Govt set to sweeten deal for Coca-Cola
New Delhi: A change in the policy for MNCs divesting their equity is in the offing. The government has drafted a fresh policy, under which MNCs need not dilute their voting rights even if they dilute their stake. The proposal, okayed by the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB), will be sent to the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) shortly for approval.The review — and the fresh proposal — has been spurred by the Coca-Cola India case in which the soft drink major is required to reduce its equity holding from 100 per cen to 51 per cent, but was diffident about doing so as that would reduce their voting power on the board.

It was felt by the government that other MNCs would also be apprehensive about diluting their stake — despite an entry-time pre-condition — if it necessitated a weakening of their voting power. There will, however, be an exception to this rule. This exception will be applicable in the case of industries where there are sectoral caps, like insurance and telecom. This is because the government has already decided that in these sectors foreign equity will not be allowed beyond a stipulated level and hence their voting rights canot exceed the cap.
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KSL is arranger for spectrum’s Rs 200-cr preference share issue
Mumbai: The troubled Spectrum Power Generation Limited (SPGL) has roped in Khandwala Securities Limited (KSL) as the sole arranger for its Rs 200-crore preference shares issue. SPGL, which hopes to complete the exercise by June 30 as per the Supreme Court order of May 8, proposes to use the proceeds from the preference shares issue for the repayment of dues of Rs 200 crore towards Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI)-led consortium. Paresh Khandwala, chairman and managing director of KSL, told that his company had received the mandate for this purpose and it was the sole arranger. “We are approaching banks and private investors. We are quite optimistic of meeting the Supreme Court deadline of June 30,” he said. He added that it has the coupon rate ranging between 11 and 12 per cent.
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Amara Raja sees up to 10 per cent rise in exports this fiscal
Chennai: Amara Raja Batteries Ltd (ARBL) expects its export to spurt during the current fiscal to touch five to 10 per cent of its sales. Currently, exports constitute a fraction of the overall turnover, said ARBL executive vice- president S Ramachandra. “The company commenced exports in 2001-02 with orders valued at Rs 0.9 crore. The subsequent year exports grew to Rs 4.8 crore and for the first quarter of the current fiscal exports have touched Rs 4.5 crore,” Ramachandra told reporters at a press conference held here on Wednesday. For the fiscal ended March 2002, the company had reported a net sales of Rs 152.17 crore and a net profit of Rs 18.22 crore. The company exports lead acid batteries to various countries such as Sri Lanka, Dubai, Nepal, the Philippines, Taiwan, Japan etc. It also exports to some countries under its own brand. “India is a viable manufacturing base for lead acid batteries,” he explained. The margin of the company’s exports is higher than the sales to original equipment manufacturers but lower the after market sales.
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MRSI seeks global visibility, to partner with ESOMAR
Mumbai: In a significant move, the Market Research Society of India (MRSI) is planning to partner with European Society of Market Research called ‘ESOMAR’, in the year 2004 for its various activities. The joint activities will include conducting various seminars in India by bringing in international speakers. The objective behind the move is to give a global visibility for the work being done by the Market Research Society of India, BV Pradeep, head of consumer and market insight and regional CMI leader HPC Asia, Hindustan Lever Ltd said. The Market Research Society of India is a non-profit organisation and is an association of leading market research agencies in India. Some of its prominent members are AC Nielsen ORG MARG, IMRB, TNS Mode, among others.
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Godfrey Philips aims at benchmarking operations
New Delh: The Rs 1,077-crore Godfrey Philips India (GPI) has chalked out a Rs 50-crore modernisation-cum-expansion project for its Guldar-based facility in Ghaziabad (near Delhi). The project, which is intended at benchmarking Indian operations against the best cigarette-makers in the world, will be operational by mid-2004. Says company director (marketing & sales) Amrish R Anand: “We’re modernising the existing plant in Delhi as well as setting up a state-of-the-art new facility with imported machines. The project will be up and running by mid-2004.” Anand adds: “The new facility will be benchmarked against the best cigarette-makers in the world. Our approach is to make the domestic production bases strong as India opens up to imports.” GPI, which earns around 95 per cent of its revenues from its cigarettes business, had earlier modernised its Mumbai-based facility in a phased manner with a capex of around Rs 18 crore. Both its Mumbai and Guldar facility have around 400 employees each.
