Keltron bags orders from Navy
Thriuvananthapuram: The public sector Kerala State Electronics Development Corporation (Keltron), has bagged further orders, worth Rs16 crore, from the Indian Navy this month.

The orders are for electro-magnetic log, retransmission units, dual channel under-water telephones and echo sounders.

The Special Products Division of the company, catering to defence requirements, now has an all-time high order book position of Rs43 crore for supply of products such as processor-based ground mine, radar interface units, steering gear control systems and personal rescue beacon.

The division is all set to touch a 50 per cent growth in its production, taking its turnover up to Rs20 crore. This will constitute over 20 per cent of the total turnover of Keltron.

The company had indigenously developed electro-magnetic logs to measure the speed and the distance travelled by ships. This equipment has successfully passed sea trials, environmental tests as per Joint Services Standards and the Indian Navy has cleared it for inducting into ships. The Navy has placed orders worth Rs4 crore for 17 units of the new product.

Keltron is one of the four Indian companies participating in the country's prestigious aircraft carrier project. It has received an order worth Rs1 crore for engineering and manufacturing of a dual channel under-water telephone for the Russian aircraft carrier, Admiral Goroshkov, being procured by the Indian Navy.

Keltron, the lone supplier of processor-based ground mine, an important import substitution armament, has handed over the 101st unit to the Navy on Thursday. In all, the company has received orders for 150 such mines. Keltron has spare capacity to undertake the production of defence-related systems in which it has created proven expertise over the last decade. Accordingly, the segment has been identified as a thrust area for the future growth of the company.
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Holcim open offer for ACC shares from March 9
Mumbai: The open offer by the Holcim group for Associated Cement Companies, to be made through Ambuja Cements India Ltd (ACIL), will commence on March 9 and close on March 28, subject to requisite approvals from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board.

The offer, at Rs370 per share, payable in cash, is for 6,92,98,452 shares of ACC. This represents 38.84 per cent of the fully paid-up equity voting capital (or 36.88 per cent of the fully diluted equity voting capital), ACC has said in a notice to the stock exchanges on Friday.

The shares tendered in the offer will be acquired by ACIL. ACIL, its holding company Gujarat Ambuja Cements Ltd, will be persons acting in concert. The managers to the issue are DSP Merrill Lynch.

The funds for the offer will be provided by Holcim India and Holdcim Mauritius, for which Holcim India shall subscribe to and be allotted the equity share capital of ACIL and Holcim Mauritius preference capital in ACIL, enabling ACIL to remit considerations accordingly, said the notice.

The specified date for the open offer will be January 28.
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AstraZeneca begins work on new R&D unit
Bangalore: Astrazeneca has said it has started construction of a new process R&D facility in Bangalore.

The new unit with an initial investment of $10 million is scheduled for completion by the middle of 2006. It will come up next to its year-old research facility and will be one of the company's four other process R&D facilities located worldwide.

The company has said that recruitment had begun for adding a dozen scientists by 2005-end to an existing team of 25. Process R&D comes into the picture for further, larger scale research when a drug candidate has been identified. The Anglo-Swedish pharma major expects the facility to play a crucial role in taking the discovery phase of research to the commercial stage.

In India, AZ's research unit is currently working on a new tuberculosis drug and may also take up research projects from the company's other global units, a spokesperson said.
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Naturol BioEnergy Ltd. set to achieve financial closure
Hyderabad: Naturol BioEnergy Ltd (NBL), a joint venture between the Energea GmbH of Austria and FeClean Energy of France, is set to achieve financial closure by March, this year. The promoters now want the Andhra Pradesh Government to allot land for the Rs140-crore, 300-tonnes-per-day, integrated bio-diesel project.

The Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI), after completing due diligence of the project, had in-principle agreed to fund it to the tune of Rs33 crore.

Similarly, Andhra Bank, State Bank of India, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development and Infrastructure Development and Finance Company have shown interest for debt financing of the project.

