Starting today Reliance heavyweights to announce results
Mumbai: The third quarter financial results of all the Reliance companies will be announced over the next three days, starting with Reliance Energy's board meet today. On the eve of the meeting the company has said its shareholders have approved a change in the Articles of Association giving powers to RIL to appoint a majority of directors on REL's board.

The company managed by Anil Ambani had seen six of its directors resign when the tussle between the two brothers initially broke out.

On January 20, results of Reliance Capital and IPCL, a company which has both Anil Ambani and Anand Jain on the same board will be declared. On January 21, results of Reliance Industries, the parent company, will be announced.
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Reliance Energy empowers RIL board on appointments
New Delhi: Reliance Energy has announced approval of amendments in Articles of Association to empower Reliance group to appoint majority of directors on its board as long as they have 26 per cent or more equity.

A day ahead of its Board Meeting, REL, headed by Anil Ambani, informed the stock exchange about the results of the postal ballot for Special resolution to amend the Articles of Association (AoA).

"The altered Article envisages that so long as the Reliance Group of Companies and/or, its associates/affiliates and or subsidiary companies hold 26 per cent or more of the paid-up voting equity share capital, have the right, inter alia, to appoint majority of the directors on the Board of the Company," REL said in its communication to the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Hitherto, Anil Ambani as Chairman and Managing Director of the energy company of Reliance empire, that is witnessing a fierce feud between him and elder brother Mukesh, was empowered to appoint directors.

REL had moved the special resolution last month and the parent company Reliance Industries, headed by Mukesh, had said that neither the move was necessary nor was it consulted before seeking the changes in the AoA.
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ONGC to bid for oil field-cum-refinery project in Equador
New Delhi: Oil and Natural Gas Corporation will bid for building a 2,00,000-barrels per day refinery and for the development of the lucrative Ishpingo-Tambochocha-Tiputini oil field-cum-refinery project in Equador.

Equador will invite bids in May to build a new refinery under the project in the north of the country.

The oil field, located in Equador's eastern Amazon jungle bordering Peru, holds 909 million barrels in reserves and can produce 1,90,000 barrels of oil per day. "ONGC has expressed interest in setting up the refinery which may entail an investment of $2.5 billion," the Equador Energy Minister, Eduardo Lopez Robayo, told reporters here on the sidelines of the Petrotech 2005 conference.

"ONGC Videsh Ltd has expressed interest in participating in the appraisal and development of the field in Ecuador in the forthcoming offer for it and other blocks and the Equador Minister has assured considering (the request) at the highest level," according to a joint press communication released after a meeting between Lopez and the Union Petroleum Minister, Mani Shankar Aiyar.

According to Lopez, Ecuador will offer 11 oil and gas blocks for exploration and production by May and ONGC is welcome to bid. ONGC is expected to face tough competition from Japanese, Chinese, Dutch and Norwegian companies in the auction, he said.

With current production estimated at 5,50,000 barrels of crude oil per day and one-fourth of it being exported, Equador is contemplating a return to OPEC.
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Xansa to add 7,000 more jobs in India by 2010
London: Xansa, the UK-based IT services company, plans to increase its workforce in India by about 7,000 in the next five years, the firm's Chief Executive has said. At present Xansa has about 3,000 people employed in its outsourcing centres in Pune, Noida and Chennai and the strength will go up to 10,000 in about five years, as the business process outsourcing in India is doing extremely well, the company has said.

Xansa has also decided to adopt two fishing villages on the coast near the company's Chennai facility to help with rehabilitation of the tsunami victims in Tamil Nadu.

Its employees in the UK and India have donated about 50,000 pounds and Xansa provided an equal amount to assist in rebuilding of the local communities throughout the Indian region. The company has said that its clients, including Yorkshire Water, were also planning to contribute either money or assistance.
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Toyota launches limited edition of the Corolla
New Delhi: Toyota Kirloskar Motor has launched a new limited edition variant of its top selling model Corolla. The company expects to sell 250 units of the Corolla Limited Edition 2005.

All variants of the new Corolla will come with additional features such as anti-locking braking system (ABS), hood insulator and headlamp levelling switch. The ex-showroom Delhi price for the Corolla Limited Edition 2005 variant is Rs 10.98 lakh.

Corolla has registered sales of 10,195 units from January to December 2004, a growth of 25 per cent over the previous year.
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Corporate results
Tata Chem Q3 net up 63%
Mumbai: Tata Chemicals has posted a 63 per cent increase in its third quarter net profit.

The company's net profit in the October-December quarter surged to Rs96.5 crore from Rs59.1 crore in the corresponding period last year. Income in Q3 has risen by 37 per cent to Rs1,039 crore from Rs755 crore in the December ending quarter a year ago.

HCL Info Q2 net up 13.5 pc
New Delhi: HCL Infosystems, has reported a 13.5 per cent increase in net profit at Rs34.12 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2004 compared to Rs30.04 crore for the corresponding quarter the previous year.

Announcing the results, the company said its total income (net of excise) increased from Rs348.62 crore in Q2 of 2003 to Rs506.99 crore.

As per the consolidated results, the group has posted a net profit of Rs60.10 crore (Rs41.43 crore). Total income (net of excise) increased from Rs1,017.98 crore in Q2 of 2003 to Rs2,001.09 crore for the quarter.
The board of HCL Infosystems at its meeting approved interim dividend payment of 70 per cent, second interim (quarterly) dividend on the paid-up share capital of the company for the year 2004-2005.

