Honda plans Rs.400 crore investment in Indian 2-wheeler unit
New Delhi: Japan's Honda Motor Corp plans to invest Rs400 crore ($90 million) in its two-wheeler operations in India over the next three years according to senior company officials. The company also plans to raise capacity in India to
2 million units to meet the increased demand. The Japanese company also has a joint venture in India Hero Honda Motor that sells motorcycles and scooters. The company's present capacity in India is 9,00,000 units.
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JK Paper allots 10 per cent stake to IFC - will raise Rs.50 crore
New Delhi: JK Paper has allotted 10 per cent equity stake to the Washington-based International Finance Corporation for Rs50 crore. Moreover, IFC would provide JK Paper a loan of about Rs70 crore for a 10-year term as part of the agreement.

The company funds to plans to invest Rs700 crore over the next 3-5 years to hike production capacity to 5,00,000 tonnes per annum in order to meet its targeted turnover of more than Rs1,000 crore.

The company plans to focus on the writing and printing, photocopier, coated and packaging board paper segments. It is currently investing Rs335 crore on a 60,000 tpa multi-layer packaging board plant in Gujarat, over and above other modernisation plans. The promoters of the company are injecting Rs50 crore for the purpose and have raised another Rs50 crore through internal accruals. The rest of the requirements are likely to be met through other instruments, which may be 'debt or convertible bonds'.
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Reliance Petro valued at $8.5 billion
New Delhi: Reliance Industries' group company Reliance Petroleum, that plans to offer 1.8 billion shares to the public to raise up to $1.3 billion , has been valued at $8.5 billion or Rs83 per share by global banking major HSBC.

HSBC in its Global Research Report released on March 2 said the company's 580,000 barrels per day (29 million tonnes per annum) refinery at Jamnagar in Gujarat was a well planned and designed project. It said its fair value range for RPL is Rs6.8-8.5 billion on a relative PE basis. On a discounted cash flow (DCF) basis, the fair value range is $6.1-8.1 billion it said.

HSBC has forecast a net profit of Rs5000 crore for RPL in 2009-10, the first full year of operations, driven by refining margin of over 10 dollars per barrel and 95 per cent capacity utilisation.
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Government says no decision to hive off OVL from ONGC
New Delhi: The Government said it was not planning to hive off ONGC Videsh from parent company Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC). It said the present arrangement of letting the subsidiary company scout for overseas oil and gas assets was working well.

Recently the Finance Minister, P Chidambaram, is reported to have suggested OVL raising its own resources for acquisition of oil and gas assets abroad, instead of the present practice of borrowing money from its parent ONGC.

The petroleum ministry feels that OVL derives a lot of strength from being part of India's most valuable firm and the country's second highest profit making entity.

OVL, which has committed over $4.5 billion (about Rs19,800 crore) in 14 countries on the strength of its parent firm, is fully owned by ONGC. Mr Aiyar's idea was shot down by his bureaucrats, the source said.
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Baijal moots mobile number portability for a fee
New Delhi: TRAI chairman, Pradip Baijal, whose term is ending within a few days, has recommended that number portability be allowed on mobile phones for a one-time payment of Rs200. Number portability will allow customers to switch operator while retaining the old number.

According to TRAI, the number portability should be implemented from April 1, 2007 for customers, and ha sasked the Department of Telecom (DoT) to make suitable changes in the licence enabling the TRAI to issue guidelines in this regard.

The regulator says the cost of Rs200 payable by the customers will enable the operator to recover his investment cost in 3-5 years. It has also recommended that mobile number portability (MNP) be introduced within the service area only.
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Wockhardt to open super speciality hospital in Bangalore
Bangalore: Wockhardt Hospitals Group has said it plans to open a 400-bed super speciality hospital in Bangalore in May this year with an investment of Rs150-crore. This would include an exclusive women's health facility.

The Wockhardt Superspeciality Hospital coming up on Bannerghatta Road in south Bangalore would be one of the largest and most modern healthcare facilities in Asia, a hospital release said.

The other three standalone hospitals will focus on neurology; orthopaedics and cardiology & cardiac surgery. The existing hospital on Cunningham Road will also continue with treating heart cases. The women's facility will provide comprehensive services to all health-related issues of women. It will have a modern birthing centre with suites and neonatology section.

The group runs a super speciality hospital in Mumbai for cardiology, neurology, orthopaedics, ophthalmology and minimal access surgery; heart hospitals in Bangalore, Mumbai and Nagpur and a super speciality kidney hospital in Kolkata.
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OVL`s plans for Nigeria scuttled again
New Delhi: The petroleum ministry has again ruled out state-owned oil major ONGC Videsh's proposal to pick up a stake in two exploration blocks in Nigeria. This is the second time it has done so.

The ministry does not intend taking the proposal to the Cabinet. With the nature of investment envisaged, ONGC Videsh cannot bid without Cabinet approval.

Last year, the Cabinet had rejected the proposal for ONGC's acquisition of 45 per cent stake in South Atlantic Petroleum's Akpo oil and gas field in Nigeria.

