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Tata
AutoComp Systems to buy German auto parts firm
Pune:
Indian automotive parts maker Tata AutoComp Systems Ltd.
has said that it will buy German auto parts firm Wundsch
Weidinger for €4 million ($US4.9mn).
Tata
AutoComp, a unit of India's top truck and bus maker Tata
Motors, said the acquisition would help build a stronger
base for its interiors business globally.
The
Coburg, Bavaria-based firm, which filed for insolvency
in March, produces plastic parts and systems and its clients
include Volkswagen, BMW, DaimlerChrysler and Volvo. Tata
AutoComp makes seating systems, plastic interiors and
exterior parts, radiators, lighting systems and braking
systems, the news agency noted.
"This
acquisition would provide access to the European market
for the interiors business," Tata AutoComp said in
a statement. Tata AutoComp's clients include India's Ashok
Leyland and Mahindra & Mahindra, DaimlerChrysler,
Fiat, Ford, General Motors, Honda Motor, Hyundai and Toyota.
Indian
auto parts firms are looking for overseas targets to get
a bigger share of the global market for components. Last
week, Tata Motor's subsidiary, Tata Technologies, agreed
to buy UK design and engineering firm INCAT Technologies
for about US$97mn.
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FICCI
survey: India Inc. high on business confidence
Delhi: According to a Federation of Indian Chambers
of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) survey, despite cost
pressure from rising prices of raw materials, India Inc
continues to exhibit high business confidence.
As
per the latest business confidence survey conducted by
the industry body for the first quarter of the current
fiscal year, the overall Business Confidence Index has
gone up from 71.6 points in the fourth quarter of '04-05
to 73.5 points in the last quarter.
However,
a majority of the companies surveyed have said that they
have no investment plans for the next six months. The
survey based on responses from 478 companies having a
turnover between Rs1 crore and Rs60,000 crore in the manufacturing
and services sector noted that the Employment Index was
down to 21 points in the first quarter this fiscal from
23 points in the fourth quarter of last fiscal.
While
the Current Conditions Index, which tracks the current
situation vis-à-vis the situation in the last six
months, was pegged at 70.9 points in the first quarter,
the expectation index, which tracks expected situation
in the next six months, has increased to 74.8 points from
73.6 points in the fourth-quarter of '04-05.
"The
Indian industry is looking at strong demand despite being
worried about the rising input costs," FICCI secretary
general Amit Mitra said releasing the survey here.
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Nasscom
launches test for BPO aspirants
New Delhi: Nasscom has announced the launch of
the Nasscom Assessment of Competence (NAC) a test for
BPO employees, which will aim to transform "trainable"
workforce to "employable" workforce. According
to the industry association, aspirants living in tier
II and III cities, where BPOs don't go for recruitment,
will especially benefit from this test.
Around
36 BPO companies and nearly 15,000 graduates will participate
in the pilot phase, which will be launched in Bangalore,
Mumbai, Delhi, Noida and Gurgaon.
The
test aims to bring down sourcing costs of BPOs by half.
It will also significantly reduce training duration and
cost. Sixty employees at GECIS took the online test last
week.
The
test assesses aspirants in areas like mathematical and
verbal ability. After the test, a certificate is issued
to the aspirant, which contains the grades obtained in
the test.
Aspirants
who take this test won't have to appear for several rounds
at various BPOs separately. It will ensure a national
standard in the competency of BPO employees. The aspirants
will also benefit by recognising their strengths and weaknesses
and improving upon them.
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UltraTech's
allotments for captive power plants to save Rs110 crore
annually
Mumbai: UltraTech Cement Ltd has earmarked Rs600
crore for installation of captive power plants. The main
investment will be on a 92-megawatt lignite-based plant
at Gujarat Cement Works, which will be commissioned by
July 2007.
This
will lead to savings in power costs of Rs110 crore annually
for the company, Kumar Mangalam Birla, chairman, UltraTech,
said at the company's AGM on Wednesday.
An
additional Rs190 crore has been earmarked as capital expenditure
towards de-bottlenecking plants and for introducing measures
for operational efficiency, he said.
The
chairman also said that the debt-equity ratio of the company,
which was 1.44:1 during 2004-2005, will be brought down
to less than 1:1 by the financial year 2008. This will
be done through internal accruals and replacement of high
cost debt, he said.
