Reliance Energy, Reliance Capital to consider merger of ADAE cos
Mumbai: The boards of Reliance Capital and Reliance Energy, controlled by Anil Ambani, will hold a meeting next month to consider merging Reliance Capital Ventures and Reliance Energy Ventures with the former companies.

Reliance Energy Ventures and Reliance Capital Ventures are among the four companies that were created after the de-merger of Reliance Industries.

The other two companies are Reliance Communication Ventures and Global Fuel Management Services.
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Bajaj Auto offers two-wheeler financing through tie-up with Union Bank
New Delhi: Bajaj Auto has tied up with Union Bank of India for offering two-wheeler finance. The company said the tie-up would enable customers to avail 100 per cent finance on road cost of vehicle at a 9 per cent rate of interest with repayment tenure between and one to five years.
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Kanoria Chemical's puts UP plant into operation
Mumbai: Kanoria Chemicals & Industries' second 25 MW coal-based power plant at the Renukoot chemical works division at Renukoot, UP, has started commercial production.

The company deals in manufacturing and marketing in the areas of industrial chemicals and agro chemicals. Kanoria's Alco Chemicals division at Gujarat has a biogas power plant, a duel fuel (natural gas and biogas) power plant, a wind farm and a bio-compost manufacturing complex.
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Maxwell Ind to issue bonus shares in 3:4 ratio; to go in for stock split
Mumbai: Maxwell Industries is planning to come out with a bonus issue in a 3:4 ratio and also go in for a stock split of its shares in a 1:5 ratio. A decision to issue three new bonus shares for every four shares held in the company, was taken by the board at its meeting held yesterday, the company informed the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Maxwell has also decided to issue 5 per cent of 24,35,000 cumulative redeemable preference share of Rs 100 each, amounting to Rs 24.35 crore redeemable at the option of the company in three instalments at the end of 8th, 9th and 10th year from the issue.
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Jaiprakash to expand cement capacity
Mumbai: Jaiprakash Associates, the flagship company of the Jaypee Group of Industries, plans to invest Rs 1,500 crore for expanding its cement capacities over the next five years. The company's board has approved the investment to create new or enhance existing capacities of cement and cement products, directly or through joint venture special purpose vehicles.

The company's board also accorded approval to enter into a joint venture for setting up a pit head based Thermal Power Project of 500 MW in the first phase as well as developing a coal mines block. Jaiprakash Associates principal activity is to provide construction service.
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Investors hiking stake in RIL
Mumbai: A group of investors are hiking their stake in Reliance Industries. Bhumika Trading. and persons acting in concert - Eklavya Mercantile, Ekansha Enterprise and Ornate Traders - are proposing to acquire 1,94,400 shares amounting to 0.02 per cent of shareholding and voting rights of RIL from Akshar Traders to hike its stake in RIL to 10.07 per cent.

After RIL set the record date on January 25 for de-merger scheme, trading in Reliance counters has become very active, as investors need to buy such shares before January 17 for becoming eligible to get free shares of Anil Ambani's four de-merged companies.

The proposed acquisition price per share will be 1 per cent of closing price on the previous day or ruling market price as applicable to a block deal on the day of acquisition.

Bhumika Trading had earlier announced acquisition of 5.3 crore shares of RIL. Bhumika along with a group of persons acting in concert - Ekalavya and Ekansha, acquired 4.95 crore shares of RIL on December 21 by way of block deal.
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Teva looks for tie ups with Indian cos for clinical research
Greater Noida: Global leader in generic drugs, Teva group is eyeing collaborations with Indian partners in clinical research and cutting-edge scientific areas such as biotechnology (BT). The company has inaugurated a research and development center here.

"We are looking at collaborations with Indian companies in clinical programmes and cutting edge scientific areas such as biotechnology," said the president and CEO (API Division), Ahar on Yaari.

Teva Group is traditionally into research of innovative products for central nervous system drugs (CNS), and is now exploring new therapeutic areas.

The company plans to form alliances or partnerships with Indian companies in new areas, apart from its traditional stronghold of CNS drugs and in the biotechnology sector.

The Indian R&D centre is Teva's third biggest in the world after Israel and Hungary. It had made an initial investment of $4 million at Greater Noida facility. The company has also added a sixth API manufacturing unit at its location a t Gajrola (Haryana) with an approximate investment of $30 million.
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InfrasoftTech to acquire US firm
Mumbai: Banking software solutions provider InfrasoftTech is planning to expand its American operations by acquiring a US-based company for $7 million in two months.

Infrasoftech's managing director Hanuman Tripathi said the company has shortlisted three prospective companies for the deal for which talks are on. "We hope to acquire one of them within next 60 days," he said.

The company is looking to strengthen its position in the US market and will add around 50-70 people and five to seven banks to its customer base.

InfrasoftTech has a presence in Europe, Middle East and East Asia. The company gets around 55-60 per cent of its revenues from its UK operations and is targeting to earn around 25 per cent revenues from US within next two years.
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Mittal in talks to acquire 49 per cent stake in China's Baotou
Shanghai: Mittal Steel, the world's biggest steel maker, is talking to Chinese company Baotou Iron & Steel (Group) Co to acquire 49 per cent in the latter.

