Hindustan Lever exits tea plantations biz
Mumbai: Hindustan Lever (HLL) has sold its wholly-owned subsidiary Tea Estates India to Maxwell Golden, a part of Woodbriar Group. The latter has interests in plantation, insurance services and real estate with gardens spread across the premium tea growing regions in Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

HLL did not reveal the amount it received for the sale. This marks the company's exit from the plantations business. Last year HLL sold Rossell Industries and Doom Dooma Tea Company in Assam.

Tea Estates India owns eight tea estates and six tea processing factories in Tamil Nadu with an average annual output of 10,500 tonne.

The company says it is exiting the plantation business as it's a non-core area of its operation. Canara Bank funded the acquisition of the Woodbriar group.

The HLL stock went up 1.24 per cent on a firm Bombay market today. The stock closed at Rs244.95 on the BSE.
Back to News Review index page  

Airtel introduces Re1 STD offer
New Delhi: Airtel has launched an STD plan of Re1/ minute for its post-paid as well as pre-paid mobile customers. For post-paid customers, Airtel has introduced two new plans — India Home and India Roam. The India Home plan offers Airtel to Airtel local calls at Re1 for 2 minutes and all other calls & SMS across the country at Re1 per minute. The India Roam plan offers roaming calls at Re1 per minute.
Back to News Review index page  

Ruias increase stake in Hutchison Essar
New Delhi: Hong Kong based Hutchison Whampoa stake in its Indian mobile venture, Hutchison Essar has come down to 26.5 per cent, after Egypt-based Orascom acquired a 19 per cent stake in Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd (HTIL).

The Ruias-promoted Essar Teleholdings has increased its stake to 33 per cent while Orascom holds 10 per cent stake in Hutchison Essar. Also a company promoted by Analjit Singh and Telecom Investments India has acquired the 8.33 per cent stake held by Kotak Mahidra Bank for Rs1,019 crore. Analjit Singh was the original founder of Hutchison Max Telecom.

Kotak Mahindra sold the stake for about $6 billion.

Hutchison Telecommunications was created as a holding company for Hutchison's stake in Hutchison Essar in India and other smaller 2G cellular operations such as Israel and Hong Kong.
Back to News Review index page  

MUL slashes Baleno price by Rs8,000
New Delhi: Maruti Udyog has cut the price of its D segment car Baleno by Rs8,000 after custom duties were brought down in the Union Budget. With this, the ex-showroom price (Delhi) of Baleno LXi comes down from Rs5,83,173 to Rs5,75,173 and that of Baleno VXi from Rs6,65,556 to Rs6,57,556, a drop of Rs8,000 in each variant.

The new price will come into effect from March 1. Maruti's models such as Esteem, Swift, Versa and Gypsy have a very low level of import content, and hence their prices will not change. In comparison, the Baleno has higher import content and benefits from the reduction in peak custom duties.
Back to News Review index page  

Tata Steel hikes prices of hot rolled coils
Mumbai: Tata Steel has hiked prices of hot rolled coils by Rs1,500-2,000 per tonne in its non-contract sales. The company has also raised prices of galvanised steel by Rs750-1,000 per tonne. However, non-contract sales form a small portion of Tata Steel's total sales. Some steel companies have raised prices of galvanised steel because of rising zinc prices.
Back to News Review index page  

DS Constructions gets contract to construct hydel project
Mumbai: DS Constructions has received a contract to construct a hydroelectric power project in Arunachal Pradesh from the state government. The Naying hydro project will have a generating capacity of 1,000 MW and will involve construction on Siyom river in West Siang district at a cost of about Rs5,000 crore.

The company will incorporate a special purpose vehicle for this project that will have 89 per cent equity participation by DS Constructions and 11 per cent by the Arunachal Pradesh Government. DS Constructions has already started preparing the detailed project report. The construction work on the project will be completed over a period of eight years.
Back to News Review index page  

Tatas launch counterattack over stake in Idea Cellular
New Delhi: The Tata Group has launched a counteroffensive at the Birlas over the alleged breach of license. It has served a termination notice to the Aditya Birla Group for breach of shareholders agreement and has initiated moves to buy out Birla's stake in Idea Cellular.

The Tatas have sent a notice to Grasim Industries, the AV Birla Group's flagship company, which said, "The AV Birla are a defaulting founder and we shall proceed to purchase the shareholding of AV Birla group within 90 days of this notice at the default price. We hereby put you to notice that by disclosing the financial data of Idea Cellular (ICL) to Aditya Birla Nuvo's investors, ABNL has caused a material breach of the ICL Share Holder's Agreement (SHA)."

Tatas said that being one of the founders of Idea Cellular, the Aditya Birla Group was bound by the terms of the agreement and was not permitted to use or disclose confidential information pertaining to Idea Cellular other than as permitted by the SHA.

The AV Birla Group responded by informing the government that there was no substance in the termination notice served by Tatas and it was an attempt to divert the attention from real issues.

