Dr Reddy's acquires Betapharm
Mumbai: The closely-contested race to acquire Germany's fourth-largest generic firm Betapharm between Dr Reddy's Laboratories and Ranbaxy Labs ended on Thursday with the former announcing the acquisition of the German firm for €480 million, edging out Ranbaxy.

DRL informed the stock exchanges that it would acquire a 100-per cent stake in Betapharm, a company promoted by 3i, Europe's leading private equity house. DRL said it has entered into a definitive agreement with 3i for the acquisition.

The transaction would be funded using a combination of Dr Reddy's internal cash reserves and committed credit facilities.

"We see our investment in Betapharm as a key strategic initiative towards becoming a mid-sized global pharmaceutical company with strong presence in all key pharmaceutical markets," DRL chairman, Anji Reddy, said.

Ranbaxy and DRL had edged out France's Sanofi-Aventis and Isreal's Teva and were in the race to pick up 3i's 80 per cent stake in Betapharm.

Betapharm markets high-quality generic drugs with focus on long-term therapy products with high prescription rates. It currently markets about 145 products.
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Godrej looks at overseas acquisitions
Mumbai: Godrej Industries is looking to expand overseas through its newly acquired FMCG company 'KeyLine' in the United Kingdom. The company will launch consumer products from its current portfolio in Britain and would also bring KeyLine manufactured products to India.

Godrej Consumers had acquired the UK-based KeyLine Brands such as Erasmic, Cuticura, Nulon last year. This acquisition would help Godrej to enter into segments like skin care, shampoos and conditioners.
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14 companies in fray for container services
New Delhi: Fourteen companies have put in their applications with the Indian Railways to offer container services with registration fee totalling Rs 540 crore. Ten companies have applied in the Rs 50-crore category; whereas four have applied in the Rs 10-crore category. So far, only Concor was allowed to operate in the sector.

Companies in the Rs 50-crore category include Adani Logistics, Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC), Container Corporation of India (Concor), Dinesh/ETA (Emirates Trading Agency), Gateway Distriparks, Hind Terminals (MSC Group), India Infrastructure Leasing (a joint venture of Rajeev Chandrashekhar's Hindustan Infrastructure and APL, a subsidiary of Singapore-based NOL), MICT (P&O Ports), Reliance Infrastructure Leasing (of Mukesh Ambani) and SICAL Logistics.

Players in the Rs 10-crore category include Delhi Assam Roadways Corporation Ltd, Bothra Shipping, JM Baxi and Co, and Pipavav Rail Corporation Ltd (PRCL).

A fee of Rs 50 crore would allow the operators to offer container services across the country for both export-import (exim) and domestic traffic. A Rs 10-crore fee would allow the operators to move domestic container traffic across the country. However, exim container traffic can be moved from specified ports only. The last date for submission of applications was February 16, 2006.
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Cellular operators can now offer Internet services
New Delhi: Mobile operators have been allowed to provide Internet services, including the lucrative Internet Protocol (IP) based virtual private network (IP-VPN), by Trai without any additional fee.

The services until now were being offered by Internet Service Providers such as Sify and also long distance service providers such as BSNL and Bharti Tele-Ventures.

The decision to allow mobile operators to offer VPN services will mean additional revenues for cellular companies. The total VPN market in the country is estimated at over Rs 1,000 crore and with the BPO, e-commerce and e-banking segments picking up pace, the VPN market is expected to zoom even more.

The move comes as yet another blow for ISPs, which have been offering this service for the last five years. However, DoT recently imposed a licence fee and an entry fee on ISPs wanting to offer VPN services, which prompted a number of Internet operators to stop offering the service.

DoT has also allowed mobile operators to lease out capacity from national long distance (NLD) operators for offering all types of Internet services.
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Blue Dart to expand operations: to invest Rs 25 crore
New Delhi: Leading courier and cargo firm Blue Dart Express plans to invest Rs 25 crore this year on expanding its network and operations.