Sify trims net loss
Chennai: Sify Ltd, the Chennai-based Internet, network and e-commerce services company, has reported a reduced net loss of $2.20 million on revenues of $21.85 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2004.

It had posted a net loss of $2.37 million on revenues of $16.44 million for the corresponding quarter last year.

Cash balance at the end of the December 2004 quarter was $36.7 million, according to a company press release.

Sify's corporate services contributed 55.5 per cent of the revenues for the December quarter; the retail segment 39.9 per cent and the portal segment 2.8 per cent, the release said.

Ranbaxy Q4 net down 10.8 per cent
New Delhi: Pharma major Ranbaxy Laboratory has posted a 10.8 per cent fall in its fourth quarter net profit.

The company's net profit fell to Rs157 crore in the October-December period from Rs176 crore in the same period in the previous year. But Ranbaxy's Q4 sales have increased by 24 per cent to Rs1,424 crore from Rs1,144 crore in the corresponding quarter a year ago.

Helios & Matheson Q3 net up at Rs5.6 crore
Chennai: Helios & Matheson, the Chennai-based software firm, has reported a net profit of Rs5.60 crore on revenues of Rs32.69 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2004 as against a net profit of Rs3.29 crore on revenues of Rs24.16 crore for the corresponding quarter last year.

For the year ending March 31, 2005, the company expects its net profit to be between Rs17.15 crore and Rs17.55 crore, and revenues to be between Rs120.24 crore and Rs121.04 crore.

Nucleus Soft Q3 profit trebles to Rs.5.8 crore
New Delhi: Nucleus Software Exports Ltd, provider of next generation software products for banking and financial sector, has announced a profit of Rs5.8 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, 2004 compared to Rs1.7 crore for the corresponding quarter of the previous year.

The consolidated revenue increased by 47.37 per cent to Rs27 crore from Rs18.3 crore. For the nine-month period, the consolidated revenue increased by 25.77 per cent to Rs72.1 crore from Rs57.3 crore in the previous year.

Net profit after tax (PAT) increased to Rs12.2 crore from Rs5.3 crore.

Nucleus' list of clients includes General Motors Acceptance Corporation, American Express Bank and Bank of America.
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Media Video bags Rs.11 crore order from Fujida Tech
Mumbai: Media Video Ltd has bagged an export order of Rs11.47 crore from Fujida Technology Ltd for the export of DVD players.

The company, which has 132 distributors and 2,000 dealers all over India, plans to invest Rs20 crore this year for its facility at Rajasthan.
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Lafarge buys out Wisconsin stake in India and the Far East
New Delhi: French cement-maker Lafarge has announced that it is buying out the State of Wisconsin Investment Board's stakes in cement operations in India, South Korea and Japan for $141 million.

The purchase is part of a five-year-old agreement between Lafarge and the investment board and increases the cement company's holdings to 71.4 per cent of Lafarge Halla Cement in South Korea, 94.4 per cent of Lafarge India Private and 100 per cent of Lafarge Japan Holdings, the Paris-based Lafarge has said in a release.
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Moser Baer and IIT-Delhi to work on optical data storage
New Delhi: Moser Baer India Ltd has joined hands with the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, to work in the frontier technology area of thin film sputtering suitable for optical data storage devices. The two organizations have signed a memorandum of understanding for a period of five years.

According to Moser Baer there was enormous scope for the development of new technologies to enhance the current data storage capacity of optical formats, from 50 Gb to 200 Gb, using both organic and inorganic materials as the recording media. The current maximum recordable/rewritable capacity of optical media ranges from 4.7 to 8.5 Gb, which will be enhanced to a maximum of 50 Gb between 2007 and 2010. This enhancement will be attributed to the advent of Blu-ray technology, the company has said.

High-density DVD and Blu-ray discs are the two formats that are competing to become tomorrow's optical media standards.

Moser Baer, headquartered in New Delhi, employs over 4,500 people and has multiple manufacturing facilities in the suburbs of New Delhi, The company services its customers through six marketing offices and subsidiaries in India, the US, Europe and Japan.
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TTK Prestige to launch modular kitchen products
Bangalore: Prestige as a brand is set to become synonymous with complete kitchen solutions, with TTK Prestige planning to extend its brand to new businesses and tying up with Italian companies to provide modular kitchens.

It will, however, only provide services in suggesting designs and aid in the planning of modular storage fitments installation, which includes cupboards and modern electronic chimneys.

The extension of its brand name to the entire kitchen solutions itself had been done after the company went through a process of understanding the market and the launch of the concept of exclusive franchise stores under its brand `Prestige Smart Kitchen'.

Aided by its new experiments on the Smart Kitchen gallery and branding traded goods such as appliances, the overall turnover jumped from under 10 per cent to 33 per cent, with the pressure cooker and cookware alone accounting for the bulk of the Rs32-crore turnover, in the first seven months this year.
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Café Coffee Day to expand network overseas
Bangalore: Cafe Coffee Day plans to open 15 cafés in Dubai and hopes to open five in Austria. It also plans to enter the Chinese market with its chain of cafés the company has said.

The company says that it hopes to have 50-60 cafés up and running overseas by the end of next year.

The café chain, part of the Rs300-crore Amalgamated Bean Coffee Trading Company, manages 4,000 acres of coffee estates. While it will source a lot of its coffee requirements from India, its menu would continue to feature an international range.

Vienna is one of the largest retail café markets in the world with over 3,000 cafes, and the company wants to start with five in that city. In India, it expects to have 250 cafes in 60 cities by March.
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