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Samsung tops in flat screen April TV sales
New Delhi: Samsung Electronics India has maintained its leadership in the flat screen television (FTV) market for the second month in a row, clocking a market share of 25.7 per cent, according to ORG-GfK retail audit figures for April 2003. Samsung had a market share of 12.7 per cent for FTVs in April 2002, second only to Sony, which clocked a share of 50.9 per cent. Samsung entered the number one position in FTVs for the first time in March 2003, when it garnered a share of 27 per cent. “Samsung plans to consolidate its current leading position by launching its full range of highly advanced, feature-rich liquid crystal display (LCD) TVs in the next couple of months,” Samsung India director Ravinder Zutshi said. In April 2003, FTVs comprised 8.8 per cent of total CTV industry sales of 4,97,400 units. FTV sales in April 2003 stood at 43,770 units as against 22,000 units sold in April 2002. The total number of FTV sales between January and May 2003 was 2,41,100 units.
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Digital recovers after HP commits $270m revenue in FY '05
Mumbai: IT major Hewlett Packard seems to have decided to mollify irate minority shareholders in its Indian subsidiary Digital GlobalSoft. After days of adverse publicity following the merger of Digital with Hewlett Packard Indian Software Operations (HPISO)—on terms seen as adverse for the former—the US major has made Digital the preferred vendor for a large slew of projects. As a result, Digital can potentially earn revenues which are a multiple of its current revenues. The Digital GlobalSoft scrip recovered on Wednesday and closed 10.5 per cent higher at Rs 429 on the BSE. Digital had drawn flak last week, as HP, which owns a majority stake in Digital, was seen gaining from the deal at the expense of minority shareholders. HP’s stake in Digital GlobalSoft will go up from 51 per cent to 76per cen as fresh equity was issued to the parent for acquiring its fully owned subsidiary in the country.
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MTNL net profit falls 33 per cent to Rs 877cr, to pay 45 per cent
New Delhi: MTNL has reported 33 per cent dip in net profit to Rs 877.1 crore for the year ended March 31 against Rs 1,300.6 crore in the previous year. The company announced its audited results for financial year ’03, the turnover of the company has decreased to Rs 6,030.6 crore in the year ended March ’03 as compared to Rs 6,392 crore in the year ended March ’02. The difference between the audited and unaudited results is less than 1 per cent,” said RSP Sinha, director (finance) of MTNL. In the history of MTNL the audited results have been approved by the board on June 18, which is almost one-and-a-half months ahead of the usual time. Despite the decline in net profit and revenue, the board of directors of MTNL have recommended 45 per cent dividend. “This has also been recommended keeping the interest of the shareholders in mind. MTNL will also have to bear 12.81 per cent tax (including surcharge) on dividend, which will be free of tax in the hands of shareholders,” according to a press release issued. It said that the reduction in net profit was mainly on account of decrease in income and increase in expenditure in the current year.
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MTNL to slash rates for CDMA services by 50 per cent
New Delhi: Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (MTNL) is drastically reducing tariff for its CDMA mobile services in Delhi. It plans to reduce tariff for data access by 50 per cent and tariff for voice telephony by up to 15 per cent. Sources said the company is planning to reduce tariff for accessing data on its CDMA mobile phone to Re 1 per minute from the existing tariff of Rs 2 per minute. Under MTNL’s tariff scheme, a subscriber pays only for the period when he is downloading content and not for the period when he is connected to the web. MTNL’s CDMA services, called Garuda, enables subscribers to access data at a speed of up to 144 kbps. MTNL launched its services in June. However, the data services have not yet become popular among the subscribers. MTNL officials believe that this may be due to the reason that subscribers find its existing tariff to be on the higher side.
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HC stays proceedings in case against Tata Tele officials
Hyderabad: The Andhra Pradesh High court has stayed proceedings in the CDMA limited mobility handset-tampering case filed by Reliance Infocomm against six Tata Teleservices officials. Justice K.C. Bhanu of the AP High Court on Tuesday stayed further proceedings in the criminal case in which Reliance alleged that the Tata Teleservices officials had tampered with the Reliance handsets which amounted to conspiracy, breach of trust, copyright infringement and hacking of computer software. The interim orders for stay were passed by the court on a petition filed by the Tata officials who contended that the complainant-Reliance petition did not make out any offence and was instituted to damage the interests of Tata Indicom, a rival CDMA mobile phone service provider. The senior counsel, P. Chidambaram, who appeared for Tata Teleservices, argued that under the existing laws when a customer approaches Tata Indicom it was obliged to provide various services even though the handset might have been supplied by Reliance. He wanted to know under what specific provisions of the statute the accused had infringed and contended that the complaint amounted to abuse of process of law.
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Dabur seeks shareholders' nod to sell Jharkhand unit
New Delhi: Dabur India Ltd has sought shareholder approval to sell or dispose its undertaking, including factory premises, located at Daburgram, Deogarh, in Jharkhand. The company on Wednesday informed the Bombay Stock Exchange that it had issued notices to its shareholders to consider and approve resolutions "to sell/dispose of the whole of the undertaking (including factory premises, guest house, labour quarter and hills area) of the company situated at Daburgram, together with building, assets attachments and other structures for a price consideration and on the terms and conditions as agreed between the board of directors and the purchaser. Company officials said that the plant, which manufactured `churans', was not operating to full capacity and had old machinery.