On the other hand, APIDC Venture Capital, AVIGO group of the United Arab Emirates and FE Clean Energy of US have evinced interest for equity participation. NBL was in an advanced stage of discussions with AVIGO for equity participation. The company had also requested IDBI to lead the consortium of financial institutions for financial closure of the project.

In a press release here NBL says it wants to ground the project by April this year and commission operations in a span of 15 months.
Initially, the company was targeting to bring 1.2 lakh hectares of dry wastelands under bio-diesel plantations, the press release cited.
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HMT hopes to get more BARC orders
Bangalore: HMT hopes to get additional orders form the Bhabha Atomic Energy Centre (BARC) for remote handling gadgets based on robotics. HMT has recently successfully fabricated rugged duty manipulators valued at Rs4.4 crore for BARC. The equipment was jointly designed and developed by HMT and BARC.

Dr Anil Kakodkar, Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission, while complimenting HMT for its capability to produce such equipment, said there was substantial scope for an association with HMT for fuel handling systems.
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Wipro Spectramind to diversify towards transaction processing
Bangalore: Wipro Spectramind, the business process outsourcing (BPO) outfit of Wipro Ltd, is planning to diversify into the high-value transaction-processing segment.

Realisations are high in the transaction processing business compared to the plain vanilla BPO business. Claims processing, mortgage handling, HR administration, underwriting, end-to-end accounting are some of the areas in which the company plans to offer services.

The company said that it was currently building up capabilities to tap transaction the processing segment. Voice-based services, which dominate Wipro Spectramind's offerings, account for some 85 per cent of the company's revenues whereas the non-voice services account for the rest.

Meanwhile, the company sees a huge potential in the domestic market for BPO services and is keen on entering it. However, the current law does not allow the utilisation of infrastructure created for overseas clients, to serve customers in the domestic market. The company is currently in talks with Nasscom and the Government to allow the use of BPO infrastructure, created for export-oriented units, to serve customers in the domestic market, it has said.
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Diet milk launch from Amrit Food
New Delhi: Amrit Food, a division of the Amrit Banaspati Company Ltd, has introduced its premium diet milk to cater to the growing number of health conscious consumers in metro cities.

The company has said that with the launch of Gagan Diet Milk the company plans to diversify into several UHT (Ultra Heat Treatment) milk variants this year in addition to the existing range of Plain UHT milk in Tetrapak and polypacks and flavoured milk in bottles.

In 2004 the UHT milk market has grown to 70 million litres and Gagan has become a well-entrenched brand name in this growing market. The UHT Milk market is expected to grow between 20 and 25 per cent annually.

The company said that Gagan Diet Milk is particularly recommended for people with high cholesterol and blood pressure since it has just 0.5 per cent fat, a third of the fat content of double-toned milk. Besides, the new launch contains 10 mg more calcium in 200 ml than full-cream milk. The UHT process anyway gives Gagan Diet Milk a shelf life of 120 days.

Currently available in Mumbai, Goa and the National Capital Region, it will soon be available in other metros and large towns.
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Corporate Results
Reliance: High refining margins drive growth
Mumbai: High refining margins and strong petrochemical prices have resulted in high growth in Reliance Industries' bottomline for the third quarter.

The main push to growth appears to have come from the oil refining business where refining margins touched historic levels of close to $10 per barrel during the last quarter.

The company's third quarter post-tax earnings of Rs2,091 crore is 40 per cent of its total earnings of Rs5,280 crore during the first nine months of this fiscal. The post-tax earnings of the first nine months is higher than the earnings of Rs5,160 crore for the whole of 2003-04.

The share of the refining business in profit before interest and tax has shot up to 58 per cent from 42 per cent in the same period last year while that of the petrochemicals business has dropped sharply to 31 per cent from 52 per cent.

One reason for the fall in demand despite growth in user industries could be that downstream processors have drawn down their inventory and are waiting for prices to fall before replenishing it.
Reliance has dropped prices on polymers during the first fortnight of this month following lower demand and rising inventory levels.

Wipro Q3 net up 56 per cent
Bangalore: Global IT major, Wipro Ltd, has posted a robust 56 per cent growth in net profit at Rs426.80 crore for the third quarter ended December 2004, over the same period of the last fiscal.

