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Tata
Power offloads stake in Alaknanda Hydro Power
Mumbai: The Tata
Power Company on Wednesday said it has offloaded its
entire stake in Alaknanda Hydro Power Company to GVK Hydel
Pvt for Rs3.12 crore.
The
company said it was divesting its stake in the 330 MW
hydro project in Uttaranchal, because it wants to focus
on mega power projects.
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Essel
Propack to invest Rs.25 crore for capacity expansion in
US
New
Delhi: Packaging company Essel
Propack said on Wednesday that it would invest US$25mn
in its US unit to expand capacity of its core product
of laminated tubes used in toothpastes and cosmetics.
The company also plans to diversify into other product
areas.
Essel
acquired the US outfit two years ago for US$30mn and its
main client is Proctor and Gamble. The company is focusing
primarily at the Europe and US markets due to the high
growth rate and added that it already had a 26 per cent
market share in the US.
The
company reported a net profit of Rs80 crore for the year
ended December 2004, on a consolidated global revenue
of Rs669 crore.
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Motorola
to assemble handsets in India by December
New Delhi: The world's No. 2 mobile phone maker,
Motorola
Inc said that it would begin assembling handsets in
India by December this year to increase its market share
in the booming sector.
India's
mobile services market is growing at scorching rate and
is adding 2.9 million new users each month, mainly due
to cheap local call rates.
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GAIL,
HPCL to jointly bid for oil assets
New Delhi: Gas
Authority of India (GAIL) and petroleum refiner Hindustan
Petroleum Corp will jointly bid for oil exploration
and production abroad, according to company officials.
Prashanto
Banerjee, chairman and director of GAIL said the two companies
will jointly identify opportunities in India, south east
Asia, Middle East, Africa, Russia and CIS countries.
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Infotech
CoE to design Airbus platform
Hyderabad: Infotech Enterprises a global design
engineering, geospatial and IT services company, is setting-up
of a state-of-the-art center of excellence for the Airbus
Platform.
The
company said it has been working with several Tier-1 suppliers
of Airbus for two years, and is seeing reinvigorated interest
from these and other suppliers in the recent past.
The
company said because of this it has created a Center of
Excellence to share the standards, processes, tools, technology
and best practices.
B.V.R.
Mohan Reddy, chairman & managing director, Infotech
Enterprises Ltd. said, "The Airbus Platform Design
Center in our new facility is state of the art. We now
have over 110 design engineering staff along with technical
publications and validation and verification professionals
in the center. "
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Tisco
logistics JV mulling IPO for expansion of activities
Kolkata: TM International Logistics (TMILL), which
is a joint venture between Tata
Steel and IQ Martrade Holding of Germany, is planning
to acquire four vessels in the next three years to become
a Rs1,000 crore integrated logistics company by 2008-09.
TM
International at present does not own any vessels and
is largely involved in port operations, chartering, customs
clearance, freight forwarding and shipping agency work.
The
company is also planning to come out with an initial public
offering to partly finance the acquisition of vessels.
The
managing director of TM International, S C Saxena, said
the company would invest around Rs350 crore in the next
three years for expansion of business activities. This
includes acquisition of vessels, construction of terminals,
warehousing in India and abroad and augmenting existing
infrastructure in ports.
TM International declared a Rs206 crore turnover in 2004-05,
up from Rs73 crore in 2002-03. Half the company's revenue
came from Tata enterprises while the other half was from
non-Tata clients.
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Oil
companies may get a tax waiver bounty
New Delhi: Reliance Industries (RIL) and state
owned oil refiners IOC and BPCL, among others, are likely
to get a bounty in the form of a tax waiver. The petroleum
ministry has moved a Cabinet note to waive off almost
Rs1,400 crore tax dues from these companies on account
of irrecoverable taxes.
RIL
alone will get a tax reprieve of about Rs700 crore.
These
tax liabilities were due from the companies, after the
government decided to discontinue the compensation for
irrecoverable taxes, for which the companies were paid
a benefit from the central government.
Irrecoverable
taxes are those taxes levied by the state governments
on the refiner but not recovered from the consumer. The
finance ministry disallowed this compensation in '03-04
after the presentation of the interim Budget.
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Bharat
Forge looks at acquisitions in China
New
Delhi: Bharat
Forge, the world's second largest forgings company,
is looking at acquisitions in China following successful
takeovers in the US and Europe.
China's
auto industry is growing rapidly, and the market offers
plenty of opportunities for the components sector.
Bharat
Forge is now planning to consolidate its operations in
various parts of the world and wants to grow inorganically.
Bharat
Forge earlier this year acquired Federal Forge Inc in
the US, through its wholly owned subsidiary Bhatrat Forge
America Inc for US$9.1mn. Recently, the company also took
over the manufacturing capacities of Imatra Kalista AB
Sweden.