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Affidavits filed on Taylor claims over Karishma
Kolkata: Sahara Media Entertainment Ltd (Sahara) came down heavily on Barbara Taylor Bradford, the authoress of "Woman of Substance", in the Calcutta High Court. Sahara and other defendants filed seven affidavits disputing allegations made by the authoress that the mega tele-serial "Karishma — a miracle of destiny" was based on Taylor's literary work "The Woman of Substance". S.S. Roy, counsel of Sahara, denied that any part of the copyright of the novel under dispute has been infringed, as alleged by the authoress. The tele-serial was based on a literary work of Sachin Bhowmick titled "Aparajita". Bhowmick also filed an affidavit stating that the story of Aparajita was based on one of his best friends now residing at the UK. The affidavit of Bhowmick discloses that he never was aware of the story of Taylor.
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Morepen told to put out deposit repayment plan
New Delhi: The `health in your hand company', Morepen Laboratories Ltd — which is not in the best of financial health — has been asked by the Company Law Board (CLB) to publish its repayment schedule for its fixed deposits scheme., in an effort to help the depositors in getting back their funds. The Rs 517-crore company has an estimated 85,000 depositors and the total payout will amount to Rs 160 crore. Following complaints from depositors on Morepen's failure to repay deposits, the CLB had directed the company to submit repayment schemes. Subsequent to the CLB directive, the company submitted a proposal that was discussed at a recent hearing. In its order dated June 17, the CLB directed Morepen to publish the repayment schedule envisaged in the scheme, indicating the main parameters. The objections and suggestions received from the depositors are to be submitted to the board within 21 days from the date of publication of the scheme. The repayment schedule stipulated in the scheme is for four years and the total amount of interest is to be paid with the fourth instalment.
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L&T bags Rs 50-cr contract for water leakage reduction
Mumbai: Larsen and Toubro (L&T) and Thames Water-UK, in a 70:30 joint venture, have received a Rs 50-crore contract from Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) for "leakage reduction and water distribution rehabilitation work", a company release. Under the "Unaccounted for Water'' (UFW) plan, this is a pilot project which will cover 35,000 house-water connections. UFW consists of physical and commercial losses of water. The proposed project will reduce the incidence of water loss due to leakage by almost 50 per cent through district metering, replacing consumer water meters, relaying of supply lines etc.
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CITU to resist RINL privatisation move
Viskhapatnam: The Centre for Indian Trade Unions (CITU) will fight any attempt to privatise Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd (RINL) and it would also strive to secure for the employees wage arrears amounting to Rs 200 crore, now that the financial position of the steel plant has improved substantially this year and it has made a turnaround, M.K Pandhe, general secretary of the union, has said. Pandhe, who was here on Wednesday to campaign for his union which is contesting the election to be held this week-end, said at a press meet that the trade unions would have to mount stiff opposition to save the steel plant from going into private hands. `Privatisation is simply scandalous and synonymous with corruption in our country. Profit-making PSUs such as Balco and Centaur Hotel in Mumbai have been sold for a song and the private companies who bought them are now indulging in asset stripping. The axe would fall sooner or later on the Vizag steel plant, the most modern of the public sector steel units, unless the trade unions unite and fight the move,'' he said.
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BIFR notice to Ponni Sugars Orissa
Chennai: The Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR) has issued a show-cause notice to Ponni Sugars Orissa Ltd relating to winding up of the company under the Sick Industrial Companies Act, according to information provided by the company to stock exchanges. The BIFR has concluded that it has not been possible to arrive at a viable scheme for revival of Ponni Sugars and that it was in the public interest to wind up the company.
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GAIL plans pipeline to supply Petronet's LNG
Mumbai: GAIL India plans to lay a Rs 616-crore pipeline to transport natural gas from Petronet India Ltd's upcoming 5 million tonne Dahej terminal in Gujarat to industrial and domestic users up to Uran and then to Pune on the West coast. The gas supplies would also include additional gas from the Panna-Mukta-Tapti oil and gas fields. Ram Naik, union minister of petroleum and natural gas, said on Wednesday at an industry seminar that State-owned GAIL India would complete laying the pipeline up to Uran by September 2004. Phase two which will take the gas to Pune will be completed by early 2005, Naik said. The 500-odd km pipeline will transport 12 million metric standard cubic metres gas per day to industrial users, including Tata Power, Maharashtra State Electricity Board, etc, Naik said.
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