IBM to invest $6bn in India
Bangalore: IBM Corp has announced a tripling of its investment in India over the next three years.

Samuel J. Palmisano, chairman and CEO of the company said: "In the next three years, we will triple our investment in India from $2 billion over the last three years to nearly $6 billion. That investment will ensure that we make the most of the opportunities to grow this market, while it also enables IBM to fulfil its vision of becoming a global integrated company," he added.

The `IBM Employee Townhall' event at Palace Grounds in Bangalore was attended by more than 10,000 employees and was the largest employee event for IBM in the Asia Pacific region. The event was Webcast to over three lakh employees worldwide.

Palmisano said India offered the best mind power and its knowledge workers have proved to be the best in the world.

IBM plans to set up an `experience' centre in Bangalore and locate a telecommunications research and innovation centre at the India Research Lab to serve as a key resource to telecom clients. IBM also plans invest in the High Performance on Demand Solutions Lab (HiPODs), which connects IBM's top consultants, developers, engineers and researchers in India and around the world, according to Shankar Annaswamy, managing director, IBM India.
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BHEL to set up CIMAR
Hyderabad: The corporate R&D division of Bharat Heavy Electricals (BHEL) plans to set up a Centre for Intelligence Machines and Robotics (CIMAR) to focus on automation and utilisation of robots in the industrial environment. This would the company's fifth Centre of Excellence and would be set up with an investment of Rs4.77 crore, according to S.K. Goyal, the division's group general manager.

CIMAR would implement computer-integrated manufacturing, advanced radio frequency identification technology for material identification and tracking as well as paperless manufacturing, he said. It also aimed to develop remote-operated vehicles with the support of the Union Department of Information Technology. Apart from this, parcel and vehicle tracking using Global Positioning System and global system for mobile communications technologies would be utilised.
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Punj Lloyd gets Dabhol LNG terminal order
New Delhi: Engineering goods company Punj Lloyd has bagged a Rs428-crore contract for completing the Dabhol liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal. The engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract has been awarded by Ratnagiri Gas and Power Private and involves the completion of balance works of the LNG terminal and the jetty facilities for the Ratnagiri (Dabhol) LNG terminal project.

The scheduled time for completion of the project is 13 months from the date of contract, the company said.
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Godrej to expand capacity with Rs105-cr investment
Mumbai: Godrej Consumer Products (GCPL) has announced an investment of Rs105 crore in expanding its soap and hair colour capacity. The company said that Rs95 crore would go into setting up another facility in Himachal Pradesh and expanding capacities at its Malanpur plant while the balance Rs10 crore would be spent in setting up a new hair colour facility at Sikkim.

The company is looking at hair colour as a viable area of expansion overseas and plans to look at acquiring hair colour companies abroad. In the powder hair dye, GCPL is the world's leader in volume terms while Japan's Bigen is the world's leader in value terms.

The company has a large demand for low-cost powdered hair dye in countries such as Nepal and Sri Lanka, and in West Asia. Godrej acquired Keyline Brands last fiscal plans to look at the possibilities of manufacturing some of Keyline's products in India.
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Malwa Ind to double denim capacity
Mumbai: Textile company, Malwa Industries (MIL), plans to double its denim production capacity from 20 to 40 million metres per annum at its denim fabric-manufacturing unit at Ludhiana, Punjab with an investment of Rs60 crore.

The expansion project would be implemented in two phases - increasing the capacity by 10 million metres in each phase. The company said the additional capacities will largely focus on the ring spinning technique that produces ring denim, which gets higher realization.

The company's installed capacity is 20 million metres per annum for denim fabric and 8.5 million pieces of denim garments comprising 4.5 million pieces per annum in the country and 4 million pieces per annum in Jordan. It has also high-end finishing capacity for 2.5 million pieces in Italy.

As a part of its expansion plan, the company has also installed a power plant at a cost of Rs28.5 crore, which is expected to commence generation of power in the first half of this fiscal year.
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BOC India in pact with JSW Steel
Kolkata: BOC India has entered into a contract with JSW Steel to supply gas for the latter's ongoing expansion programme at its Bellary unit in Karnataka.

