Bharti may tie up with Tesco for food retail foray
New Delhi: The Bharti Group is laying the basis for its retail foray and is considering getting into food retail with the world's second largest retailer Tesco.

Market sources say Tesco would first help Bharti set up the supply chain crucial for a retail model like supermarkets. Foreign investment in pure food and grocery retailing is still not allowed and Tesco cannot scout for opportunities in the front-end at the moment.

Bharti is likely to use the Tesco brand for its food retail venture under a licensing arrangement and is learning the know-how, infrastructure and supply chain management that Bharti is looking at learning from Tesco.
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Anil Ambani group to hike holding in RNRL
Mumbai: The Anil Dhirubhai Ambani group (ADAG) is hiking its stake in Reliance Natural Resources Ltd to 55 per cent through a preferential offer of equity shares. At present ADAG holds less than 40 per cent stake in RNRL.

The ADA group will be investing up to Rs1,052 crore at Rs25.65 a share. The RNRL stock was last quoted at Rs34.30 on the BSE on Tuesday, having lost 9.91 per cent during the day's trading. The offer will open on May 3 and end on May 22.

A company release said here today that in accordance with the SEBI Takeover Code, ADAG will announce an open offer for 32.66 crore shares, representing 20 per cent of the expanded equity share capital of the company, aggregating in value Rs838 crore.

RNRL's net worth will increase 175 per cent from Rs 608 crore to Rs1,660 crore on completion of the preferential offer. The company's equity share capital will increase to 163.31 crore equity shares of Rs5 each, aggregating Rs816.56 crore, reflecting a market capitalisation of Rs6,181 crore, based on the closing price on March 14.
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Kinetic Motor to issue FCCBs to raise $15 million
Bangalore: Kinetic Motor Company is planning to issue foreign convertible currency bonds to raise more than $15 million to fund its plans for production of Italjet range of scooters and for model development of other scooters.

Ms Sulajja Firodia Motwani, the company's joint managing director said that the company will finalise the investors within six to eight weeks. She said the alpha marketing of a few Italjet scooters had started. She said the 165 cc motoscooter, Millenium, from Italjet will be launched later this month while the second scooter, Jet Set, the 135 cc from the same stable, will be launched in June.

She said the company would roll out at least two to three models of the Italjet range every year. Kinetic has acquired manufacturing and distribution rights in India and overseas for seven Italjet range of scooters consisting of 75 cc to 250 cc engine capacities.
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PCs, laptops prices hiked
New Delhi: HP, Acer, LG and Indian firm Zenith have hiked prices of desktops and notebooks by six per cent.

HP's Nx6120 notebook now comes with a post-budget price tag of Rs60,999 against Rs57,999 earlier. Similarly, HP's TC 4200 Tablet PC price rose from 81,990 to Rs86,490.

Zenith Computers has increased the price of its desktop computers between 2 and 3 per cent, while portable prices are up five per cent. PC vendor Acer has hiked the price of its notebooks by around six per cent across the segment spanning various configurations. Although the company has left its entry-level PC untouched, the mid-range and the top-end PC prices have been increased by about four to five per cent.

LG Electronics India has hiked prices of notebooks by 5-per cent price and a 5-6 per cent hike in its PC price tag is expected in the next couple of weeks.

Wipro Infotech is still contemplating a "modest" price hike for its PCs and notebooks. However, in the long run due to efficiency in local manufacturing, the price increase should get nullified, said the company.
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Scandent to allot convertible bonds on preferential basis
Bangalore: Scandent Solutions Corporation has raised Rs133.65 crore from Indopark Holdings Ltd, Mauritius the fully owned subsidiary of Merrill Lynch & Co Inc. by allotting convertible bonds on a preferential basis. Scandent shareholders had approved this issue of convertible bonds on February 28.

The convertible bonds/debentures allotment committee of directors of Scandent on Tuesday allotted the convertible bonds at Rs217 each, much higher than the prevailing price of Rs 161. With this allotment, Indopark Holdings will approximately get a 5.5 per cent stake in the merged entity of Cambridge Solutions, sources said.