During
the year gone by, the company raised Rs500 crore and repaid
long-term borrowings of Rs612 crore, bringing down borrowing
costs from 7.7 per cent in FY 04 to 6.8 per cent in FY
05.
The
company is expected to report a topline and bottomline
CAGR of between 10 per cent and 15 per cent during the
current year, Birla said.
UltraTech
had to take a hit of Rs76.84 crore on its balance sheet
due to diminution of assets of Narmada Cement, which has
accumulated losses of Rs175 crore, he said. As a BIFR
company, Narmada Cement would get sales tax deferment
for eight years amounting to Rs 75 crore and a waiver
of electricity duty for the same period, which would allow
it a leeway of Rs 25 crore, he said.
Improvement
of operational efficiency is on the cards. Manpower strength
has been reduced from 1,000 to 370, clinker capacity has
been improved from 3,650 tonnes per day to over 4,000
tonnes, and the company is looking towards captive power,
Birla said.
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L&T
appointed general contractor for
reconstruction of famed Kensington Oval grounds
Mumbai: Larsen & Toubro (L&T) has won a
Rs211-crore order for rebuilding the famed Kensington
Oval in Barbados, in the West Indies, from the World Cup
Barbados Inc (WCB).
The
company will have total responsibility of the construction
and execution of the project and would ensure that the
rigorous specifications of the International Cricket Council
(ICC) are met before the first ball is bowled at the historic
stadium, said a company news release.
The
entire project will be completed in 16 months (by January
31, 2007). For this purpose, the entire scope of work
has been split into several packages, and domestic sub-contractors,
under the overall responsibility of L&T, will execute
these packages.
The
project involves demolition of existing structures, and
shifting and relaying of the cricket pitch and playing
arena, renovation of two stands and construction of seven
new permanent stands with a combined seating capacity
of 11,500, including a temporary stand with a capacity
of 15,500, players' pavilion, media centre, multi-purpose
hall, administration office, cricket museum with shop,
vendors' booth, external concourses, a ticket counter,
and temporary hospitality and administration facilities
as well as external façade and other works including
landscaping and road networks.
The
new stadium when completed in all respects will seat 26,500
persons.
L&T
was initially selected by the WCB in February 2005 as
the `Construction Management Consultant'. Its role was
primarily to carry out project planning, formulate construction
methods, evaluate tenders and finalise domestic sub-contractors
during pre-construction period. This project consultancy
was successfully completed at a value of Rs1.3 crore.
Soon after, the WCB also assigned the construction services
to the company. In August 2005, WCB appointed it as `General
Contractor'.
L&T
already has experience in the field. It had built the
40,000-seater Nehru Stadium in Chennai within 260 days,
said the company.
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Bharti
and AXA tie up for insurance venture
New
Delhi: The Sunil Bharti Mittal-controlled Bharti Enterprises
has announced its foray into the financial sector in partnership
with AXA, the world's largest insurance group.
The Bharti AXA Life Insurance, a 74:26 joint venture between
the Indian and the French group, has committed investments
of Rs500 crore to its insurance venture over the next
three to four years. Bharti and AXA also plan to jointly
enter the pension and mutual fund businesses in the coming
months.
The AXA group intended to enter the general insurance
business as well, though its plans were at a preliminary
stage, Les Owen, group chief executive, AXA Asia Pacific
Holdings, said at a press conference here.
Bharti Enterprises has signed the joint venture agreement
with AXA Asia-Pacific Holdings, a 51 per cent subsidiary
of the AXA group, for life insurance. The company will
approach the Insurance Regulatory & Development Authority
for a licence.
The company is expected to have an initial paid-up capital
of Rs100 crore and hopes to commence operations in the
first half of 2006.
"Over the next 15-20 years, we see India as the largest
market for life insurance and that makes it one of the
most attractive emerging markets for insurance and pension,"
Owen said.
Bharti Enterprises Chairman Sunil Mittal said the company
hoped to target Airtel's seven million customers to offer
insurance products. "The insurance business is one
of the customer-centric businesses identified by Bharti
where it can deliver significant value," Mittal said.
AXA already has a presence in India through its BPO outfit
AXA Financial Services, operating out of Bangalore and
Pune, and has plans to ramp up its operations. The AXA
group commenced operations in France over 20 years ago.
It has over 50 million customers and employs over 1,17,000
people in more than 50 countries.