Earlier, the Birlas had asked the DoT to direct Tatas to exit from Idea as it had allegedly flouted licence conditions.
Back to News Review index page  

Aban Loyd to raise funds of $80 million via overseas markets
Chennai: Aban Loyd Chiles Offshore is planning to raise funds to the tune of
$80 million by issuing Japanese Yen denominated foreign currency convertible bonds. The bonds carry a coupon rate of zero per cent till conversion. Conversion price will be set at a premium of 40 per cent over the volume weighted average price of the equity shares of the company on the NSE for the 30 consecutive trading days ending five trading days prior to April 19, 2007. Conversion price will be subject to a minimum of Rs1,000 per share.
Back to News Review index page  

Pidilite acquires majority holding in Thai company
New Delhi: Pidilite Industries has acquired 75 per cent equity in Thailand-based Bamco, a bitumen based water-proofing products manufacturer.

Sanjay Bahadur, CEO, Pidilite Industries, said: "We have picked up equity in the firm in an all-cash deal. The deal helps us to gain from the superb technical know-how of the firm." He did not reveal the amount paid for the stake.

The acquisition will help Pidilite include in its portfolio some of Bamco's range of products in India that were missing until now, said Bahadur. It would also enable Pidilite to market its existing products in Thailand.

This is the third overseas acquisition by the company in the last one year, the earlier ones being Chemson in Singapore and UCC in Thailand.

The company said it is looking at a presence in other overseas locations also.

The company targets a turnover of Rs100 crore for the current financial year, Rs70 crore domestically and Rs30 crore internationally. The company's scrip closed at Rs94.30 on the Bombay Stock Exchange against Tuesday's closing of Rs93.
Back to News Review index page  

Gujarat Narmada to merge subsidiary with itself
Ahmedabad: The boards of Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertilizers (GNFC) and its subsidiary, Narmada Chematur Petrochemicals (NCPL), have approved the merger of the two companies.

The boards of the two companies approved an exchange ratio of one share of GNFC for every three shares of NCPL. The appointed date of merger is April 1 and will be completed after the requisite formalities. GNFC holds 56.45 per cent equity in NCPL and the two companies are located on the same campus at Bharuch in south Gujarat. After the merger, both the companies are optimistic that, "the new entity will enjoy the benefits of vertical integration, greater strategic clarity and an opportunity to plan for future growth with greater choices and a larger pool of combined resources."
Back to News Review index page  

French company acquires stake in Amco
Bangalore: French industrial battery maker Saft has picked up 51 per cent stake in Amco Power Systems, to float a joint venture in India.

John Searle, the president and CEO of the Saft Group, said that the joint venture, Amco Saft India, will make nickel-cadmium and lithium batteries for the infrastructure and the defence industries in the country and neighbouring countries. The company will focus on the aircraft and the oil industries and the Railways apart from supplying batteries to the military he said.

He said the market for the back-up battery was around $15 million in India. The batteries will be manufactured at Amco's factory in Bangalore.

Amco also makes lead batteries for the automobile industry but the joint venture will keep away from this market.

Amco had a licensing arrangement with Saft earlier. Amco has already supplied industrial batteries for the first phase of the Delhi Metro.
Back to News Review index page  

TVS Feb sales rise 18 per cent
Chennai: Two wheeler maker TVS Motor Company has recorded a 16 per cent growth in motorcycle sales, selling 66,391 units in February. With the launch of TVS Apache, TVS expects to close this year with a growth of 18 per cent in motorcycle sales and the highest volumes ever achieved in the history of TVS Motor Company said a press release from the company.

The growth in motorcycle sales has pushed the sales of total two wheelers in February 2006 to 1,08,923 units compared to 96,020 units recorded last year, a growth of 13 per cent.
Back to News Review index page  

Maruti Feb sales fall 5.8 per cent
New Delhi: Maruti Udyog has reported a 5.8 per cent fall in total sales in February at 41,095 units, as compared to 43,603 units in same month last year. Domestic sales for the month declined 8.1 per cent at 36,608 units versus39,826 units in the corresponding month last year, a company release said.

The company attributed the decline in car sales for the month to postponement of vehicle purchases by customers on expectations of excise duty reduction on cars in the Union Budget.
Back to News Review index page  

Hero Honda Feb sales up 12 per cent
New Delhi: Hero Honda has reported a 12.14-per cent rise in sales during February as compared with the same month last year. The company clocked sales of 2,50, 695 units (2,23,546 units) in February.
Back to News Review index page  

GM India Feb sales up 3.6 per cent
New Delhi: General Motors India has reported a 3.6 per cent increase in sales during February this year against the same month a year ago.

The company sold 1,709 units in February 2006 (1,650 units). "The sales of the Chevrolet Tavera and the Chevrolet Optra are to our satisfaction and going forward, the market will see a lot of excitement with our Chevrolet Brand. We have recently launched our mid-sized sedan — the Chevrolet Aveo and have showcased the
hatchback — Chevrolet Aveo U-VA and the contemporary sportsback — the Chevrolet Optra SRV, both of which are going to be launched shortly," said P. Balendran, vice-president, General Motors India, said.
Back to News Review index page