"We will be investing Rs 25 crore this year for opening new facilities, service centres and warehouses, particularly in the northern region," Blue Dart chief operating officer Malcolm Monteiro said here.

The company plans to set up eight service and operations centres this year. Of these, two will be in Delhi and one each in Zirakhpur, Parwanoo, Noida, Kanpur, Ghaziabad and Ambala.

The company is planning to have a total of 45 new facilities across the country. It will also induct two 'Boeing 757' and introduce new routes, he said.

The company posted a 38-per cent rise in net profit at Rs 15.35 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2005 compared to Rs 11.12 crore for the same period of the previous fiscal.
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Gammon obtains projects worth Rs 1,004 cr from NHAI, NHPCL
Mumbai: Gammon India, a leading construction company said it has bagged four projects from National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and National Hydroelectric Power Corporation Ltd (NHPCL).

The projects are worth Rs 1,004.7 crore in aggregate, the company informed the Bombay Stock Exchange.
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Fenner to expand operations
Chennai: JK Group company Fenner India that manufactures V-belts, oil seals and power transmission products for both industrial and automotive sectors, is planning to expand its facilities and diversify its portfolio. Fenner will be setting up two green-field projects at Chennai and Hyderabad with an investment of Rs 40 crore, the company chairman, Raghupati Singhania said.

The plant at Chennai will manufacture oil seals while the one in Hyderabad will cater to raw edge cogged and multi-rib belts. The Chennai plant will be set up on over a 10-acre plot at the SIPCOT estate in Sriperumbudur.

Apart from the expansion, the company will spend another Rs 35 crore over the next three years, for modernisation and upgradation of the existing facilities.

The expansion was likely to be completed in 18 months. Currently, Fenner manufactures about 18 million belts and 72 million oil seals per year. The capacity of the new plants was expected to be four million belts and 36 million oil seals.

The company is also looking at diversifying into the automotive components segment, mainly catering to four wheelers. The automotive components industry was likely to grow five-fold to $35 billion by 2015 and the company would foray in to the sector to synergise its existing automotive products.
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Visa Steel to enter capital market to fund expansion
Mumbai: Visa Steel based in Kolkata is planning to enter the capital market with an initial public offering of 3.5 crore-equity shares of Rs 10 each at a price to be decided through book-building process to part finance its expansion program me at its Kalinganagar Industrial Complex (KIC) plant in Orissa.

The company plans to utilise the proceeds for brown-field expansion of it s existing manufacturing facilities into an integrated 0.5 million tonnes per annum special and stainless steel plant at the KIC.

The price band for the issue, which opens on February 23 and closes on February 27, has been fixed between Rs 52 and Rs 57, the company chairman, Vishambhar Saran said.
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Orchid, Chemicals Pfizer sign R&D pact
Mumbai: Orchid Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals has signed a long-term master research and development agreement with Pfizer International, LLC.

Orchid Chemicals would provide research and development services to Pfizer's animal health business on a seven-year agreement and renewable thereafter.

Under the agreement new products and services would be provided from time to time and the services would be provided out of Orchid Chemicals' facilities in India. The two companies are currently evaluating products and specific R&D services to be undertaken.
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RIL interested in real estate in Jaipur
Jaipur: Reliance Industries (RIL) evincing interest in the Pink City of Rajasthan has bought two plots from Jaipur Development Authority (JDA). The chairman and managing director of RIL, Mukesh Ambani who was here on a private visit was presented with a copy of book on land bank by JDA Commissioner Jagdish Chandra yesterday.

Mr Ambani showed interest in the property market of the city after Chandra assured him that all cooperation would be extended to RIL if they come forward for investment, a JDA statement said.
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IISCO merged with SAIL
New Delhi: The Indian Iron and Steel Company (IISCO) has been merged with its parent body SAIL making the public sector behemoth the largest steel maker in the country with five integrated steel plants under its fold.

The appointed date of amalgamation is April 1, 2005, according to a release from SAIL.

