Toyota Kirloskar declares indefinite lockout at Bidadi plant
Bangalore: Toyota Kirloskar Motor has declared an indefinite lockout at its Bidadi car plant in Karnataka as some of its workers continued to strike work.

Toyota Kirloskar Motor said it declared a lockout to ensure the safety of all concerned including those on strike.

Conciliatory talks are on through the Deputy Labour Commissioner, who has called a meeting on Monday. The strike began on Friday afternoon when the workers went on a snap strike, which the management termed `illegal' in the absence of the stipulated 14-day notice. They were seeking re-instatement of three employees who were dismissed last year after inquiry.

The Japanese company is at present deciding the location for its second facility in India to make small cars. The Karnataka Government has approved Toyota's proposal to put up a Rs 1,147-crore plant at Bidadi, near the existing plant, on 400 acres of land. The new proposal speaks of production of 1.5 lakh compact cars and creation of 2,600 jobs.
Back to News Review index page  

Cargill India to pick up majority stake in Matrix Biosciences
New Delhi: Food company, Cargill India's proposal to pick up a 51 per cent controlling stake in Hyderabad-based Matrix Biosciences has received clearance from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) sources said.

Matrix is a player in the animal and aquaculture feed manufacturing segment. Cargill India is wholly-owned by Cargill Mauritius.
Back to News Review index page  

Accor to set up five-star hotel in Hyderabad
Hyderabad: Accor, the European travel and tourism company is setting up Novotel, a 300-room five-star hotel in Hyderabad. The hotel would be ready by April well in time for the Asian Development Bank meet to be held in Hyderabad in May this year.

Philip Logan, general manager of Hyderabad International Convention centre (HICC) now part of the Accor group, told the press that Accor has been appointed to manage the HICC.

The HICC is spread over 2, 91,000 sq ft of primary meeting space equipped to handle events for about 50 to 5000 delegates.

Well connected and with the International airport project under way, Accor plans to project it as an ideal convention destination.

The convention centre is stated to be the biggest in the region next only to Dubai and Singapore. The Frankfurt centre is 25 times this centre and the Sydney centre is six times its size.
Back to News Review index page  

BG allowed to hold 50 per cent in Mahanagar Gas for one more year
New Delhi: The Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) has allowed British Gas to hold a 50 per cent equity in Mahanagar Gas (MGL) up to December 2006. BG and GAIL (India) each hold a 50 per cent stake in Mahanagar Gas.

MGL will now have to come out with a public issue before the end of this calendar year, as the board has placed a condition that no further extension would be permitted and that the company would be required to bring an IPO to meet the entry condition in the FIPB approval.

Earlier BG and GAIL were told to reduce their stakes in MGL to 35 per cent each, with MGL floating a public issue. The company requested FIPB to grant a year's extension for continuing with its existing equity stake of 50 per cent in MGL. Even as the Petroleum Ministry did not support the extension of one year for continuing the foreign equity holding, the FIPB has granted the approval.
Back to News Review index page  

Bharat Bio to set up biotech facility in Malaysia
Mumbai: Bharat Biotech is setting up a biotechnology facility in Perak, Malaysia, jointly with Perak State Development Corporation and Remco Engineering & Consultancy.

The unit requires an investment of Rs45 crore and is expected to be operational by the end of this calendar year. Industry sources said the vaccine production and biotech R&D set-up will undertake mass production of Hepatitis B, Typhoid and Malaria vaccines. The time frame by which the plant is expected to go on stream has not been revealed.

Though Bharat Bio had planned to set up a vaccine plant in Africa, the company embarked on the Malaysia project since the joint venture proposal emerged with the support of the government of Malaysia.

Bharat Biotech is said to be planning few more overseas ventures to cater to the world markets.
Back to News Review index page  

Kingfisher withdraws from Air Sahara race
Mumbai: Kingfisher Airlines promoted by maverick liquor industrialist Vijay Mallya, has withdrawn from the race to acquire domestic carrier Air Sahara, a part of the multi-crore Sahara India group.

Earlier Kingfisher Airlines and Jet Airways were the leading bidders for acquiring a 100 per cent stake in Air Sahara, which connects to 24 domestic and four international destinations with 134 daily direct flights and offers 13,900 seats daily.

