registered about 475 products in different markets. According to company officials, this is expected to touch 750 products in due course. The company has two of its manufacturing units at Tarapur and Ankleshwar.
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Super Spinning plans to increase yarn outsourcing
Coimbatore: Super Spinning Mills Ltd, the flagship textile company of Sara Elgi group, which has given a push to value-added textile production through forward and backward linkages to its core business of yarn manufacturing, has planned to enlarge capacity of its garmenting unit with new investment. The company has also proposed to increase the volume of yarn outsourcing through hire capacity to avoid further investments in yarn production. Instead, the Coimbatore-based textile major has chalked up plans to acquire additional wind energy generation plants to add 950 kw capacity more wind energy generation. "Super Spinning Mills will be investing anywhere between Rs 15 to 20 crore this year under the TUFS projects which will include Rs 4.2 crore on the garment unit to enhance capacity. The garment unit started last year is set to achieve 3,000 pieces per day after the capacity enlargement and we'll be adding 150 new stitching machines in the unit," the managing director of Super Spinning Mills, Sumanth Ramamurthi, said.
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Wipro Tech bullish on infrastructure services
Bangalore: Wipro Technologies, the IT services arm of Wipro, is bullish about its Technology Infrastructure Services business to boost revenues. The business grew 10 times in the last three years for Wipro and now contributes $44 million, or 8 per cent of the company's revenues. That growth is nothing compared to what is possible in the coming years, says G. K. Prasanna, Vice-President, TIS. He, however, declined to make any projections. "Having secured wins in the tens of millions of dollars category, we can now look to the sub-$100 million space. We are in the consideration set, which is an achievement in itself.''
"Monitoring, remote management and onsite management services for the IT infrastructure of corporates is not new. Others have been doing it and doing it well."
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Bajaj Electricals sees Rs 450-cr revenue
Bangalore: Bajaj Eletcricals Ltd is expected to report revenue close to Rs 450 crore for financial year 2002-03, up from Rs 417 crore a year ago. The appliances division is expected to contribute close to Rs 100 crore in last fiscal's top line, P.S. Tandon, Vice-President (Appliances) said. The division is expected to contribute close to Rs 137 crore in the current financial year, of which Rs 20 crore is likely to be accounted for by existing product range and Rs 17 crore by premium Morphy Richards products, he added. However, he said that such contribution could swell to Rs 145-150 crore in the current fiscal as the company plans to launch two new Morphy Richards products during November. Bajaj Electricals, which has significant presence in the lower end of the market, plans to scale up its market share in the higher value segment through its alliance with UK-based Morphy Richards. The company aims to command 20 per cent of the Rs 100 crore, premium small domestic appliances market in near term.
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MBD Airport Hotel signs MoU with Carlson Hospitality Group
Kolkata: International hotel chains are entering the hospitality industry of Kolkata in a big way. First it was the Hyatt Regency, then ITC Sonar Bangla Sheraton Hotel & Towers kicked off their operations in the city. And now the city will boast of a Radisson brand hotel at its very gateway. The four-star deluxe MBD Airport Hotel (formerly known as ITDC Airport Ashok Hotel) will be christened Radisson Plaza MBD Hotel. Radisson Hotels of the global hospitality major Carlson Hospitality Group has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the New Delhi-based MBD Group for a management and technical tie-up. As per the agreement, the Carlson Group will lend the ‘Radisson Plaza’ brand name, its technical and management consultancy while also ensuring that the hotel meets its standard in service, specifications and look.
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NRI plans to export Cobra beer to India
London: Karan Bilimoria, the Hyderabad-born NRI beer-maker, plans to export cobra beer to India, the USA and South Africa in a big way. “In 20 years, China has gone from nowhere to become the world’s second biggest beer market. ‘‘The same could happen in India, where the market is only just beginning to liberalise. Indians only drink half a litre of beer per person, per year,” Bilimoria told PTI on Tuesday. Cobra was founded in 1989 by Bilimoria, who did his higher studies in chartered accountancy here before he devised the recipe for cobra beer with the help of a Prague-trained Indian master brewer. The lager is brewed under licence in the UK and until now has been exported to India only on an ad hoc basis.
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Mazda pulling out of luxury cars
New Delhi: Japanese automaker Mazda Motor Corp is dropping its millenia luxury model to concentrate on small and mid-size cars and mini-vans, the nation’s leading business daily reported Tuesday. Company spokesman Katsumi Yoshitake declined comment, saying Mazda does not comment on model plans ahead of their announcement. Millenia sales have lagged in Japan, where they are produced, totaling just 1,300 last year. Millenia sales in the US totalled 18,000 vehicles last year. The Nihon Keizai Shimbun said the decision to drop the millenia is in line with the global strategy of Ford Motor, based in Michigan, which owns 33 per cent of Mazda.
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NTC land sale likely to elicit good response
Coimbatore: The National Textile Corporation (NTC)'s holding company may have some cause to rejoice as its Tamil Nadu subsidiary could elicit quite a few good responses for the latter's surplus land sale proposal. The Tamil Nadu subsidiary of NTC, in its latest bidding, the third successive one in recent times, to dispose of about 42 acres of land and building involving six closed textile units, could receive as many as 10 bids from 8 parties. Although all the bids, except the ones received for one property, were quoted below the reserve price fixed by NTC for the properties put on sale, the NTC officials view the response from so many bidders as `encouraging'. The NTC sources said in respect of the land property belonging to the Pankaja Mills, a running unit in the city, the bid price quoted is found above the minimum reserve price fixed.
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BILT to buy 38 per cent stake in APR Packaging
New Delhi: Ballapur Industries Ltd (BILT) on Tuesday announced that its board of directors has approved the acquisition of approximately 38 per cent equity capital of APR Packaging Ltd from BILT Paper Holdings Ltd (BPHL). APR Packaging is engaged in the manufacture of different varieties of paper, a BILT statement said. Simultaneously, the BILT board also approved the sale of the company's entire equity stake in Janpath Investments and Holdings Ltd (JIHL), currently its wholly-owned subsidiary, to BPHL.

Both the moves are aimed at concentrating on its core areas of competence while moving out of the non-core segments.
According to a company statement, "The proposed transaction complements our existing operations in writing and printing paper. The deal structure involves no cash outflow and will significantly enhance our core investments in the burgeoning domestic paper sector, while further establishing our leadership position within the sector".
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CESC Mulajore unit to be shut down by Dec
Kolkata: The Mulajore Power Station of CESC Ltd, the flagship company of the RPG Goenka Group, is going to be shut down by December 2003, sources said. The process would begin after the Pujas in October. This would make redundant nearly 500 people now working at this power plant, the sources said, adding that talks were on with the unions regarding this aspect. "However, the possibility of redeploying them in any of CESC's four other plants or in their distribution network was remote. This was more so in view of the West Bengal Electricity Regulatory Commission, which had said during its rulings that these stations was overstaffed." The WBERC had said the New Cossipore and the Mulajore plants sent out only 10 per cent of CESC's generation but accounted for 59 per cent of the company's workforce.
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Reva in talks with IFC to raise funds
Bangalore: International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank's private sector lending arm, expected to pick up a stake in India's first electric car company, Reva, at a substantial premium. "We are negotiating the details as the valuation is under way," the Reva Electric Car Company managing director, Chetan Maini, said. Apart from IFC, Reva is planning to rope in other financial institutions to raise around Rs 70 crore for funding its expansion project, which includes several new models, a bigger version of Reva and a vehicle for public transport. Reva has already invested around $20 million in the company so far.
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