Officials in the mid size steel company located in Inner Mangolia said no agreement has been reached yet.

State-owned Baotou has an annual capacity of 7 million tonnes of steel, and is targeting 8.5 million tonnes next year. The deal, if successful, would be Mittal's second major investment in a Chinese company.

Earlier this year, Mittal paid about $310 mn for 36.7 per cent of Hunan Valin Steel Tube & Wire Co, the listed arm of China's eighth-largest steel.

China's steel output has boomed alongside its rapid economic expansion, and could grow 25 per cent this year to 340 million tonnes, according to government figures.
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IOC divestment of stake in ONGC, GAIL gets nod
Mumbai: The board of Indian Oil Corporation has approved the divestment of its 20 per cent stake in the public sector Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and 50 per cent in stake in GAIL.

However, the proposed sale is subject to necessary approvals from the appropriate government authorities, including Petroleum Ministry and Ministry of Finance, it said.
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Pilots leave Alliance Air in droves
New Delhi: State-owned airline Alliance Air is facing a flight of pilots and if things don't improve soon it may well be grounded for some time till it gets new pilots.

Nearly half of the existing pilots of the airline have resigned in the past 18 months. 58 commanders and co-pilots have quit bringing the numbers down from 94 to 36, official sources said. More recently of the existing 36 pilots, 15 more have quit and the remaining ones are also understood to be putting in their papers, the ministry sources said.

The resignations have come at a time when its parent company, Indian, has placed orders for new aircraft to refurbish its own fleet as well as that of the subsidiary. However, the pilots have not yet been relieved from duty due to the six-month notice period under the rules set by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation.

Sources said the notice period of these pilots was likely to be completed by March next year. In case, there were no further resignations, Alliance Air would be left with only a handful of commanders or none at all.

With the advent of new airlines and the expansion programmes of the existing ones, the demand for experienced pilots, engineers and ground staff has suddenly shot up. Besides increased emoluments, the pilots and engineers have left Alliance Air jobs due to the non-permanent nature of job as they were employed on contract.

Also the new airlines are giving them an opportunity to operate new generation Boeing 737 aircraft instead of the vintage B737-200s, which make up the fleet of Alliance Air. The management of Indian as well as its subsidiary is contemplating several measures to check the exodus. One of the measures is matching the emoluments with that of the market.
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EFI plans to expand presence in India
Mumbai: EFI Inc, which specialises in offering digital print controllers, professional printing applications and print management system & enterprise resource planning to the printing industry, is planning to expand its India operations by doubling the workforce and opening up new centres.

The company will open its Mumbai office in the next month and plans to increase its India headcount to 300 from the present 150 in next 12 to 18 months, EFI India Head Atul Saran said.

EFI is actively looking for partners in the top 20 cities to build its reach and support infrastructure for its many award-winning products particularly Digital Store Front - the Web Store front for printers Saran said.

A majority of the workforce to be recruited would be engineers, Saran said. The company is also moving to a new office in Bangalore.
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Chola MS launches insurance package for Jewellers Mumbai: Cholamandalam MS General Insurance (Chola MS) has launched Jeweller's Block, an insurance package to provide comprehensive risk coverage for the gems and jewellery trading industry.

According to a company press release, the policy provides risk cover for diamond dealers and jewellery manufacturers to meet the specific needs of the trade.

The coverage includes all transactions in diamonds, precious stones, jewellery and bullion. It also provides cover for insured gems and jewellery during domestic and international exhibitions, the release said.

The product offers additional coverage to include boiling and casting operations outside of business hours, while the insurance industry practice does not cover diamonds not stored in safe vaults outside of business hours, it added.
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SAIL favours mega merger of steel PSUs
Kolkata: The Steel Authority of India (SAIL), favours the proposed mega merger of steel-related public sector units, including the Vishakapatnam-based Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd (RINL).

V. S. Jain, chairman of SAIL, said the emerging steel market in India was likely to witness fierce competition among all the steel producers. He added that public sector steel companies should avoid competing among themselves.

He said he was of the view that they should be merged and a single entity should be created. He clarified that these were his personal views and Union Government would be considering all opinions, including those of the State Governments and individual employees, before taking a final decision.

SAIL has chalked out a plan to produce 20 million tonne of saleable steel by 2011-12, and says it is ready to fund Coal India Ltd (CIL), if required, for developing a coking coal mine to augment indigeneous coal supply to the company.

Jain said SAIL is also prepared to join hands with CIL for acquiring coking coal mines abroad.

Jain, who met his CIL counterpart during the day, said the company would invest Rs 116 crore for the development of Munidih-16 mine under Bharat Coking Coal, a CIL subsidiary. It would be adjusted with the company's coal bill to CIL.

At present, SAIL's annual coal bill is Rs 6,000 crore. While 60 per cent is imported, the rest is purchased from CIL.
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Man Industries receives Rs 1.63 bn order from Gail
Mumbai: Man Industries said it received an order worth Rs1.63 billion from state-run natural gas transporter GAIL India to supply coated line pipes.

Man's shares rose 5.69 percent to Rs 261 on the news.
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