GMR-Fraport to develop Mumbai/Delhi airport
New Delhi: The government has decided that GMR-Fraport, the only company remaining in the bidding for airports revamp by E Sreedharan and his group of technical experts, would have the option of choosing between the Delhi and Mumbai airports.

After GMR-Fraport declares its price for whichever airport it chooses, the bidder for the other airport will be chosen from the remaining three contenders in the fray.

The government has also decided to broaden the criteria for the technical evaluation of bids. If the criteria are relaxed, the bids of GMR-Fraport, Reliance-ASA (Mexico), DS Construction-Munich Airport and GVK-South African Airport are likely to qualify for financial evaluation.

The government has decided not to call for fresh bids for airport privatization.
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Integreon acquires US BPO's legal processing division
Mumbai: Mumbai-based BPO company, Integreon, has acquired a part of the legal processing business of BPO major Bowne, a New York-based company providing financial and digital printing for around US$5-7mn.

The deal has been structured with a back-end processing work from Bowne to Integreon. This may result in additional revenues for Integreon but there will be no cash outflow for the acquisition.

This is Integreon's third acquisition in less than five years. In April '03, the company acquired Contentscape, a company specialising in web content design and development for less than US$5mn. Prashant Chawla was then appointed as COO and country head of the BPO. In July '05, the company acquired Brahmy Solutions, a UK-based high-end analytics company for less than US$10mn.
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Provogue increases focus on retail
Mumbai: Provogue India will develop three million square feet of retail space in Aurangabad, Mysore and Thane through its mall management company Prozone. The malls are likely to be ready by 2008.

Hypercity, the hypermarket promoted by Shoppers' Stop and the K Raheja group, will be one of the key tenants in the malls as well as Shoppers' Stop.

Some of the other occupants would include Fame, Globus, Westside and Spaces, apart from other brands like Nike and Provogue.

The size of the malls will range from 8,00,000 sq ft in Aurangabad to 1.5 million sq ft in Thane. The company will also provide mall management services and is in talks with a couple of foreign players. Provogue is also looking at doubling its retail space from the existing 40,000 sq ft to about 80,000 sq ft by the end of the year through 45 standalone brand stores.
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Sahara to revamp operations
New Delhi: The Sahara Group has begun a major restructuring process for which it has engaged management consultant Ernst and Young. The company recently sold its non-core Airline to Jet Airways for Rs2,300 crore.

Sahara Group now plans to focus on its core business activities of financial, real estate and media and entertainment businesses. The size of the business for which restructuring is being sought is estimated to be upwards of Rs50,000 crore.

A Sahara India spokesperson has confirmed that E&Y had been mandated for giving recommendations for group's restructuring.
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Bharti Tele-Ventures to be renamed Bharti Airtel
Mumbai: Bharti Tele-Ventures, the telecommunications services provider, is to renamed Bharti Airtel.

The board of directors of the company approved the change of name today.

According to a company release, "The word Tele-Ventures reflected the activity of the company - to undertake ventures/make investments in the telecom sector. However, after the merger of Bharti Cellular and Bharti Infotel with Bharti Tele-Ventures, the company has become an operating company in the telecom sector. The name change will reflect the present nature of activities of the company," the release said.

Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman and group managing director, Bharti Enterprises, said: "Over the years, we have nurtured and grown the Airtel brand. The use of word Airtel in the name of the company will reflect the brand as well as the activity of the company.
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Ballarpur Industries to focus on core buisness
New Delhi: Paper manufacturer Ballarpur Industries (BILT) is planning to focus on its core businesses of papermaking. The company board has approved the merger of APR Packaging (Ashti) unit with BILT.

The company also plans to would hive off its power division and real estate assets. "The objective is to focus on paper and withdraw from all our non-core businesses. This will improve our return on capital employed," B. Hariharan, the group finance director of BILT, said.

BILT will sell assets pertaining to the real estate and power division to two separate companies.

While the real estate assets will be sold to another group company, Janpath Investment, for Rs140 crore, the power division assets will be spun off into a separate company, which will fetch BILT Rs217 crore.

BILT will hold 26 per cent stake in the separate power company to be called BILT Power Ltd.

The remaining 74 per cent stake will be held by another group company (Ballarpur Paper Holding Ltd) and a financial institution. "We have 95 megawatt capacity (captive power plants), which will be hived off into a separate company and sold. We will get Rs217 crore in cash for this," Hariharan said.