Mallya now says Kingfisher is not interested in buying out Air Sahara. Mallya also said that Kingfisher is planning to introduce first-class services from March-end or April.

The stumbling block in the takeover was the valuation by consultant Ernst & Young, which pegged Air Sahara at US$750mn. Kingfisher had, however, bid for US$400mn, while Jet Airways had offered US$550mn.

Industry sources, however, said the takeover for Jet would be now easy as Kingfisher had opted out of the race.
Back to News Review index page  

Hotels group Apeejay outlines Rs.850 cr expansion plans
New Delhi: The Apeejay Surrendra Hotels group is planning an Rs850 crore expansion for its hotel business, said Priya Paul, chairperson of the group's The Park Hotels.

The Park Hotels are present in New Delhi, Kolkata, Vishakhapatnam, Bangalore and Chennai, with a total capacity of 950 rooms. After the expansion, the number of rooms is expected to touch 1,800 and the number of hotels under the Park brand would be increased to eight.

One Park branded hotel will come up in Hyderabad, Bangalore and Mumbai each. Involving an investment of Rs220 crore, the Hyderabad property is under construction and is expected to be up and running by the first quarter of 2008 calendar year and would have about 250 rooms.

The Bangalore property, which would be the group's second one in the city, is expected to cost about Rs200 crore and offer 250-300 rooms. The one in Mumbai is likely to be centrally located and hence is likely to cost about Rs400 crore (as the realty rates there are higher). The hotel will have 250-300 rooms. The hotels group is also looking for a property in Navi Mumbai to set up a hotel.
Back to News Review index page  

Nicholas files petition on liability transfer
New Delhi: Nicholas Piramal, has filed a petition in the Delhi High Court raising the issue as to whether the criminal liability of a company gets transferred along with its assets and obligations to the company with which it merges.

The petition also seeks quashing of summons issued to the company and its chairman and director Ajay Piramal by a metropolitan magistrate in Delhi for alleged sale of a substandard drug, manufactured by Rhone-Poulenc (India), before its merger with Nicholas Piramal in April 2001. It has sought the quashing of the pending criminal complaint filed against it by a drug inspector under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940. According to the company, the criminal liability of Rhone-Poulenc could not have been transferred to it after the merger.

Nicholas Piramal said the drug erythromycin estolate oral suspension was manufactured in August 2000 and, at that time, the company was not connected with the manufacture and sale of the product belonging to Rhone-Poulenc. Thus, it was not responsible for the conduct of Rhone business.
Back to News Review index page  

Oracle and i-flex to function independently
Mumbai: Oracle Corporation does not intend to integrate the operations of the recently acquired i-flex solutions with itself and says that this is a 'one-time investment.'

Krishan Dhawan, managing director, Oracle India, told reporters, "We have no intention of merging the operations of both the companies. We will look at jointly marketing our products and expanding customer and product bases."

The Mumbai-headquartered i-flex will function as an independent company and will have Oracle members on its board. Oracle will also resell i-flex's top-selling core banking solution, Flexcube, across the globe, he added.

In August, Oracle invested US$909 million to acquire 43 per cent stake in i-flex, which employs over 6,200 people worldwide. Oracle president Charles Phillips had joined the acquired i-flex's board.
Back to News Review index page  

Bharti's plans put on hold
New Delhi: The Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) has put on hold two different proposals involving the Sunil Mittal promoted Bharti group. The first one is from Bharti Televentures (BTVL) to classify it as an operating company against its earlier structure as a holding company. This follows the merger of Bharti Cellular and Bharti Infotel into BTVL.

The second proposal is with regard to the Bharti group's life insurance joint venture (JV) with Axa. Mauritius incorporated Axa India Holdings plans to hold investments in the proposed life insurance company, both directly and indirectly through an intermediate company.

FIPB's decision on the former is based on a noting from the department of telecom, which wants to examine the proposal of reclassification in detail. The reclassification has been necessitated as part of a consolidation in the company through which the group merged its operations of providing cellular mobile services, fixed line services, long distance, broadband and data services.
Back to News Review index page