Tata Sons invests maximum in telecom stocks
Mumbai: Tata Sons Ltd, the holding company of the Tata Group, has made the maximum quoted equity investments in the telecom sector in the financial year 2002-03, say reports. The company acquired almost 11 crore shares of Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Ltd with a book value of Rs 84.96 crore. The other major investment in the telecom sector by Tata Sons has been in VSNL, with almost 37 lakh shares having a book value of Rs 44.10 crore being acquired by Tata Sons in fiscal 2002-03.

Tata Sons has increased its total equity investments in various listed Tata group companies by Rs 192 crore, in book value, in fiscal 2002-03. The book value of the company's total quoted equity investments as on 31 March 2003 stood at Rs 2,964.73 crore as against Rs 2,777.62 crore as on 31 March 2002.
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IDBI holds 16% in Pitti Laminations
Hyderabad: The board of directors of Pitti Laminations Ltd (PLL), a manufacturer of laminations and die cast rotors, has approved a resolution allotting shares to Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI) and promoters of the company. While this has enabled the promoters to consolidate their holding in the company, IDBI has ended up with an equity holding of 16 per cent on the company's enhanced equity capital.

The company said the board which met on Thursday has allotted 21 lakh equity shares of Rs 10 each aggregating Rs 2.1 crore to the promoters and 10 lakh equity shares of Rs 10 each aggregating Rs 1 crore to IDBI on a preferential allotment basis.
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P&G Hygiene benefits as Vicks sales soar in Q1
Mumbai: Procter & Gamble Hygiene and Health Care Ltd (P&G) has benefited because good monsoon rains have pushed up sales of Vicks, one of its leading brands. "During the monsoon season, sale of Vicks is usually higher because of higher incidence of cold. This time monsoon rains have been good and that means rural incomes are going to be higher leading to higher sales of Vicks in the rural market too," said Bharat Patel, chairman, P&G.

The September quarter is the first quarter of the current financial year for P&G as it follows a July to June year. "Our initiative of a pre-season advertising on Vicks and large-scale sampling of the newly launched Whisper Maxi Extra Long in the fourth quarter is expected to accelerate the sales growth of Vicks and Whisper brands in the current year," he said. The two categories that P&G is present in — health care and feminine hygiene — are quite large in India, Patel said.
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Infosys Q2 net jumps 33%
Bangalore: Infosys Technologies reported a 33-per cent increase in net profit at Rs 300.16 crore for the second quarter ended 30 September 2003 when compared with Rs 225.77 crore in Q2FY03. The total income increased 31% to Rs 1,179.03 crore from Rs 897.10 crore in SQ02, according to a release issued to the BSE.

The group has posted a net profit of Rs 300.98 crore for the quarter ended 30 September 2003 as against Rs 224.50 crore in Q2FY03. Total income increased to Rs 1,194.96 crore from Rs 898.79 crore in the corresponding quarter of the last fiscal.
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Titan unit may witness Rs 10-crore turnover
Chennai: Titan Industries expects its precision engineering division, which manufactures fine components for automobile and aerospace companies, to touch a turnover of Rs 10 crore by the end of this fiscal. This new division has already clocked Rs 3.5 crore in sales so far. Bhaskar Bhat, managing director, Titan Industries, said: "This division will significantly reduce the overhead burden on the watch business and give us the much needed balance." Set up in June this year, Titan's precision engineering division manufactures engineering control systems such as components for fuel injection systems in automobiles.

"We have already supplied components for dashboard clocks to Ford in Europe, indicators to Visteon and components for fuel injection to auto component company Stanadyne. All these products require fine precision engineering," said Bhat. He said the company is also looking at manufacturing components for medical instrument manufacturers. It is looking at working with HAL for its instrumentation needs as well.
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MRPL expects to turn around next year
Chennai: Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) expects to report a net profit next financial year. This year, it hopes to make a "significant cash profit," but report a net loss, Subir Raha, chairman and managing director, ONGC, and Chairman, MRPL, said. He said MRPL is likely to make a loss of about Rs 100 crore, but next year ONGC, which recently took over MRPL, expected a "net profit situation" at MRPL.

Thanks to the debt-restructuring package at MRPL, its interest costs had been reduced to 9.1 per cent from 13.5 per cent. MRPL was now looking at borrowing from the market at 5.15-5.4 per cent through commercial paper, without a guarantee from ONGC. For the first time this year, MRPL was expected to operate at 100 per cent capacity utilisation. Against it rated capacity of 9.7 million tonnes, last year the company reached a level of seven million tonnes.
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ONGC in talks to buy stake in overseas oilfields
Chennai: Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd (ONGC) is in talks to buy equity stake in four or five more oil fields abroad. It will also shortly sign an agreement to acquire a 24.5 per cent stake in another oil field in Sudan, its second such stake in the country. With this, ONGC will have equity in 11 overseas projects. Subir Raha, chairman and managing director, ONGC, though, declined to divulge the names of the projects in which ONGC is holdings negotiations to acquire stakes.

He was confident that ONGC will be ahead of its target in bringing in 20 million tonnes of oil per annum by taking equity stakes in oil projects abroad. By ONGC's plans, it was expected to reach this figure by 2020. However, Raha said the figure would be reached by the end of the Eleventh Plan period. By the end of the Tenth Plan period, the crude brought in as oil equity will be 10 million tonnes. Raha said ONGC had awarded contracts to TransOcean Offshore Deepwater Drilling Inc and Dolphin Drilling Ltd to carry out deepwater exploration.
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Concerto Software to merge with Melita
New Delhi: Concerto Software, a provider of customer interaction management solutions, said it has entered into an agreement and plan of merger with Melita International. The transaction is valued at $ 145.2 million. Under the terms of the merger agreement, Concerto Software will combine with Melita and the combined company will operate under the name of Concerto Software, Inc.

Except for a few shares, all of Concerto's outstanding shares will be purchased for $12 per share in cash. This represents a 29 per cent premium to Thursday's closing price of $ 9.31 per share. In addition, Concerto Software announced that based upon its preliminary estimates, it expects to report third quarter total revenue in the range of $ 26.5-27.2 million. As a result of the merger, Concerto Software Inc will strengthen its presence in the global CIM market and provide significant benefits to its worldwide customer base of more than 1,800 customers.
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