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Nagarjuna
Construction mentioned under 'best under a billion' Forbes
list
Mumbai: Hyderabad-based Nagarjuna
Construction Company has been included in the Forbes
Asia 'Best Under a Billion' list of two hundred companies
in the Asia Pacific Region.
Twenty
Indian companies have been included in the Forbes List,
and Nagarjuna Construction is the only construction company.
The company received a certificate from the President,
CEO and editor-in-chief of Forbes Asia Singapore on November
10 in recognition of its sustained gains in sales, returns
and market capitalisation.
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Grasim
Ind. looks for buyers for Graviera brand
Mumbai: AV
Birla group flagship Grasim
Industries, is looking for buyers for its Graviera
suitings brand and production facilities located at Bhiwani,
Haryana.
The
size for both the brand and the facilities is estimated
at about Rs100 crore.
Grasim
has decided to focus on its Grasim range of suiting and
fabrics, and wants to prune its portfolio of poorly performing
businesses. The company may also retain the Graviera brand
and promote it as Graviera suiting by Grasim.
"The
Graviera brand will be supported by the mother brand of
Grasim," said Vikram Rao, director of Aditya Birla
Nuvo (formerly Indian Rayon), and the business head of
branded apparels including the suiting range.
Grasim's
decision is based on its belief that the poly viscose
business is not growing as fast as the viscose business,
which is the Grasim suiting range. The company was heavily
promoting the Graviera range, till some time ago and says
it would not phase out the Graviera brand.
Grasim
textiles sell at around Rs1,000 a meter, while the retail
price for the Graviera brand is about Rs400 a meter.
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HPCL
wants stake in Shell's LNG terminal
New Delhi: Hindustan
Petroleum Corporation is looking at acquiring a stake
in Shell
India's Hazira LNG terminal in Gujarat.
HPCL
chairman and managing director M B Lal told reporters
on the sidelines of the signing in function of MoUs with
GAIL (India), "We are talking to them for picking
up a stake in Hazira. A deal is possible by the end of
this fiscal."
HPCL
is believed to be interested in acquiring a 25 per cent
stake in the terminal, as it does not have a presence
in the LNG business so far.
Shell
is unlikely to offload more than 25 per cent since its
own equity would fall to less than 51 per cent.
Shell
started marketing LNG from the Hazira terminal earlier
this year but has so far found few takers on account of
the high prices it is charging. The terminal has a capacity
of 2.5 million tonne per annum but is currently being
under-utilised because of lack of customers.
GAIL
has not yet received a response from Shell.
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Suguna
Poultry selects IBM to implement Oracle applications
Bangalore:
Suguna Poultry Farm (Suguna), a leading poultry company
in India, is getting IBM
to implement the Oracle e-Business suite (Oracle Applications).
This will be the first of its kind implementation in the
Indian poultry-farming sector.
The
implementation will support Suguna's growth plans by driving
business efficiencies, improving employee productivity
and managing growth, according to senior IBM and Oracle
executives.
Suguna
has declared sales of Rs508 crore in the first half of
2005-06, a 41 per cent growth over the corresponding period
of the previous year. Last year Suguna's turnover exceeded
Rs813 crore.
IBM
Business Consulting Services will implement Oracle applications
at nine divisions at Suguna across seven states including
Suguna's corporate office, seven regional offices and
74 branch offices, six grandparent poultry farms, 126
breeder farms , 35 hatcheries, 10,000 broiler farms, 30
feed mills and five transportation offices.
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Aurobindo
obtains USFDA approval for Amoxicillin
Mumbai:
Aurobindo
Pharma said Wednesday that it has received the US
Food Drug Administration (USFDA) approval for its Amoxicillin
tablets USP 500 mg and 875 mg and Amoxicillin capsules
USP of 250 mg and 500 mg.
This
is the first USFDA approval received from the company's
dedicated formulation 'unit XII', in Bachupally in Andhra
Pradesh which manufactures Betalactam formulations.
Amoxicillin
is used in the treatment of bacterial infections, such
as pneumonia, bronchitis, gonorrhoea and infections of
the ears, nose, throat, urinary tract, and skin.
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Siemens
receives Rs.1,000 crore export order from Qatar
Mumbai: Siemens
has received an export order worth Rs1,000 crore from
Qatar. The order has been awarded to the company's consortium
comprising Siemens AG, Germany and itself, Siemens informed
the Bombay Stock Exchange.
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Biocon
enters into licensing agreement with Bentley Pharma
Mumbai: Biocon on Wednesday entered into a product
licensing agreement with Bentley Pharmaceuticals, Inc,
for the latter's intranasal spray formulation for administering
insulin. The latter is a technology-based specialty pharmaceutical
and drug delivery company.
The
licence agreement covers 85 countries and gives Biocon
exclusive as well as co-exclusive rights to develop and
market throughout Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.
Biocon
also said it has entered into a long-term supply agreement
to provide Bentley, and its licensees, with a supply of
insulin for worldwide markets.