BILT will use the proceeds from the sale to fund the capacity expansion plans at its Bhigwan unit.

The company has reported a 9.45-per cent rise in net profit at Rs47.4 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2005, compared to Rs43.3 crore in the corresponding period last year.

The company has declared a 12.5 per cent interim dividend.
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Toyota workers return to work: union claims victory
Bangalore: Over 1,000 workers of Toyota Kirloskar Motor resumed work on Tuesday. The workers' union said that it succeeded in prevailing upon the management to alter certain conditions for joining duty.

A representative of the Union said, "Certain clauses which could have been used against us, were dropped on our insistence," the representative said. He said certain references to the strike in the `good conduct' undertaking had been dropped.

He said the union would now meet on Thursday to finalise a plan of action on the issue of lifting suspension on 27 workers.

Toyota Kirloskar Motor welcomed the workers' decision to return to work.
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Dunlop signs MoU with unions at Sahagunj unit
Kolkata: Dunlop India has entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the trade unions at its Sahagunj facility on wage agreement. The terms and conditions for payment of past dues and also towards the early retirement scheme (ERS) have been agreed upon.

A total of 1,400 workers, out of 2,700, will be given ERS. Tuesday's MoU is expected to influence negotiations at Ambattur near Chennai in Tamil Nadu, where 300 workers out of 1,300 will be separated through ERS.

As per the MoU, the salaries and wages fixed at the December 31, 2000 level, are to be continued for three years since re-opening.

The payment towards ERS has been pegged at a maximum of Rs1.20 lakh. The Ruia group controlled management had previously proposed to pay a maximum of Rs75,000 towards ERS. The payment towards past dues of wages and salaries now stand enhanced from the initially proposed Rs20,000 to Rs30,000.
The 1,300 workers who will be absorbed will get 50 per cent of their past dues towards wages and salaries within six months from the date of reopening. The rest will be paid within the next six months.
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Gulshan Sugars to expand
Mumbai: Calcium carbonate manufacturer Gulshan Sugars & Chemicals will invest Rs30 crore for funding its expansion plans.

The board of directors have approved the proposed expansion of capacity by setting up a 20,000 tonnes per annum special grade calcium carbonate unit along with an additional 3MW captive power plant at its manufacturing facilities at Muzaffarnagar, the company informed the Bombay Stock Exchange.

The Rs30 crore will be funded through a term loan borrowing from IDBI and a follow-on public issue of equity shares, it said.
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LG eyes 300 pc growth in GSM segment
New Delhi: LG Electronics is increasing focus on its GSM mobile phone business. It is planning to grow the business by 300 per cent in 2006 to Rs600 crore by introducing new models and by expanding its distribution network.

Last year the company sold close to 4.5 lakh mobile phones and is targeting to sell 1.2 million handsets this year. The company is targeting the mobile handset business to contribute Rs600 crore to the company's total revenues of Rs9,000 crore.

LG is expecting the mobile phone business to contribute six per cent of its overall India revenues in 2006 as compared to three per cent last year.
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Ranbaxy introduces anti-diabetes drug
Mumbai: Ranbaxy Laboratories has launched an anti-diabetes product Volix (Voglibose) in dosages of 0.2 mg and 0.3 mg tablets in the Indian markets. Voglibose is indicated for improvement of postprandial (after meal) hyperglycemia in diabetes mellitus only when exercise or oral hyperglycemic drug does not result in adequate glycemic control, a company statement said.

In July 2005, Nihon Pharmaceuticals Industry (NPI), a joint venture between the company and Nippon Chemiphar Ltd (NC) launched Voglibose tablets under the brand name, Vogseal in Japan.
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HCC gets contract of Rs.395-cr from NHPC
Mumbai: Hindustan Construction Company has received a contract worth Rs395 crore from National Hydroelectric Power Corporation for dam construction works in West Bengal.

The order would be carried out for Teesta Low Dam HE Project, Stage-IV and the package would include construction of diversion arrangement, concrete gravity dam along with spillway, roller compacted concrete dam, surface power house, and other associated civil works, the company informed the Bombay Stock Exchange.
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Apollo tyres to invest Rs.40 crore
Vadodara: Apollo Tyres plans to invest Rs40 crore in truck and bus radial (TBR) tyre project at its plant at Limda village in Gujarat.