Sources say without the deal India is likely to lose out on a sizeable supply of oil as one block would have yielded 5-10 million tonne per annum (mtpa) and the other was expected to yield 15-20 mtpa, and even a fourth of this was huge.
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Lionbridge bags $300 million outsourcing contract from Microsoft
New Delhi: Outsourcing major Lionbridge Technologies has received a major outsourcing contract, in the range of $250-300 million spread over a three-year period, from Microsoft Corporation. 40-50 per cent of the contract would be moved to India and China-Lionbridge's two major outsourcing destinations.

The rest of the contract would be executed out of Lionbridge's global delivery centres across the world. Under the deal, Microsoft will outsource its testing, content development and localisation requirements from Lionbridge.

India had contributed around $32 million in 2005 to Lionbridge's total revenues of $400 million.
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Bajaj to get into manufacture of 4-wheeler commercial vehicles
New Delhi: Bajaj Auto has finalised plans to enter the four-wheeler commercial vehicle segment and would begun production in two to three years. The company plans to set up a greenfield facility to make the commercial vehicles in Waluj, Maharashtra, said Bajaj Auto's chairman Rahul Bajaj.

The company already has a plant in Waluj, where it makes two wheelers.

Company sources said though the initial plan was to enter light commercial vehicles, the company would expand the range of the products to include medium and heavy vehicles too.

Bajaj Auto is also planning to enhance capacity and manufacture three million motorcycles a year, part of which will come up as a greenfield venture in Pantnagar, Uttaranchal.

The market for light commercial vehicles in India is dominated by Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra-the two have over 90 per cent market share.
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IOC to sell diesel to Bangladesh
New Delhi: Indian Oil Corp aims to sell 500,000 tonnes of diesel to Bangladesh in the year to March 2007, the company's Chairman Sarthak Behuria said on Wednesday.

He said in 2005/06 the company had contracted to export 200,000 tonnes to Bangladesh out of which 50,000 tonnes were still to be delivered.
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Indian Oil in talks to acquire Maurel & Prom, Niko
Indian Oil Corp is in talks with Etablissements Maurel & Prom SA, a French oil explorer and Niko Resources Ltd., a Canadian company for acquisition. The latter produces natural gas and oil in India.

Sarthak Behuria chairman Indian Oil Corporation said, "No time frame has been set'' for the planned acquisition of the two companies. IOC may also bid for exploration and refining assets in Egypt, Behuria said.

Maurel & Prom's main revenue source is the M'Boundi field in the Republic of Congo, which currently produces 67,000 barrels of oil a day. In June, it paid $460 million to acquire Knightsbridge Petroleum's interests in oil fields in Colombia and Venezuela, which produce 30,000 barrels a day.
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Temasek acquires 10 per cent stake in Tata Teleservices
Singapore: Temasek Holdings a Singapore state investor, has acquired a 9.9 percent stake in Indian telecommunications firm Tata Teleservices for an undisclosed amount. Tata Teleservices is one of India's leading private telecom service providers.
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MICO announces 3.62 per cent rise in Q4 net
Motor Industries Company net profit rose by 3.62 per cent to Rs63.13 crore for the quarter ended 31 December 2005 as compared to Rs60.84 crore for the quarter ended 31 December 2004.

The total income for the same period has increased by 35.85 per cent to Rs871.27 crore as compared to Rs641.32 crore for the quarter ended 31 December 2004.
However, the company's net profit declined by 8.45 per cent to Rs343.07 crore for the year ended 31 December 2005 as compared to Rs374.76 crore for the year ended 31 December 2004.

However, the total income for the same period jumped 27.40 per cent to Rs3102.91 crore as compared to Rs2435.50 crore for the year ended 31 December 2004. The company has recommended a dividend of Rs12 per equity share.
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Jindal Drilling, Discovery Hydrocarbons bag contract worth $171 million
Jindal Drilling and Industries has announced that Discovery Hydrocarbons, to be merged with the company under the scheme of arrangement, has signed a vessel construction agreement for a newly built Cantilever Jackup Offshore Drilling Rig.

The rig would be constructed and delivered over a period of 30 months at around $ 171 million.
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ONGC, SCI float JV
Mumbai: Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Shipping Corporation of India (SCI) have entered into a MoU for setting up a joint venture company called "Offshore Marine Services Ltd.

The JV that was signed on 7 March 2006 in Mumbai will provide end-to-end solutions for vessel operations for the company and other oil and gas companies.

The JV will also develop capabilities for acquisition, repair and maintenance of offshore floating units and undertake repair and construction on long term arrangement with shipyard facilities on preferential terms and competitive basis. ONGC will give its vessels on bare boat charter agreement to the JVC and will retain right of first refusal on deployment of these vessels as per requirement.

The JVC will acquire, own, maintain, operate and charter wide range of offshore vessels and it will also be free to secure non-ONGC business including acquiring vessels and other assets.
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Gail India is the 11th largest company in the world
Gail India has been placed at the 11th place among the top 15 of the worlds largest listed gas utilities firms in the oil and gas industry, in terms of market capitalisation for 2005.

The company is the only Indian company to appear in the ranking list of global gas utilities.

PFC Energy has done the ranking, an USA based strategic advisor on global energy.
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