DHL to make open offer for 20-per cent Blue Dart stake
Mumbai: DHL Express Singapore Pte is planning to make an open offer for a 20 per cent stake in Blue Dart. The company has appointed Ambit Corporate Finance to make an open offer to the equity shareholders of Blue Dart Express to acquire 20 per cent of its equity shares at Rs350 per share.

DHL would be making the open offer for 47,45,587 equity shares of Blue Dart, in an all cash deal aggregating Rs166.09 crore.

The offer is not subject to any minimum level of acceptance and the buyer will acquire all the fully paid up equity shares of Blue Dart that are validly tendered in terms of this offer, up to a maximum of 47,45,587 equity shares. The offer will open on December 31, and will remain open till January 19, 2005.

This would bring to completion the Rs732.6-crore investment plan of DHL for the takeover of Blue Dart Express.
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BMW may set up production facility in Gurgaon
Chandigarh: BMW is considering Gurgaon in Haryana as one of the sites for its proposed project in India. The Chief Minister along with a delegation visited the corporate headquarters of BMW at Munich in Germany where he expressed the hope that the German car maker would set up its production plant in India in 2005, to mark the 500-year ties of Indo-German trade.

Chautala is said to have outlined Haryana's special advantages such as proximity to New Delhi, excellent labour relations, good law and order situation, easy availability of trained manpower and assured quality power supply. The state manufactures 60 per cent of cars made in India, 50 per cent of all tractors and 60 per cent of all the motorcycles produced in India.

Klaus Berning, senior vice-president BMW is said to have disclosed that Gurgaon was one of the sites for their proposed India project.
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TRAI asks BSNL to submit a/c report
New Delhi: Telecom regulator TRAI has ordered Bharat Sanchar Nigam to submit its reports of accounting separation pertaining to all its circles for fiscal 2003-04 rejecting the company's plea to consider only the circles of Uttaranchal and Rajasthan.

TRAI has ruled that any such suggestion / action will be a clear violation of the Regulation.

BSNL had requested TRAI for further six months' time from October 1, 2004, for submission of the reports and also proposed to choose only two circles, Uttaranchal and Rajasthan, out of 22 circles, where attempts will be made by it in right earnest to start construction of records in line with the operator-specific accounting separation manual.
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Tata group bids for fixed-line license in South Africa
Mumbai: The Tata group has put in a bid for a 26-per cent stake in South Africa's 'second network operator' (SNO), that will give the company a mandate to develop and operate 'national long distance' (NLD) and fixed-line networks in that country. The bid was made through Tata Africa Holdings after South African government permitted foreign direct investment (FDI) in SNO. If the bid goes through it would invest around Rand 3.5 to 5 billion in South Africa, Tata group sources said.

The NLD and fixed-line operations in that country will most likely be undertaken by Tata group company, Videsh Sanchar Nigam (VSNL) which would also get a considerable presence in the country's international long distance (ILD) company sources said.
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Datamatics Technologies to merge US operations
Mumbai: Datamatics Technologies (DTL) is consolidating its US operations which involves merging operations of its US subsidiaries - CorPay Solutions Inc and Saztec International Inc - under Datamatics Technologies Inc, the an umbrella brand.

DTL is also integrating its sales team in the US for cross-selling of services, and this along with the merging of all the subsidiaries, would help Datamatics Technologies to act as a one-stop shop for a range of outsourcing services.

DTL receives 90 per cent of its revenues from its US operations.
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BSNL to install more towers in HP
New Delhi: Bharat Sanchar Nigam is installing 270 more towers in the hilly state of Himachal Pradesh in the next six months to offer its customers better connectivity. This is as more and more subscribers in the state find their mobiles getting jammed on account of overload.

The state has 122 towers, which can serve 93,000 subscribers while BSNL has more than 100,000 subscribers in the state. The multi-crore project would cater for a 221,000 capacity.