The NYSE-listed Wipro said revenue grew by 39 per cent to Rs2110 crore, over Rs1521.40 crore during the same period last year.

Profit before interest and tax (PBIT) grew by 66 per cent to Rs476.2 crore year-on-year for the entire group company, while PBIT from its global IT services and products shot up by 65 per cent to Rs413.90 crore.

Giving the outlook for the fourth quarter (January-March) of the current fiscal, Wipro chairman Azim Premji said revenue from global IT services and products was expected to be about $370 million.

"We continued our strong performance into the third quarter of the fiscal with revenue from global IT business growing to $352 million, $five million more than the guidance of $247 million we gave at the beginning of the quarter", he said.

Wipro Consumer profits up on higher sales
Bangalore: Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting clocked third quarter revenues of Rs129 crore, contributing 6 per cent to the company's Rs2,110 crore revenues. Its commercial and industrial lighting division grew at over 40 per cent.

Sales of Chandrika, in particular have been up by 50 per cent in value terms compared to the brand last year, before Wipro took it over. Also sales of Santoor soaps now exceed sales of old established brands such as Hamam and Rexona, and the brand is growing at 30 per cent in a market that is growing at 12-15 per cent, according to the company.

Satyam Q3 net up 20 per cent
Hyderabad: Satyam Computer has reported a 20 per cent jump in its third quarter net profit. Net profit in the December ending quarter rose to Rs174 crore from Rs145 crore in the October-December quarter of 2003-04.

The company's income in Q3 grew by 29.2 per cent to Rs893 crore from Rs691 crore in the corresponding quarter in the previous year.

On the BSE, shares of Satyam Computer were up Rs1.35 to close at Rs359.90.

ITC net profit up 17.90 per cent
Kolkata: ITC Limited has posted a modest 17.90 per cent jump in net profit at Rs448.94 crore during the third quarter ended December 31, 2004 from Rs380.70 crore in the same quarter of 2003-04. This has come on the back of improved performance by all divisions, including tobacco.

The net turnover at Rs1, 795.19 crore registered a robust growth of 10.6 per cent from Rs1623.40 crore. Net sales and net profit during the nine-month period of 2004-05 increased to Rs5,308 crore and Rs1,396.62 crore from Rs4,588.50 and Rs1,205.79 crore respectively.

The buoyant performance helped improve company's basic earning per share (EPS) during the quarter to Rs18.10 from Rs 15.38 in the corresponding quarter last year.

The increase in profit came despite a sharp increase in expenditure to Rs1119.62 crore from Rs1031.62 crore last year.

Polaris Soft Q3 net down at Rs. 19 crore
Chennai: Polaris Software Lab's net profit has declined to Rs19.32 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2004 against a net profit of Rs23.44 crore for the corresponding quarter last year, a 17 per cent drop. For the December 2004 quarter, the company reported revenues of Rs209.20 crore, a 26.8 per cent growth over the Rs165.03 crore for the corresponding quarter last year.

Revenue from Citigroup has increased to 61.80 per cent as against 59.30 per cent during the previous quarter.

Ram Bhagwat, President and Executive Director, has taken an early retirement to pursue his personal interests, according to a company press release. In Polaris, Bhagwat was overseeing the products space and relationship with Citigroup.

In another development, Prabal Basu Roy has joined Polaris as Group Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice-President. He supersedes N. Vaidyanathan, who continues to be Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice-President, said a company official.

As on December 31, 2004, the number of employees at Polaris was 5,830 in comparison to 5,650 in the previous quarter, the release said.

Adani Exports Q3 net dips by 13.24 per cent
New Delhi: Adani Exports Ltd has reported a 13.24 per cent decline in its net profit for the quarter ended December 31, 2004, as compared to the same period of the previous year.

The company posted a net profit of Rs22.08 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2004, as compared to Rs25.45 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2003.

However, the total revenue of the company increased to Rs5055.4 crore, up nearly 97 per cent from Rs2566.72 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous year.
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