Daimler Chrysler's Maybach: First deliveries soon
Mumbai: Maybach, Daimler Chrysler's top of the line car, is being homologated for domestic sale and the German automaker's Indian arm, the Sanghi Motor Company, is targeting sales of 9-10 units in the first year. With two orders being reported from Mumbai, the company says that it already has two orders in place from Delhi.Each Maybach is estimated to cost Rs 5.25 crore here, with octroi and registration charges being extra. Sanghi Motor Co may decide to open a service centre for the Maybach at its Pune base. According to the company deliveries of the first Maybach will be four months from now.
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KEC completes first project in Iraq
Mumbai: KEC, part of the RPG-group, has completed reconstruction of a 130-km 400 kV transmission line project worth Rs 195 crore on March 8. According to a news release it had signed the contract in November last year.The project is part of the reconstruction projects underway in Iraq, and will be KEC International's, first project in the country. KEC is a power transmission and engineering contracts company.

The company has also secured new projects worth Rs 75 crore in Iraq, following this assignment. It will set up a 23-km 400 kV single circuit transmission line from Bayji to Baghdad West and a 30-km 132 kV double circuit transmission lines in northern Iraq, apart from a 400 kV transmission line for the Nassariyan Power project and the Khor Al-Zubayer power plant, the release said.
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C-DIT achieves breakthrough in fibre optics
Thiruvananthapuram: The State Government-owned Centre for Development of Information Technology (C-DIT) has won two research and development projects worth Rs 1.25 crore, for the development of refreshable tactile graphic display for those with impaired vision and holographic optical elements for optical fibre communication.

The holographic optic elements project involves the development of holograms on light-sensitive three-dimensional crystals. This technology is of utmost significance for fibre optical communications and is the monopoly of a lone US-based company. C-DIT intends to carry out this project in a joint venture with NeST Research and Development Centre in Kochi. This is the first project of its kind to be developed indigenously.
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Dr Reddy's sued by Bayer for patent infringement
Hyderabad: The global pharmaceutical giant Bayer has sued Dr Reddy's Laboratories Ltd alleging patent infringement by the latter on two of the three Orange Book patents held by it, in the US district court for the district of Delaware. Dr Reddy's stated this in a press release.

The lawsuit was in response to the notification to Bayer by Dr Reddy's Laboratories that it had filed an abbreviated new drug application with the United States Food and Drug Administration for Moxifloxacin tablets 400 mg with paragraph-IV certification on all the Orange Book patents listed for the drug.Moxifloxacin is the generic version of Bayer's Avelox, which is indicated for the treatment of respiratory tract infections.
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Matrix Labs to merge with four other companies
Hyderabad: The board of the Hyderabad-based pharmaceutical major, Matrix Laboratories Ltd (MLL) has decided to merge four companies with itself by way of enhanced transparency and corporate governance practices.The companies are the Rs 28.47-crore Vera Laboratories Ltd (VLL), the Rs 9.2-crore Fine Drugs and Chemicals Ltd (FDCL), Medikon Laboratories Ltd (Medikon) and Calibre Engineering Pvt Ltd (Calibre).

The proposed merger is subject to approval of the shareholders, the High Court of Andhra Pradesh and other regulatory bodies. The merger would come into effect with retrospective effect from January 1, 2004, he said. With the merger Matrix will become one of the largest USFDA-approved active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) manufacturers in the country.The current paid-up equity of Matrix stands at Rs 12.29 crore. Taking into account the preferential offer and the proposed merger of the four companies with Matrix, the total paid-up equity of Matrix would go up to Rs 14.96 crore.
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Bargarh Cement now 100 per cent subsidiary of ACC
Mumbai: Associated Cement Companies (ACC) has picked up UTI's 13.21 per cent stake in Bargarh Cement Ltd., purchasing 3.5 crore shares of the nominal value of Rs 10 each in the company, for a consideration of Rs 26.85 crore, according to a news release from the company. With this, Bargarh Cement becomes a 100 per cent subsidiary of ACC. ACC earlier had already bought the majority stake in Bargarh Cement (formerly IDCOL) from the Orissa Government.
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ICICI Ventures takes 54 pc in Arvind Brands
Bangalore: ICICI Emerging Sectors Fund, a private equity fund managed by ICICI Ventures, has announced that it will acquire a 54 per cent equity stake in Arvind Brands Ltd, a wholly-owned apparel subsidiary of Arvind Mills Ltd. As a result, Arvind Mills Ltd stake in Arvind Brands will reduce to 46 per cent.

As part of the transactions, Arvind Mills will on a future date acquire a 5 per cent stake in Arvind Brands, thereby bringing its holding in Arvind Brands to 51 per cent and reducing ICICI Venture's stake to 49 per cent. Arvind Brands will utilise the additional cash flows emanating from this transaction to de-leverage its balance sheet.Arvind Brands, the domestic branded apparel arm of Lalbhai Group has in its portfolio, leading fashion apparel brands like Arrow, Excalibur, Bay Island, Lee, Flying Machine, Wrangler, Newport, Ruf & Tuf, Ruggers and Lee Kids.
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SEA-ME-WE-4: Bharti Tele joins sea cable consortium
New Delhi: Bharti Tele-Ventures Ltd has signed an agreement to join the South East Asia-Middle East-Western-Europe-4 (SEA-ME-WE-4) submarine cable consortium along with 15 other global telecom operators. The cable system is expected to provide a major boost to the broadband and data requirements of a significant population along its route between Singapore and France via India.SEA-ME-WE-4 will support telephone, Internet, multimedia and various other broadband and data applications. The new cable system is expected to be complete by the third quarter of 2005.This is the second major international initiative by Bharti in the data and broadband space, after the installation and successful commissioning of the Network i2i project in partnership with SingTel.

According to an official statement, this consortium will jointly develop and own this next generation cable system. The estimated cost of the project is of the order of $0.5 billion (around Rs 2,222 crore). Bharti has announced that it would be investing $40 million (around Rs 177.8 crore) in this project.The cable system will span some 20,000 km across the Eastern and Western worlds, to achieve ultra fast terabit per second connectivity and will land in the following countries - Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Italy, Tunisia, Algeria and France.
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Cognizant's to construct second campus in Chennai
Chennai: Cognizant Technology Solutions will construct its second campus here at a cost of Rs 115 crore. The centre will have a built-up space of about four-lakh sq.ft.Meanwhile, Cognizant will add about 2,000 people this year to take the total number of employees in the city to over 6,000. Globally, the company increased its employee strength by 3,000 to a total of 9,200 in 2003. It expects to add about 4,000 employees in 2004.
The funding for real estate investment would come from the company's internal accruals.
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