According to RS Kanwar the chief operating officer of the company, the commercial launch of the truck and bus radial tyre would take one year from now.

"We already have the best radial in passenger car, farm and light truck, the only segment remaining was of commercials vehicles. In a year from now, our arsenal will be filled to ensure our truck and bus customers who wish to use radial tyres can depend on us," he said.

Nearly 98 per cent of heavy commercial vehicles in India run on bias tyres and growth in radialisation has been very slow, he said.
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Food & Beverages sector recovers
New Delhi: After years of sluggish growth the Indian food and beverages (F&B) sector showed signs of turnaround in 2004 and 2005 and gave returns of 50 per cent in 2005 and 65 per cent in 2004 according to industry representative body Assocham.

Assocham said the growth can be attributed to rising urban demand and well-designed market strategies of F&B companies. The F&B sector's market capitalisation too showed an increase of 44 per cent on March 2004-05 as compared to last year. The top 10 companies registered 35 per cent rise in their market capitalisation, it said.

The top 10 companies in terms of market capitalisation include ITC Ltd, Nestle India, Tata Tea, Britannia Industries, Glaxo Smithkline Consumer healthcare, Balrampur Chini Mills, Bajaj Hindusthan, Marico, McDowell and Shaw Wallace, it said.

The spurt in growth was due to huge spending on advertising campaigns, judicious mix of marketing strategies, innovative packaging and streamlined distribution channels, which created awareness among the consumers.
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Corporate results: Tata Coffee, ACC, LIC, ABB, India Cements, Varun Shipping, Cipla, GSK, 3infotech, HCL Info, Dr Reddy's

Tata Coffee Q3 sales down 2.4%
Tata Coffee's net sales for Q3 FY06 were down by 2.4 per cent to Rs49 crore as against Rs50.2 crore in Q3 FY05. Profit after tax (PAT) for the quarter stood at Rs5.57 crore, a growth of 13 per cent over Rs4.93 crore in Q3 FY05.

However, net profits after extraordinary items were down by almost 64 per cent at Rs4.8 crore during Q3 FY06 as against Rs13.32 crore in Q3 FY05, which included a profit of Rs8.38 crore from sale of investments and properties.

The Tata Coffee Managing Director, M.H. Ashraff, attributed the decline in sales to the drop in instant coffee sales. However, he expected the company to make up for the shortfall during the fourth quarter, a traditionally strong period for coffee sales.

ACC Q3 net quadruples to Rs.192 crore
Net profits of cement major Associated Cement Companies (ACC) shot up by 75% to Rs94 crore on the back on higher sales and better prices for the third quarter ended December 31, 2005. Net profit after extraordinary income quadrupled to Rs192 crore on a one-time gain of Rs98.4 crore from profits on the divestment of its subsidiary, Everest Industries, and sale of its refractory business undertaking.

Net sales showed a healthy 12% growth to Rs1072 crore during the quarter under review. For the nine months ended December 31, 2005, net profit after exceptional items was up to Rs544.2 crore on a total income of Rs3317.6 crore.

LIC Housing profit up
LIC Housing Finance Ltd has reported net profit of Rs58.65 crore for the quarter ended on December 2005, an increase of 39.85% over the comparable period of previous year. For the nine months ended on December 2005, the company's total income were at Rs914.43 crore against Rs773.7 crore during the same period of last year. Net profit registered a growth of 29% at Rs167.19 crore, during the period.

ABB net up 34%
Increased revenue volumes and effective cost and inventory management helped power and automation major ABB Ltd garner a net profit of Rs94.6 crore during the fourth quarter of the current fiscal compared to Rs70.8 crore in the same period in the previous year, an increase of 34%.

Net profit for the full year ended December 2005 stood at Rs218.7 crore against Rs154.3 crore the previous year, an increase of 42%. Total income for the quarter stood at Rs1001.6 crore against Rs762.2 crore in the same period last year, an increase of 31%. The total income for the full year ended December 2005 was up 31%, from Rs2305.6 crore to Rs3014.1 crore last year.

India Cements back in black
Backed by an impressive growth of 20% in both cement and clinker sales coupled with a partial recovery in the prices, India Cements has reported a net profit of Rs7.22 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, 2005 against a net loss of Rs33.31 crore.