Keeping in view the merger, SAIL has finalised an ambitious expansion plan envisaging an investment of around Rs 8,000 crore for technological upgradation of IISCO, taking its annual hot metal production capacity to 2.5 million tonnes by 2011-12 from the current 0.85 MT.
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NIIT considers acquisition overseas
Mumbai: NIIT Technologies is considering an overseas acquisition in the insurance, travel and transport and retail space, which is expected to cost the company about $15-20 million.

The acquisition could be funded through external resources or through internal accruals depending on the timing of the acquisition, he added.

The company is also planning to spend around Rs 100 crore to set up a campus in Noida with a seating capacity of 3,000 in the first phase to be later increased to 10,000.
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IBM sets up HiPODS lab
Bangalore: IBM has set up a 'High Performance On Demand Solutions Lab' (HiPODS), a specialised software and services lab in India to drive automation and virtualisation into the increasingly complex IT infrastructure supporting the emerging economy of the country. The lab is the first of its kind for IBM in India, bringing specific high-value skills to help clients in the country and the surrounding region to enhance and optimise their IT resources to support the growth of their businesses.

The lab connects IBM's top consultants, developers, engineers and researchers in India and around the world, culminating the most comprehensive skills and resources available in the industry today.
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Oracle adds Berkley DB to its embedded database line
Bangalore: IT giant Oracle has announced that it has added Berkeley DB to its embedded database product line.

Sleepycat Software's Berkeley DB is the one of the most widely used open source database in the world with deployment estimated at more than 200 million.

Andrew Mendelsohn, a senior vice president, Oracle database server technologies said Sleepycat's product will enhance Oracle's market-leading database product family by offering enterprise-class support to customers who need to embed a fast, reliable database at a lower cost.
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Airtel now has more than 2 m customers in Delhi
New Delhi: Bharti promoted Airtel said that it has more than two million customers in Delhi making it the first metro in the country to have this mobile subscriber base.

"Airtel becomes the first mobile operator to complete this milestone in the capital," Airtel Mobile Services executive director, Sanjay Nandrajog, said.

The company, which has invested over Rs 300 crore in the current fiscal, plans to increase the number of cell sites (an infrastructure that carries the mobile call signals) by over 50 per cent from the current 1,600 in the Delhi and NCR region.
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SemIndia, Andhra govt plan SPV for Fab City
Mumbai: SemIndia and the Andhra Pradesh government are planning to set up a special purpose vehicle (SPV) for the proposed Fab City project.

SemIndia CEO Vinod K Agarwal has signed a formal MoU with the state government on land allotment and other packages of incentives for the $3 billion project proposed to be set up in Hyderabad.

Agarwal said that the financial closure for the Phase-I project, which includes assembly and testing facilities, is ready. He said the company clearance for the second phase from the state government.

Of the $3 billion investment projected for Fab City, equity component would be about $1 billion, he said.
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Jet flies 36,406 passengers in 1 day
Mumbai: Jet Airways has set a record of sorts by flying 36,406 passengers with a seat factor of 86 per cent on February 15, 2006.

According to a release issued by Jet to the BSE, this is the first time that an airline in India has flown 36,406 passengers from its available capacity of 42,522 seats on its domestic andinternational sectors.
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SpiceJet to fly to more destinations
New Delhi: Budget airline SpiceJet, has ordered 20 Boeing aircraft and inducted one new generation 737-800 aircraft into its fleet towards expanding its route network. The airline also says it is interested in flying abroad.

SpiceJet chairman Siddhanta Sharma said the airline had recorded a very high load factor averaging 88 per cent and had cornered six per cent of market share emerging as India's preferred low-cost carrier across its 11 city network.
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Next Shop to set up more outlets
Chennai: The 'Next Shop,' a lifestyle retain chain floated by award winning entrepreneur Usha Varadharajan, is planning to open more outlets in other major cities. A few days ago the chain extended its footprint to Kochi and is looking to expand to other major cities like Bangalore and Hyderabad, besides Ahmedabad.

The Next Shop stocks home accessories, cradles, essential oils (both items being popular among practitioners of Aromatherapy) and glasswares.
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