Telekom Malaysia acquires 49-per cent stake in Spice Telecom
New Delhi: Telekom Malaysia Bhd, Malaysia's biggest telecom operator, has acquired a 49 per cent stake in Spice Telecom. Earlier the company made an unsuccessful attempt to buy into Idea Cellular.

Spice Communication's holding company SpiceCorp said that Telecom Malaysia had bought the stake in Spice Telecom by buying out the stakes of Ashmore Investments and Deutsche Bank.

Ashmore and Deutsche Bank had acquired strategic stakes held by the Singapore-based Distacomm, following the latter's decision to exit the market.

B K Modi promoted Spice Telecom has 1.8 million subscribers and is a regional player. The deal with Spice will provide Telekom Malaysia with a much needed India entry strategy. Last year, Telekom Malaysia, along with Singapore Technologies Telemedia (STT), had expressed its intention to pick up a 47.7 per cent stake held by the US telecom major AT&T (now Cingular Wireless) for $390 million.
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Bajaj to make cargo four-wheelers
New Delhi: Bajaj Auto has made major expansion plans including a foray into light cargo four-wheelers and a greenfield bike plant in Uttaranchal, with an investment of Rs 1,500 crore spread over three years.

The expansion will be funded by internal accruals, according to executive director Sanjiv Bajaj.

As per the plans, Bajaj Auto will set up a greenfield project at Chakan in Maharashtra to manufacture the 'new generation' of three-wheelers and light cargo four-wheelers. The company's new bike plant at Pantnagar having a capacity of one million motorcycles will commence operations in 2007.
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PFC initiates mega power project in Karnataka
New Delhi: State-owned Power Finance Corporation has invited expression of interests (EoIs) from Indian and global power companies for setting up a 4,000MW ultra mega power project in coastal Karnataka.

The plant to be set up with an investment of about Rs15,000 crore, will be located at Tadri in Uttar Kannada district and is the fourth among the five ultra mega projects identified by the Government for implementation during 11th plan.

PFC has already set up a shell company - Coastal Karnataka Power as its subsidiary to undertake various studies and obtain necessary clearances relating to environment, water and land.
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ONGC to acquire foreign oil projects
New Delhi: Oil and Natural Gas Corporation is in talks with various countries to acquire oil properties abroad worth $15 billion according to Subir Raha, chairman of the company.

He said if all the transactions work out the projects will be worth over $15 billion.

ONGC will invest over Rs14,000 crore in domestic operations next fiscal as against Rs12,000 crore invested in the current year, Raha said. The PSU will also bring to production India's first deep water gas field in April-May.
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RasGas to supply LNG to restart Dabhol
New Delhi: Ras Gas, which is owned by ExxonMobil, will supply liquefied natural gas (LNG) by December to restart the Dabhol power project in Maharashtra.

RasGas would supply 2.5-million tonnes per annum of LNG to Dabhol for two and half years, a time during which the new promoters of the 2,184MW project would tie-up long-term supplies.

LNG from Qatar will be regassified at Petronet LNG Ltd's Dahej plant in Gujarat (the plant has surplus capacity to process close to 2 million tonnes of additional volumes over and above the current imports of 5 million tonnes). It is also in talks with Shell for using its Hazira terminal.
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Raymond undertakes capacity expansion
Mumbai: Raymond has expanded its capacity for worsted suiting at its Vapi plant in Gujarat by three million meters per annum.

According to Raymond, the unit would be an integrated facility starting from spinning up to finishing of the fabric. The company said the total cost of expansion is estimated at Rs 197 crore and is expected to go on stream from April 2007.

After the expansion, the company would have a total capacity for worsted suiting of 31 million meters per annum. It said this would be one of the largest integrated manufacturing facilities for worsted suiting in the world.
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Tatas acquire 30-per cent stake in biotech firm
Mumbai: Indigene, a Pune-based biotechnology firm, has become the target of the Tata Group's object of interest. The group has picked up a 30 per cent stake in the company for an undisclosed amount.

The Tata Group said the acquisition would help it to develop good products in the biotechnology sector, which promised to be big business in the near future.

Biotechnology analysts it was significant move as it meant that the Tata Group would now bring substantial investment into biotech research.
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