Scandent Solutions is in the process of merger with group company Cambridge Services Holdings LLC. Scandent had earlier stated that of the $30 million (Rs133.65 crore), the company plans to utilise $20 million to repay the debts and the balance to fund its expansion plans. Previously, Scandent had decided to raise Rs270 crores from ICICI Ventures. The preferential issue to Indopark Holdings is in lieu of the ICICI Ventures investment proposal approved by the Scandent board in October last year.
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STAR income tax dues at Rs.1,000 crore
Mumbai: STAR Hong Kong will pay about Rs1,000 crore to the Income-Tax department as part of its dues since assessment year 2000-01. Even though a final decision is expected by the High Court the company will pay the entire sum by the next financial year. Of this it will pay Rs300 crore by March 31, 2006.

The company has already paid Rs163 crore.

However, in case the I-T department loses the case, either STAR will get a refund or the department has to move the Supreme Court.

The broadcasting major had filed an appeal in the HC, challenging the tax claim and seeking a stay on the order. No stay has, however, been granted yet. The hearing is scheduled for March 21.

The development holds huge tax implications for those television companies, which are broadcasting in India but are based in countries with which India does not have a double taxation treaty (DTA). The I-T department is of the view that STAR India is collecting advertising revenues and getting paid for time slots in India. There is a business connection between the two entities, the parent and STAR India, under Section 5 and 9 of the I-T Act.

Thus, the income-tax tribunal had in 2005 ruled that STAR Hong Kong ought to have deducted tax deductible at source payments before paying its channel companies — Star Plus, Channel V and Star News., STAR Hong Kong had appealed stating that the provisions of TDS are not applicable to a company where payments are made by one non-resident to another outside India.
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ABB India urges government to boost power generation capacity
Bangalore: Power giant ABB has urged India to enhance power generation capacity and tackle transmission and distribution losses effectively to keep pace with the phenomenal economic growth the country was seeing.

Fred Kindle, CEO, ABB Group said to maintain the current level of eight to ten per cent economic growth, industrial production in India needed to grow in double digits for which the country should avoid power shortages.

"By overcoming its infrastructure challenges and unleashing its huge potential, India will take its rightful place in the emerging global economic order," he added.
Kindle said that the Asian region contributed a quarter of the total revenue of ABB and the growth was led by India and China.

ABB has already invested $50 million of the $100 million commitment the company had made for India. The remaining phase of investment would be completed by early 2007, he added.

The investments included $20 million in a new facility in Haridwar for the manufacture of low voltage distribution electrical units and a vacuum interrupter plant in Nasik. Capacity expansions were also on in other ABB India locations.
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MindTree launches 64-bit computing competency centre
Bangalore: International IT and R and D Services company, MindTree Consulting, is setting up a 64-bit computing competency centre to provide migration services to both enterprise class and PC-based application builders.

The centre had developed the industry's first 'CodeMigrate,' an IP-based tool that would enable application builders to speed up migration from 32-bit to 64-bit computing and bring down the cost significantly, besides cutting down the migration time by a bout 60 per cent, according to the company.

The competency centre provided 64-bit porting services to vendors of computing, networking, storage equipment, high-end consumer appliances as well as the PC-based gaming industry.

Already the enterprise class applications such as online transaction processing (OLTP) that run on large databases (in the BFSI segment) and applications based on graphics and heavy computing were witnessing a surge in migration to 64-bit computing.

The centre had already commenced work with two customers, and expected the demand for porting services to balloon, with the advent of Windows Vista that would bring 64-bit computing to PCs.
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Trai blamed for poor connectivity
New Delhi: Private cellular operators have laid the blame on the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) for shifting the blame on service providers for poor call quality, saying the regulator was only trying to cover up its own failures.

TV Ramachandran, director general of Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) in a letter to Trai said, "It is a matter of grave concern to us that having been unsuccessful in its attempts for timely augmentation of points of interconnection (PoIs), the Trai is seeking to shift the blame on cellular operators."

The telecom operators' view is that Trai is aware that due to historically dominant position of one player 90 per cent of the bottleneck facilities are with BSNL, it is unrealistic to expect that the new entrants will be able to address this problem overnight via negotiations.

Ramchandran said Trai was duty bound to protect the interests of service providers. He was replying to Trai's show cause notice to operators, experiencing high levels of congestion in their networks.
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Reliance considers making Bangalore apparel hub
Bangalore: Reliance Retail may locate its apparel business in Bangalore due to fact that the city has abundant skilled labour and a large manufacturing base offering better sourcing opportunities, said informed sources.

Mukesh Ambani's mega retail roll out — in a hypermarket-led format — is expected to hit the market towards the end of 2006, and the private label apparel business is likely to account for 20-25per cent of the turnover reportedly estimated at Rs90,000 crore in the next 4-5 years.
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