M&M steps into South Africa
Mumbai: Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd (M&M) has announced its foray into the South African automobile market. Its vehicles, Scorpio and Bolero Pick Up, will be imported by Mahindra & Mahindra South Africa Pty Ltd, which will also provide after-sales service and supply spare parts.
The company is currently in the process of finalising dealers, initially in Gauteng, Kwazulu Natal and Western Cape.
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Avesthagen gets marketing rights for Benecol
Bangalore: The Bangalore based Avesthagen has announced that it has signed an agreement with the Raisio Group of Finland giving Avesthagen exclusive marketing rights to Raisio's product - Benecol in India. Benecol will be marketed by AQUAS, the services and sales arm of Avesthagen. Benecol is a plant-derived product, which has been shown to lower cholesterol levels in 40 separate clinical trials conducted globally.

It is widely used as a food ingredient in products such as yoghurt, milk-based drinks, margarine, pasta, cereal bars, ready-to-eat casseroles, mayonnaise-based salads and cheese in the US and the European Union (EU). Benecol has received GRAS (Generally Recognised as Safe) status in the US, and Benecol margarine has received FOSHU (Foods for specific health use) status in Japan. It has also been evaluated by food authorities in several EU countries prior to its launch, says a company release.
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Kirloskar Brothers target Africa
Pune: Kirloskar Brothers Ltd, manufacturers of pumps and valves, has initiated a `Focus Africa' programme with country-specific export strategies. The company is also exploring new markets in the West Indian, North American and ASEAN countries. The company has identified some of the countries in Africa, which include Egypt, South Africa, Angola, Morocco, Sudan and Ethiopia, to which it could supply its pumps. The total sales to the African countries amounted to 18 per cent of the export sales, which in value terms was close to Rs 9 crore.

The African markets would be tapped by SPP Pumps Ltd, a UK-based manufacturing company, which KBL had taken over the previous year. SPP sells pumping packages for various applications such as construction, irrigation, fire fighting and water supply and has a strong presence in European and Common Wealth countries. He said the company was estimating a turnover of about £30 million (about Rs 25,500 crore) from SPP for the year ending December 2004. As for the financials for the year ended March 2004, the company had achieved a turnover of Rs 507.8 crore compared to Rs 488.2 crore for the fiscal ended March 2003, registering an increase of about 8 per cent.
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Essar Constructions combine bags pipeline contract
Ahmedabad: Essar Constructions Ltd, along with Stroytransgaz of Russia, has bagged the 683-km, Chennai-Tiruchi-Madurai product pipeline for Indian Oil Corportation Ltd (IOC). According to a company release here on Tuesday, the Essar-Stroytransgaz combine is to complete the Rs 74-crore project in 11 months.
The pipeline is being installed to feed the IOC's product demand centres that are situated in the three districts of Chennai, Tiruchi and Madurai. The new product pipeline would be in addition to the existing pipeline of IOC that stretches over 7,250 km.
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Jindal Stainless launches subsidiary in Indonesia
New Delhi: Jindal Stainless Ltd. has announced the setting up of its first wholly-owned subsidiary, PT Jindal Stainless Indonesia, and also the subsequent acquisition of a running 50,000-tonne stainless steel cold rolling mill from PT Maspion Stainless Steel Indonesia on an asset acquisition basis. The cost of the acquisition would be around $30 million-$32 million and another approximately $7 million-$8 million would be required for working capital. The company plans to increase the capacity to one lakh tonnes annually. According to the company it would export its hot rolled stainless steel made in India and cold roll it there to cater to the South-East Asian market, which is growing at around 10 per cent a year.
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Tata and Godrej to join Haldia Petro board
Kolkata: Having announced its maiden net profit of around Rs 100 crore, Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd (HPL) says it also roping in Ratan Tata and Jamshyd Godrej into its board. HPL said that both Tata and Godrej had confirmed their participation as independent directors. They would join the board within the next two months. With their induction, the size of the HPL board would increase to 18 from 16.

For the year ended March 31, 2004, HPL's turnover increased by 45 per cent to Rs.4,298 crore. Earnings before depreciation, interest and tax (EBDIT) went up by 132 per cent to Rs.758 crore. The plant registered a 109 per cent capacity utilisation against 80 per cent in the previous fiscal. As the audit of the accounts is yet to be completed, HPL preferred not to announce the precise net profit figure but indicated that it would be "around Rs 100 crore."
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Tata Tele to invest Rs417 crore in Karnataka
Bangalore: Tata Teleservices will invest Rs.417 crore and roll out its services across 100 new towns during the current fiscal. The company hopes to increase the number of subscribers to around 6 lakh before the end of this fiscal. It currently has 1.9-lakh subscribers and 250 new cell sites will be added to strengthen its network and boost coverage in the State. The company expects to triple the revenues during the current fiscal. The roll out of the services in new towns will include the coverage of Hassan-Hubli-Bellary and the Mangalore-Karwar highways.
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Blue Star Infotech net dips
Mumbai: Blue Star Infotech Ltd recorded a 30 per cent dip in consolidated net profit at Rs 3.6 crore for the quarter-ended June 30 compared to Rs 5.3 crore recorded during the corresponding period last year due to a drop in other income and increased expenditure on event-related marketing activities.

The company posted consolidated revenues of Rs 28.5 crore (Rs 23.6 crore) for the first quarter of 2004-05 reflecting a 21 per cent growth. With a zero-debt financial position and Rs 30 crore in cash/cash equivalents as on June 30, the company is actively looking at acquisitions as part of its growth strategy. Nine new customers were added during the quarter taking total number of active customers to 48.
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Philips launches new range of auto solutions
New Delhi: Philips India has announced the introduction of a range of solutions from the parent company's international portfolio. The solutions include an analog car radio chip, car access and immobilisation solutions to reduce the risk of car theft and vehicle networking solutions. The company also presented a range of automotive lighting solutions for the domestic market.
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