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GE Shipping set to demerge
Mumbai: Great Eastern Shipping, India's largest private shipping giant, owned by the Sheth family, will be split into shipping and offshore divisions and managed by cousin brothers, Bharat, Vijay and Ravi Sheth.

The restructuring, to take place with retrospective effect from April 1, envisages the de-merger of the entire offshore business consisting of drilling services, marine logistics, marine construction and port/terminal services into a separate firm.

"The de-merger will create two focussed companies - one in shipping and the other in oilfield services, thereby helping to unlock value for shareholders," said chairman K.M. Sheth.

While K.M. Sheth's two sons, Bharat and Ravi, will run the shipping business, their cousin, Vijay will have sole control of the offshore division which he established single-handedly back in the eighties. The shareholding of the new company will mirror the shareholding in GE Shipping. Consequently, the share capital of GE Shipping will be commensurately reduced.

The board of GE Shipping met yesterday and decided that the shares of the new company would be proportionately allotted directly to shareholders of GE Shipping under an arrangement that has yet to be formulated.

The board has appointed a committee of directors that will evaluate several parameters while working out a share swap ratio for the de-merger. The swap ratio is expected to be ready in two to three weeks. Kotak Mahindra will advise the committee.
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TCS, Infosys win large ABN IT deal
London/Amsterdam: Indian software giants Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys Technologies have won large multi-million-dollar outsourcing contracts from Dutch bank ABN AMRO, likely to be worth more than US$250mn, ranked among the largest IT outsourcing deals won by any Indian software company.

The deal relates to information technology (IT) application maintenance and development. The outsourcing deals could see thousands of ABN jobs being phased out.

TCS and Infosys are among five vendors also selected for application development, along with Patni Computer Systems, IBM and Accenture. The Netherlands' biggest bank has previously announced plans to outsource and move technology jobs offshore to help cut costs.

TCS shares closed 1.58 percent higher at 1,405.85 rupees on Wednesday, while Infosys shares ended 1.27 percent higher at 2,376.25 rupees on the Bombay Stock Exchange. Infosys American Depositary Receipts were 0.24 percent up at $70.539 by 1540 GMT.
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GAIL and China Gas may join hands on petrochemical project
New Delhi: GAIL (India) Ltd has said that it has received an offer from China Gas Holdings Ltd (CGHL) for participation in a gas-based petrochemical project, which is to be established in Humor, Inner Mongolia.

According to a company release, the feasibility study of the project has been prepared.

GAIL entered into Chinese gas market by taking equity participation in CGHL, a company which holds concession rights for setting and operating compressed natural gas and city gas distribution projects in 48 provinces in China.

Meanwhile, GAIL (India) Ltd and Engineers India Ltd (EIL) have also signed a memorandum of cooperation for pursuing natural gas business overseas. According to a GAIL release, the memorandum will enable both the companies to bid jointly for overseas projects. While GAIL will be responsible for project management and financing, EIL will take care of engineering and procurement issues.

GAIL is making efforts to participate in overseas natural gas transportation and gas processing projects through joint venture or consortium route.

EIL has been providing consultancy services in oil and gas projects and has presence in countries of West Asia and North Africa.
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Domestic cellular services revenue to touch US$24bn by 2008-09
Mumbai: Revenues of the domestic cellular services market are slated to hit the Rs1.05 lakh crore (US$24bn) mark by 2008-09, recording a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 35.6 per cent, Gartner Inc said today.

With declining service costs and the introduction of low-cost handsets, the entry barriers for cellular services will come down substantially, creating a significant market opportunity, Gartner analysts said at the Gartner India Summit 2005 here today.

According to the research firm, the domestic market has the potential to increase cellular penetration to 30 per cent by 2009, netting more than 300 million connections.

It also said in the coming years, the capability and capacity to penetrate semi-urban and rural markets will be important determinants to increase market share and create sustainable businesses in the cellular space.

According to Gartner, the Indian cellular services market had recorded the highest growth across Asia Pacific and Japan in 2004 with a CAGR of 67 per cent.

It has predicted that the markets of Asia Pacific and Japan will reach US$225bn in 2009, representing a CAGR of 6.2 per cent from 2004. The Indian cellular market will account for 11 per cent of the overall Asia Pacific and Japan market by this year.

However, a large proportion of the market opportunity in India will comprise low-income users, resulting in low average revenue per unit (ARPU). Overall penetration and market opportunity will increase, but with thinner margins, Gartner cautioned. It, therefore, said operators should prepare themselves to work in business environments where ARPU levels are expected to be as low as US$5 per month in the next 18-24 months.

However, non-voice value-added services such as ring tones, call-back tones, games and music downloads will generate revenues that will help cushion the pressure on overall service revenues. Mobile data accounted for 7 per cent of service revenue in 2004 and is expected to rise to 20 per cent by 2009.