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Toyota
and TERI to mathematically model pollution levels in Bangalore
Bangalore:
A perceived lacunae in addressing the increasing air pollution
and rapid growth of Bangalore has spurred the Toyota Motor
Corporation (TMC) to join hands with The Energy and Resources
Institute (TERI) to mathematically model the pollution
levels in the city.
Announcing
this at a press conference in Bangalore on Wednesday,
Dr T S Panwar, Senior Fellow, TERI, said that the multi-grid
3-D urban air quality model will study multiple air quality
issues like fine particles, ozone and acid deposition
and is equipped with multi-scale capabilities to assess
regional contribution to urban air pollution.
"The
project, the first of its kind in the country, will address
a serious gap in modelling studies in India," he
said.
The
three-year study would involve literature survey, training
on use of models, data compilation, model simulations
and dissemination of information at a workshop and will
get its funding of Rs70 lakh from TMC and technical expertise,
models and training from Toyota Central R&D Labs.
The
findings of the study are expected to be submitted to
government agencies both at the State and Central levels.
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Infosys
tops Forrester list
Bangalore: Infosys Technologies Ltd said on Wednesday
that it has been ranked the highest in client satisfaction
in outsourcing services and among the top three in consulting
services by an independent survey report by technology
and market research firm, Forrester Research Inc.
The
report said that while other offshore players were likely
to focus more on business process outsourcing, Infosys
was expected to reach further into the consulting services
market, the company said in a press release.
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HCL
to set up design centre for Hamilton Sundstrand
Bangalore:
HCL Technologies, IT and product engineering solutions
provider, has announced that it is setting up a dedicated
design centre in Bangalore for Hamilton Sundstrand (HS),
suppliers of aerospace and industrial products.
The company has a three-year relationship with Hamilton
Sundstrand and has worked with the company on software
verification and validation, mechanical engineering and
product engineering. HCL will now serve HS locations in
the US and Europe.
Disclosing this, Shiv Nadar, Chairman and CEO, HCL, said,
"the company in association with Hamilton Sundstrand
plans to provide high-end solutions in a cost-effective
and timely manner for their civil aircraft programs."
"The top-level expertise, quality and commitment
that we were looking for was well matched by HCL,"
said Joe Ornelas, vice president, Engineering and Technology,
Hamilton Sundstrand.
Hamilton Sundstrand, a subsidiary of the US$40bn United
Technologies Corporation, is among the largest global
suppliers of technologically advanced aerospace and industrial
products. The company designs and manufactures aerospace
systems for commercial, regional, corporate and military
aircraft, and is a major supplier for international space
programs.
HCL said it will dedicate an area within their facilities
based at Bangalore, to service Hamilton Sundstrand.
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TCS
opens Insurance Solutions Center in Chennai
Chennai:
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) have opened their dedicated
'Insurance Solutions Center' (ISC) in Chennai. The center
will be an exclusive center for insurance verticals, delivering
insurance solutions to global customers.
TCS
vice president and head of Chennai Operations, Ravi Viswanathan,
said "The Insurance Solutions Center (ISC), would
provide niche solutions that would address clients business
and technology needs at the strategic and operational
level."
ISC
would be a domain expert center for insurance verticals
and would cater to both domestic and international insurance
industry. Nearly 2000 professionals would work in about
200 projects for the top 15 insurance companies, globally,
he said.
"TCS
would offer a complete end-to-end IT solutions and services
on time, within budget to help insurance companies deliver
asset based solutions and services to their customers,"
Viswanathan, informed.
Setting
up of such solutions centers is expected to accelerate
the growth of the company and TCS has planned to launch
similar solution centers for other verticals such as BFSI,
telecom, retail and infrastructure, soon.
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Gecis
and Liberata tie up for UK pension market
New Delhi: Business process outsourcing (BPO) company
Gecis and UK-based Liberata have announced a partnership,
which will provide an integrated outsourcing solution
to the UK life and pension industry.
The
solution aims at combining low cost with low risk and
a proven service delivery capability.
Tom
Butler, CEO, Liberata, pointed out that there are huge
untapped savings within the £3.8-billion UK life
and pension servicing market. "This partnership harnesses
the skills of Liberata's life and pension business with
the capabilities of Gecis to offer a solution that will
unlock savings with lower risk to our clients."
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