M&M looking for acquisition in China
Mumbai: Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd (M&M) is looking to acquire a tractor manufacturer in China. M&M has said that it is targeting a 12-15 per cent share in the Chinese market for 30hp-80hp tractors in ten-years' time.

The Chinese market for such tractors is currently estimated at 70,000 units per annum and is forecast to grow at 6-8 per cent. China also has more than a million small tractors in the 18-15 hp category and 0.8 million power-tillers.

M&M has shipped 90 tractors to China, of which 30 have been sold. The company is also planning a third plant in the US, given its intent to raise sales volumes there from the current 9,000 units to 17,000-18,000 units in the next three years. Mahindra USA's existing tractor facilities are in Texas and Georgia. The company, fourth biggest in its segment in the US, has recently begun selling in Canada.

Over the next three years, M&M will invest Rs1,000 crore in its business (Rs300 crore in FY05), by way of becoming the world's biggest manufacturer of tractors by 2010.
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TV18 buys commodity information services company
New Delhi: The Television Eighteen (TV18) group has forayed into the commodities information market by acquiring existing businesses of Agri Informatics India Private Ltd, a Mumbai-based company operating a commodity information service under the name and style of www.eagritrader.com..

TV18 has said that the acquisition ties in with the increasing prominence of commodities business in India and the setting up of national level commodity exchanges.

Outlining the terms of the proposed acquisition, the company said that for an 80 per cent stake in the business, it would pay deferred cash consideration.
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TCS bags Rajiv Gandhi National Quality Award
New Delhi: TCS has been recognised by Bureau of Indian Standards as a winner of Rajiv Gandhi National Quality Award (RGNQA) for 2003. The award recognises Indian manufacturing and service organisations that are at the forefront of the quality movement in India, a TCS release has said.

Bureau of Indian Standards assessed three development centres of TCS - Noida Phase 2, SEEPZ and Sholinganallur on the parameters such as leadership, policies, objectives and strategies and human resource management.
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Tata Tele expands services in Andhra Pradesh
Hyderabad: Tata Teleservices Ltd, which is targeting a subscriber base of one million users in Andhra Pradesh in the current fiscal, has expanded services in ten new towns and will add thirteen more by next week.. The company has expanded its services in 40 towns so far this fiscal, taking the total number to 95.

The current expansion would see the company reaching out to 166 towns by the fiscal-end and its subscriber base doubling from the current half-a-million.

The launch of the pre-paid service and `Walky', the fixed wireless terminal service, in addition to expanding into new towns rapidly, has helped tap newer markets and segments for the company.

Walky has in fact opened up new markets such as small traders and homes, who were earlier not having telephones, the company has said.
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MRO-TEK Q2 net up at Rs.2.98 crore
Bangalore: MRO-TEK Ltd has reported a net profit of Rs2.98 crore for the quarter ended September 30. The company's profit registered a 146 per cent increase over the corresponding period of the previous year's figure of Rs1.21 crore.

Revenues were higher by 21.3 per cent to Rs35.65 crore (Rs29.39 crore) during the review period. The profit after tax for the first six months of the current fiscal was Rs4.39 crore (Rs2.36 crore) against Rs2.36 crore earlier.

The company plans to launch more products during the year, the first in line being eSona 100 bandwidth manager and eSona 8 telecom switch.
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Bharti Q2 net up 407 per cent at Rs.630 crore
New Delhi: Bharti Tele-Venture's net profit for the first six months of the current financial year has zoomed 407 per cent to Rs630 crore, compared to Rs124 crore during the corresponding period last year.

The company had netted a total profit of Rs620 crore for the full financial year ended March 31, 2004. Bharti clocked total revenues of Rs3,564 crore during the April-September period of this year. This was over Rs2,180 crore during the corresponding period last year - a 63 per cent increase year-on-year.

In the second quarter of 2004-05, Bharti reported a 258 per cent increase in net profits at Rs334 crore, compared to Rs93.39 crore last year.

Revenues in the second quarter also went up by 63 per cent to Rs1,860 crore compared to Rs1,144 crore last year.

The increase in profits has been attributed to an 85 per cent increase in the subscriber numbers over the last one year. The subscribers' base grew from 5.1 million in September 2003 to 9.4 million in September 2004, according to the company. The mobile subscriber base has grown 88 per cent to touch 8.7 million, accounting for about 25 per cent of the market share.

Bharti's broadband and fixed-line telephone services subscriber base has gone up by 54 per cent to about seven lakh users.
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Infosys asks German exchanges to check 'unauthorised' ADS trading
Bangalore: Software major, Infosys Technologies Ltd., has asked several German stock exchanges to de-list and stop the illegal trading of its American Depository Shares (ADS) immediately.

The company said it had recently learnt of the unauthorised listing of its ADS in Germany on the Berlin-Bremen, Düsseldorf, Munich, Frankfurt, Stuttgart and XETRA exchanges. Infosys ADSs were being traded under the ticker symbols IOY, BER, IOY, DUS, IOY, MUN, IOY, FSE, IOY, STU and IOY.ETR on these exchanges, respectively, the company said in a statement. These listing occurred without its knowledge or permission, it added.

Typically, listing of equities on stock exchanges requires the company's consent. However, in Germany, the stock exchanges allow intermediaries to list without the company's permission.

This development comes in the wake of the company raising its earnings forecast for the entire fiscal. The Infosys stock has gained close to 40 per cent on the domestic exchanges since the company announced its first-quarter results in July this year. The Infy ADR usually trades at a 30-40 per cent premium to the local share prices.
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Rs.76 crore order for HCL Info from Punjab Govt.
New Delhi: HCL Infosystems has announced that it has bagged a Rs76-crore order from the Department of School Education, Punjab. The order comprises 18,200 PCs, servers, printers and uninterrupted power supply (UPS), a company release said here.

HCL would supply, install and maintain the IT Infrastructure in 1,287 government schools both in rural and urban areas across Punjab as part of this project.
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Discovery launches lifestyle channel
Mumbai: Discovery Networks India has unveiled its new 24 hour-international lifestyle channel called Discovery Travel & Living.

The channel's advent also marks the global debut of Discovery Lifestyle Networks, a global business initiative Discovery had announced earlier this year. In India, the new channel is expected to reach a subscriber base of 15 million households by the end of the year.
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New blend of Director's Special from Shaw Wallace
Hyderabad: Shaw Wallace & Company Ltd (SWCL) has launched its Director's Special Black Whisky (DSBW) with a new blend.

Shaw Wallace has said that Andhra Pradesh was the biggest market for the company where it had recorded a growth rate of 58 per cent in liquor sales as against the industry's average of 18 per cent. The State accounted for 1.3 million cases out of the 9 million cases of deluxe whisky sold in the country. SWCL has a 17 per cent share in the Andhra Pradesh market where the deluxe whisky segment was growing at 16 per cent per annum.
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