Airbus commits to a Rs3,000 crore offshore order for HAL
Bangalore: European aircraft maker Airbus Industrie has committed to outsource over Rs3,000 crore of aircraft systems and components from India's aerospace firm Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) if it bags the forty three aircraft order from Indian Airlines. Airbus has confirmed that a standard contract offset of 30 per cent, has indeed been offered to Indian Airlines.

The Public Investment Board last November cleared a Rs9,475 crore proposal of Indian Airlines to buy 43 aircraft that includes a combination from the A-319, A-320 and A-321 series of aircraft of Airbus but a final nod from the Union cabinet is currently awaited.

The public sector firm, HAL, signed its biggest order of Rs380 crore from Airbus for the supply of 1,000 units of forward passenger doors for the A-319, A-320 and A-321 aircraft. Airbus was hopeful of not only bagging the 43 aircraft order by IA soon but is also in the race for the 40 to 50 aircraft purchase plan of Air India.

Airbus has doubled its aircraft projections for the Indian market to 400 from 220 by 2019 and said India has the potential to emerge as the second largest aircraft market in Asia after China.
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Tata Chemicals to raise Rs. 650 crore
Mumbai: Tata Chemicals, the Rs2, 600-crore inorganic chemicals and fertilisers company of the Tata group, has decided to mobilise Rs650 crore from the market, towards the company's expansion and acquisition activities.

As a part of the fund mobilistion programme, the company has also decided to increase its authorised share capital from the current Rs235 crore to Rs270 crore, Tata Chemical officials have indicated, and the company would issue a maximum of 3.5 crore additional equity shares. An extraordinary general meeting (EGM) of the company, scheduled for January 18, 2005, is likely to discuss the fund mobilisation programme.

Tata Chemicals has plans to start the expansion work on its Babrala fertiliser plant in Uttar Pradesh by January 2005, with an investment of Rs150 crore. With the completion of the debottlenecking plan, the annual capacity of the plant will go up from the current 8.64 lakh tonne per annum of urea to 11.5 lakh tonne per annum.

Meanwhile, the Tata group has also begun feasibility studies for a proposed record $2 billion investment in neighbouring Bangladesh and expects to complete it in six months. Manzer Hussain, has been nominated to be the group's chief representative based in Dhaka. The Tata study will look at issues such as the economic viability, infrastructure requirements and terms of a gas contract to be negotiated with Bangladesh.
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Tata Steel lone Indian company in S&P's CSR rankings
New Delhi: Tata Steel, is the lone Indian corporate entity to rank among the top 100 companies in Standard & Poor's 'The Global Reporters 2004 Survey of Corporate Sustainability Reporting.' The idea of sustainability reporting or triple bottomline reporting (on economic, social and environmental parameters) has assumed significance in the backdrop of a series of corporate scandals like Enron.

"Tata Steel provides one of the strongest reports from emerging economy countries and is definitely India's top reporter. It is a bit like a Japanese report with its detailed numerical data, but the report contains an extensive set of stakeholder concerns and issues, linking them with the company's response and strategic objectives," notes S&P in its latest edition (Risk & Opportunity: Best Practice in Non-financial Reporting).

The company has, however, not been able to make it to the top 50 list of sustainability reporters but is placed in 'The Other 50', where companies like DaimlerChrysler and BMW are placed.

The most striking feature of the 2004 results is that just over half (26) of the top 50 are new to the survey. The newcomers include British American Tobacco, Rabobank, HP, Ford Motor Company, Veolia Environment, Lafarge, Cadbury Schweppes and Matsushita Electric Group.
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RIL Board to meet in Mumbai
Mumbai: More than a month after Mukesh spoke of "ownership issues" in the group, triggering off a proxy war through the media, the brothers will meet in the Board room for the first time as the Board of Directors of the flagship company, Reliance Industries meets in Mumbai today.

With no indication of any truce coming between the two siblings the stage is set for a royal battle on issues that Anil will like to raise, while in turn, he may be confronted on issues that Mukesh has been deeply unhappy about..
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Reliance Energy to buy back shares for Rs 525
Mumbai: Reliance Energy Ltd has said that it will buy back its shares for a maximum price of Rs525 per share. The aggregate amount set aside for this share buyback programme is Rs 350 crore, the company said on Sunday.

Last week, the company had announced that it was extending the buyback programme of its equity shares up to March 17, 2005.

This will be the second extension to the buyback since it was announced on June 14.

Reliance Energy said it was buying back its shares to reduce volatility of its share prices.
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Tata Honeywell is now Honeywell Automation India Ltd.
Chennai: Honeywell Automation India Limited is the new name of Tata Honeywell Limited, one of the providers of automation and control solutions in India. The new name was approved by the board at an extraordinary general meeting held in Mumbai recently, and has been certified as the official name of the company by the Registrar of Companies.

The company name change comes in after the completion of share transfer of 40.62 per cent stake by the Tata Group to Honeywell. Honeywell now holds approximately 82 per cent of the outstanding shares with the remainder held publicly and traded on the Mumbai Stock Exchange (BSE).
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