However, it is projected that operators will have limited success in generating incremental revenue from mobile data services on account of limited wallet share for spending beyond basic voice services and the high cost of data services.
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Rs.one lakh car from Tata to be gearless
Mumbai: Tata group chief Ratan Tata has said that he is confident of launching in less than three years, a proper "inexpensive" people's car at a price tag of Rs1 lakh. He said that the car will be a gearless vehicle powered by a rear engine.

Brushing aside scepticism from industry rivals, including Suzuki Motor Corporation that such a car may not be feasible for Rs1 lakh, Tata was confident that the launch would be the only answer from him.

"I hope so. Just like people ate their words on Indica they would realise that there is something that can be done," Tata said.

The proposed car would be a vehicle that "will seat four to five people and have a rear engine. It will not be a scooter, three-wheeler or an auto-rickshaw made into a car", he said.

Along with Indica, the new Rs1 lakh car, whose prototypes are presently doing test runs without a body, would be the growth focus for Tata Motors in the automobile sector's medium-term.
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Tata Ryerson seeking opportunities abroad -expanding base at home
Calcutta: Tata Ryerson Ltd, a 50:50 joint venture between Tata Steel and the US-based Ryerson Tull, is exploring opportunities to expand overseas.

The company's steel processing operations, till date, have been confined only within the country, and it is now looking at economies like China and Thailand, where both, demand for steel and its production are growing at a rapid pace.

Ryerson Tull, the US partner in the joint venture, is keen on taking Tata Ryerson outside India and set up shops in countries like China to get a slice of the growing steel market there and in other South-East Asian countries.

Meanwhile Tata Ryerson is planning a new processing centre in the southern region, which may be located either in Chennai or in Bangalore. The southern facility will primarily be a steel plate processing unit. Tata Ryerson is also installing cold rolling facilities at its Faridabad and Pune plants.

These current expansion plans are part of the company's plan to increase its current processing capacity from 1.2 million tonnes to 2 million tonnes by 2010.
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Posco Indian subsidiary incorporated
Bhubaneswar: The world's fifth largest steel company Posco, has incorporated its Indian subsidiary, Posco India Pvt Ltd, which will set up the 12 million tonne integrated steel plant in Orissa.

The South Korean company, which intends to set up its corporate head office at Bhubaneswar, the capital city of Orissa, has registered its Indian arm with the Registrar of Companies, Cuttack, under the Registration of Companies Act 1956.

Tae-Hyan Jeong has been appointed as the deputy-managing director of Posco India Pvt Ltd.

Even though the company has given its Seoul headquarter based senior executive vice president, Soung-Sik Cho, the additional charge of MD of the Indian arm, Jeong will control and operate as the actual MD of the company in Orissa.

"Our immediate priorities are resettlement and rehabilitation programme, mine development, and the successful completion of the feasibility report, of which the detailed study on water, rail, road, electricity and other related issues will be completed by November this year," said Tae-Hyan Jeong.
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Next generation Indica and Indigo models to be vastly superior
Mumbai: The chief of the Tata Group, Ratan Tata, has said it would replace its existing Indica and Indigo models with feature-packed next generation models in about two to two and a half years.

Responding to a pointed question, Ratan Tata said that the next generation Indica and Indigo vehicles would not be facelift models of the existing version.

"It (Indica) will be different. Believe me, it is a bigger car. It has a more refined engine, it will have a better ride," he said on how the new version would be different from the existing variants.

Indica, incidentally was the second largest selling model in July after Alto from Maruti Udyog Ltd.
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Ashok Leyland to roll out new range of luxury buses and heavy duty trucks
New Delhi: Ashok Leyland plans to introduce more than 20 new products in the current year, including a range of luxury buses and heavy-duty trucks.

According to R. Seshasayee, Managing Director, Ashok Leyland, two new luxury buses under the `InterCentury' brand will be launched by the third quarter of the current fiscal. The luxury buses will be launched through the company's joint venture firm Irizar TVS.

The company also plans to introduce a new range of `Newgen' heavy trucks by March 2006 to cater to the growing demand for such vehicles in India.

Ashok Leyland is investing around Rs200-250 crore to raise its capacity to 100,000 units in the next couple of years, from 63,000 units at the end of last fiscal.

Despite a flat growth in the commercial vehicle industry so far this fiscal, Mr Seshasayee said that growth is expected to pick up post September, as the fundamentals of the market have not changed and remain strong. "I feel the commercial vehicle market would see a growth of more than 10 per cent this year. The basic demand is still there in the market. I don't see the usual alarm bells like lack of freight, default in interest payments and so on. Segments such as tractor trailers, tippers and construction equipment will drive growth," he said.
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