Officials say the entire technical support system, including the installation of towers, will be done by Nokia and the equipment is expected by the end of the year.
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Nestle's claim to 'Masala Chilli,' 'Hot &Sweet' upheld, Chilli Garlic rejected
New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has upheld Nestle's claim for exclusive or vested right to its sauce brands, 'Masala Chilli' and 'Hot & Sweet' but has rejected the company's claim to its sauce variant, 'Chilli Garlic.'

Nestle had filed a petition claiming violation of intellectual property rights on account of Gopal Agencies' 'malafide' imitation of 200 gm bottles with identical three variants 'Hot and Sweet,' 'Chilli Garlic' and 'Masala Chilli'. While Nestle had launched these variants between 1985 and 1987, Gopal Agencies started marketing the variants from April 2003.

The HC has held that the sauce 'Chilli Garlic' comprises chilli and garlic and both the words are generic and descriptive of the contents and the quality of the product.' Consequently, Nestle cannot claim any exclusivity or vested rights in it.
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Deloitte & Touche to expand operations
Hyderabad: Provider of enterprise applications, technology integrated solutions and back-office services, Deloitte & Touche will be expanding its business process outsourcing (BPO) operations at its Mumbai and Hyderabad centres.

The company has also been focussing on promoting womanpower within the organisation and has decided to scale up its manpower from 1,700 professionals to 5,000 in the next 18 months.
Currently the company has around 1,700 professionals in both the centers, which will be scaled upto 5,000 in the next 18 months.
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Hutchison Max Telecom to consolidate operations
Mumbai: Cellular major Hutchison Max Telecom (HMTL) has applied to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for consolidation of its various telecom operations in India under a single company after the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) cleared its consolidation proposal.

Hutch eventually intends to list its Indian operations on the bourses and proposes to complete the listing process by the end of this year.

As per the proposal HMTL, which provides services in the Mumbai circle, will be the holding company for the operations of the other companies that are spread across different circles.

The FIPB approval has given a fillip to Hutch's listing plans. It also allows the shareholders of Hutch's various companies to transfer their shares in these companies to HMTL.

At present, Hutchison Essar Telecom runs Hutch's operations in the Delhi circle, while Hutchison Telecom East runs operations in Kolkata. In Chennai, Hutchison Essar South runs Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka circles while Aircel Digilink India Ltd overseess the circles of UP (East), Rajasthan and Haryana. The Gujarat 'A' category circle is run by Fascel.
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Sony: reaching out
New Delhi: Sony India is focussing on increasing customer reach and boosting confidence in the brand through its service initiatives this year.

The company plans to set up a network of 160 service centres by March 2004and has already opened 22 centres since January this year, to take the total to 139.

The company also opened four new Sony authorised service centres in October and nine in November. Of the nine that became operational this month, eight are divided between the north and west and one is in the east. Of 139 centres, five are company-owned in the five metros. The next phase will see the opening of service centres in the semi-urban and rural markets.

Sony India is looking at a growth of 70 per cent in turnover this year over last year's Rs800 crore.
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Steve Ballmer to visit Hyderabad
Hyderabad: Steve Ballmer, CEO of global software major Microsoft, is making a short visit to the cyber city of Hyderabad, November 15, to inaugurate the first phase of Microsoft India Development Centre's (MIDC) campus.

The campus is said to be the largest Microsoft facility outside of its Redmond, US facility.

The first phase of the MIDC campus, coming up in 18 acres of land out of the total 43 acres of land adjacent to the Indian School of Business on the outskirts of Hyderabad and is expected to accommodate up to 800 professionals.

The first phase, expected to have a built-up area of around 175,000sq ft is being constructed with an investment of over Rs 50 crore and will help the company shift some of its workforce from its existing leased facilities at Hitec City.

With the expansion of its activities in Hyderabad, Microsoft is said to have cleared apprehensions regarding its committment to the cyber city, the government sources said, adding, that over the last two years the company's manpower in Hyderabad has been substantially increased to over 1,500 professionals as against 300.

Ballmer will be meeting the Chief Minister, Andhra Pradesh, YS Rajasekhara Reddy to exchange views on the future expansion and development activities of the new centre and the company's intention to participate in Andhra Pradesh's e-governance activities.
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