The net sales during the quarter jumped to Rs411.87 crore against Rs319.01 crore. For the nine months ended December 2005, the net profit was at Rs18.28 crore as compared to a net loss of Rs69.14 crore and the net sales zoomed to Rs1,330.48 crore against Rs988.40 crore.

Varun Shipping net at Rs.52.72-cr
Varun Shipping Company Ltd today reported a two-fold increase in net profit at Rs52.72 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, 2005 compared to Rs23.24 crore in the same quarter last fiscal. The total revenue of the company grew 82.15% to Rs189.09 crore in Q3FY06 from Rs103.80 crore in Q3FY05, the company informed the National Stock Exchange.

The net profit after tax for the nine month period ended December 31, 2005 has gone up by 137% at Rs122.902 crore compared to Rs51.72 crore for the corresponding period last year.

Cipla PAT at Rs.175-cr
Cipla Ltd has posted a net profit after tax of Rs175.31 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2005 (Q3 FY 05-06) against Rs125.67 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2004 (Q3 FY 04-05). Total income (net of excise) has increased from Rs637.32 crore in Q3 FY 04-05 to Rs855.07 crore for Q3 FY 05-06.

GSK PAT at Rs21-cr
GlaxoSmithkline Consumer Healthcare Ltd has posted a profit after taxation of Rs21.4 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2005 against Rs12.49 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2004. Total revenue has increased from Rs218.02 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2004 to Rs249.98 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2005.

3i Infotech Q3 net up 57 pc
3I Infotech Ltd has reported a consolidated net profit of Rs16.3 crore for the third quarter of the current fiscal, recording a 57 per cent growth over the corresponding quarter of the previous year.

Its revenues at Rs114.36 crore grew by 52 per cent year-on-year.
The company has revised its revenue guidance from a growth of 25-30 per cent, to a growth of 40-50 per cent year-on-year.
Excluding the revenues from the acquired companies, the revenue for the quarter grew by 43 per cent year-on-year.

Consolidated revenue for the nine months ended December 31, 2005 at Rs 302.46 crore, grew 44 per cent over corresponding period of the previous year.

Meanwhile, the board of directors of the company has approved the creation of a subsidiary in Kenya.

HCL Info Q2 net up 6%
HCL Infosystems has posted a 6.1 per cent rise in consolidated net profit for the second quarter ended December 31, 2005, to Rs63.77 crore against Rs60.1 crore in the corresponding previous year.

However, its consolidated gross sales reflected a 40.69 per cent increase to about Rs2,807 crore in the second quarter as compared to Rs1,994.8 crore in the year-ago period, with growth coming from office automation and telecommunications business.
Operating profit, excluding exchange fluctuation gain/loss and other income, was reported at Rs89.1 crore as against Rs66.3 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous year, registering a growth of 34 per cent.

Outlining the segment-wise performance, HCL said revenues from computer systems business rose 11 per cent to Rs556.5 crore as against Rs502.2 crore in the same period previous year.
Revenue from the office automation and telecommunication business was pegged at Rs2,243.7 crore as against Rs1,482.6 crore in the year-ago period, a growth of 51 per cent.

Dr Reddy's Q3 sales, net up
Dr Reddy's Laboratories has reported total revenues of Rs590.2 crore in the third quarter of the current fiscal ended December 31, 2005 against Rs470.5 crore in the corresponding period a year, reflecting a 25 per cent growth.

Gross profit at Rs299.1 crore (Rs245.9 crore) was up by 22 per cent, while net profit surged to Rs62.8 crore (Rs4 crore). The improved net profit translates into a diluted EPS of Rs8.19 against Rs0.52 in the corresponding previous period. Net profit margin has improved to 11 per cent from one per cent.

The company reported other income of Rs59.1 crore (Rs12.3 crore), which included a profit of Rs38.8 crore from sale of the formulations plant located in Goa. Net interest income rose by Rs7.9 crore to Rs14.6 crore from Rs6.7 crore earlier.

The company has attributed this increase to higher deposit base and higher average interest yields. R&D expenditure came down by 27 per cent to Rs51.6 crore (Rs70.5 crore).

In a release, the company said that the overall revenue growth was driven by increase in revenues from active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) and branded finished dosage businesses.

The company scrip gained 1.3 per cent on the BSE on Tuesday to close at Rs1,043.05 and 1.08 per cent on the NSE, where it closed at Rs1,042.35.
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