The
two are also planning to work together for the clinical
development of intranasal insulin product to meet the
requirements of various international regulatory authorities
including the US, EU and the rest of the world.
The
two companies will share the cost of clinical development
and regulatory filings in their respective territories.
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Anil
Ambani's DTH proposal gets I&B approval
New Delhi: The DTH venture, Reliance Bluemagic,
promoted by Anil Ambani has been approved by the Information
and Broadcasting Ministry and has been forwarded for inter-ministerial
consultation.
The
Ambani group was forced to change the name of its venture
to Bluemagic from the earlier name of Skymagic after Rupert
Murdoch's NewsCorp raised objection to the word 'Sky'
in the name.
Currently,
the country has one private DTH operator in Zee-promoted
'Dish TV' while public broadcaster Prasar Bharati runs
a free-to-air (FTA) platform.
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Acer
launches Rs.20,999 PC
Bangalore:
Acer has announced the launch of its Acer Power 290
series PC for the SMB market, based on Intel's Pentium
4 processor technology with 64-bit technology priced at
Rs20, 999.
The
Acer Power 290 uses the Pentium 4 processor 2.66 Ghz (1
MB L2 cache, 533 Mhz FSB) 910 GL chipset, the company
said in a statement here.
With
system memory of 128 MB DDR RAM, upgradeable to 2 GB and
storage capacity of 40 GB IDE Hard Drive @ 7200 RPM, the
Acer Power 290 has an integrated 10/100 Network Integrated
Card (NIC), 52 X CD ROM, PS/2 Acer black 104 keys keyboard,
black PS/2 optic al mouse, 15'' CRT black monitor and
on board sound and graphics the company said.
Using
the Linux Operating system, the distinctive feature of
the Acer Power 290, apart from the latest Intel 64-bit
technology for power-packed performance, is the lifetime
anti-virus from E Trust. It is available at Rs20,999 with
a one-year onsite warranty.
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Xiotech
to expand in India
Hyderabad:
Storage solutions company, US-based Xiotech Corporation
is planning to expand its operations in India. It will
expand its India development centre by doubling the headcount
next year.
At
present the company employs about 40 professionals. With
the increased employee strength the company will be able
to focus more on product innovations," said Xiotech
Corporation president and chief executive officer, Casey
Powel.
The
company has so far invested Rs3 million in its Indian
operations and plans to invest another two million dollars
in building human resource in India.
The
company's flagship product, Magnitude 3D Data Scale, offers
an integrated set of data and storage management tools.
The company plans to release another product by February
next year with main contribution from the Hyderabad centre.
Xiotech has more than 1,500 customers globally and would
focus more on SMEs.
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infoUSA
to expand operations in India
New
York: infoUSA, which provides proprietary business
consumer databases and sales leads, is planning to expand
compilation operations in India. The company plans to
hire a team of 40 business editors who will be responsible
for gathering information from business Web sites to edit
millions of business descriptions, executive biographies
and other important detailed data elements about a business,
the company said.
These
enhanced content features will allow end users to perform
'Smart Searches' using keywords to find the most relevant
results, it said.
The
'smart search' content enhancements will also be featured
in infoUSA flagship products such as SalesGenie.com, credit.net,
idEXEC.com, and OneSource.com.
Founded
in 1972, infoUSA provides business and consumer information
products, database marketing services, data processing
services and sales and marketing solutions.
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Madura
Garments to invest Rs.170 crore for expanding retail network
Mumbai:
Madura
Garments, part of Indian Rayon and Industries, will
invest Rs170 crore in expanding its retail network, including
25 exclusive Louis Philippe outlets in the next three
years.
The
company's director Vikram Rao said Indian Rayon has a
vision to make Madura Garments into a US$100mn brand in
the coming five years through retail promotion. He was
speaking at the launch of their flagship Louis Philippe
store here.
A
total of 17-18 flagship stores of 3,000 square feet with
an investment of over Rs2 crore would be set up.
The
company will open a store in Delhi, two more stores at
Mumbai, besides openings at Chennai, Kolkata and Chandigarh.
The
company would source small manufacturing from Italy for
high-end formal suits, trousers, and shirts by next year.
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Hindustan
Zinc Q2 net rises 35 per cent to Rs.196 crore
Mumbai:
Hindustan
Zinc on Wednesday reported a 35.17 per cent rise in
net profit at Rs196 crore for the quarter ended September
30, 2005 as against Rs145 crore in the corresponding period
last fiscal.
Total
income increased 36.60 per cent to Rs709 crore for the
quarter ended September 30, 2005 from Rs519 crore in the
year-ago period, the company informed the Bombay Stock
Exchange.
The
company has declared a net profit of Rs341 crore for the
half-year ended September 30, 2005 as compared to Rs269
crore for the same period last fiscal.
For
the half year ended September 30, 2005 the company's total
income increased to Rs1256 crore from Rs983 crore in H1
2004-05.
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