Oil India may be listed on the bourses soon
New Delhi: Oil India may be listed on the stock exchanges soon, company sources were quoted as saying. It will initially be listed on the Guwahati Stock Exchange. This will allow Oil India's 6,500 employees, holding around 40,000 equity shares, to realise the real value of their stock, which currently has a book value of Rs 300. In the absence of trading, these minority shareholders are unable to fetch more than Rs 100 a share from their stockholding.

The employees together hold 1.83 per cent of the company's paid-up capital. Oil India will be first listed on the Guwahati Stock Exchange This will allow the company's 6,500 employees, holding around 40,000 equity shares, to realise the real value of their stock, which currently has a book value of Rs 300.
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Clariant net down to Rs 17.53 lakh
Mumbai: Clariant has recorded a drop in its net profit at Rs 17.53 lakh in the second quarter ended 30 September 2003, as against Rs 78.12 lakh posted in the same quarter in the previous year.

Net sales during the period under review increased to Rs 14.04 crore (Rs 13.58 crore). Raw material costs rose to Rs 7.65 crore (Rs 6.18 crore). During the half-year ended 30 September, the net profit stood at Rs 25.60 lakh (Rs 108.36 lakh).
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GM to lead price war with Chevrolet Optra
Mumbai: General Motors India is planning to launch a price war in the Indian car market's C segment with a stripped-down version of the Chevrolet Optra. With a cheaper version of the Optra, GM India is expecting to eat a pie of the lower C segment (Rs 6.5-7.8 lakh) along with the Honda City and the Hyundai Accent. Reports say that GM executives, however, declined to reveal the price of the stripped-down Optra.

The manual transmission Optra is priced at Rs 8.24-8.9 lakh and competes with the Skoda Octavia and the Toyota Corolla in the C plus segment. It has captured a 26-per cent share in the C plus market since its debut in July. Till now, 2,600 cars have been sold. The company expects to sell 5,000 cars by the end of December and 12,000 in the first year. It is also preparing to double production at its Halol plant in Gujarat from 25,000 cars per year to 50,000.
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Expresso bags Coffee quality award
Bangalore: As part of quality initiative, illycafe awarded the First India Coffee Quality Prize for Expresso. The first prize of $10,000 was bagged by A Nagappa Gowda of Nagambika Estates from Chikmagalur.

The first and second runners-up were M S Lingappa Gowda of Thambarekhan Estate, also from Chikmagalur, who won $7,000, and Ramachandran of Wartihully Estates, Bangalore, who won $5,000, respectively.
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Reliance offers electricity to Indian Railways
New Delhi: The Reliance group has offered the Indian Railways electricity from its gas-based power plants, reports say. In an effort to tap opportunities created by the Electricity Act, the group is testing waters in Rail Bhawan. The Railways spends about Rs 4,300 crore every year on its requirement of 1500 mw. The group has claimed that it can supply cheaper power from plants by sourcing gas from its Krishna-Godavari deepwater field.

In a presentation made to the Railways last week, the group said power could be sourced from existing or planned plants of Reliance Industries, BSES (Reliance Energy) or Indian Petrochemical Company. It could also supply power through the Reliance Energy Trading, a special entity under the Reliance Energy. It also proposed captive generation for the Railways based on diesel and light cycle oil in the vicinity of supply depots for which a joint techno-economic exercise could be undertaken. Power could be transmitted through dedicated transmission network or open access on existing wires.
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