JSW Steel is currently expanding its steel capacity to 7 million tonnes per annum from around 3.5 million tonnes per annum. BOC would supply 3,000 tonnes per day of oxygen, nitrogen and argon from a custom-built air separation unit (ASU) to JSW Steel.

The proposed ASU would be its largest such unit in Asia and it is expected to be commissioned in 2008. It would meet all the gas requirements of JSW Steel.

Last year, BOC and JSW Steel entered into another agreement for supplying 1,400 tonnes per day of oxygen and nitrogen.

For the year ended March 31, 2006, BOC India registered a turnover of Rs560.93 crore, marking a growth of 32 per cent over the previous year. Net profit increased by 181 per cent to Rs78.63 crore (Rs27 crore).
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LG raises refrigerator prices by 6 pc
New Delhi: LG Electronics India has hiked the prices of its refrigerators by 6 per cent citing constant escalation of input costs. The hike would be effective from June 1 onwards and would be applicable on all models in direct cool as well as frost-free categories.

Steel, copper and plastics are some of the critical inputs of refrigerators and all these raw materials have registered an average price hike of 20-25 per cent. Steel and copper prices alone have seen price rise of 25 per cent and 100 per cent respectively compared to January 2006.

Crude oil prices have gone up by 20 per cent, resulting in an escalation of 20 per cent in the cost of various engineering plastics and energy.
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DoT asks MTNL to give up unused spectrum
New Delhi: The Department of Telecom, which is trying to free much needed spectrum, has asked Mahanagar Telephone Nigam to surrender unused radio frequency it was given for offering code division multiple access (CDMA) services. Recently DoT made a policy decision to allocate spectrum according to the subscriber base.

According to the DoT policy, an operator in Delhi will have to pack up 16 lakh subscribers with 7.25 mhz radio frequency. MTNL has only 1.5 lakh users in Delhi and another 1.5 lakh CDMA users in Mumbai. Sources said that similar requests will be made to other operators including Bharat Sanchar Nigam in case the spectrum is not being utilised.

Faced with a severe crunch in spectrum, the industry has been demanding for such a decision. Government sources said that the spectrum vacated by MTNL would be allocated to other operators in Delhi and Mumbai, which have a higher subscribers base.

CDMA-based operators Tata Teleservices and Reliance Communications Venture will benefit from the move.
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Reliance ADAG plans sub-branding strategy
Mumbai: The Reliance-Anil Dhirubahi Ambani Group (R-ADAG) is planning to create sub-brands with some of its businesses. Hence some of its products in the wireless and mobile space such as R World and Hello would undergo a sub-branding strategy. Company officials said there would not be too many sub-brands as the equity of most of the products would go back to the Reliance brand. Reliance would remain the power brand and would be made into an iconic, customer-centric global brand.

The Reliance brand would be associated with the icons in other industries, and the company has roped in megastar Amitabh Bachchan to feature in its corporate film. The star however would only feature wherever the company feels there is a brand fit.

Reliance ADAG has also roped in cricketer M.S. Dhoni as its brand ambassador in the recent past and is open to getting in more celebrities depending on how well they fit the brand.
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Lanco to execute power projects in UP
Lucknow: Lanco Group will execute the 1,000 MW Anpara 'C' power project in Uttar Pradesh, as it has emerged as the highest bidder for the project.

Lanco outbid Reliance Energy and Essar Power for setting up the coal-fired power project, technical and financial bids for which were opened today, sources said.

The Uttar Pradesh government had invited bids for the project in Sonebhadra in 2004. The project would be set up on Build, Own, Operate and Trasnfer basis and is estimated to cost about Rs 4,000 crore. PTI UPD RHP KM 06061925 DEL (Reopens DCM86). The bids for the pithead-based Anpara 'C' were invited by state-owned Uttar Pradesh Rajya Vidyut Nigam Ltd on behalf of UPPCL.

The project is located about 190 km from Varanasi in Sonebhadra district of the state. The power generated at Anpara would be sold to distribution companies through long- term power purchase agreement.

The project is likely to get fiscal benefits under the Union Government's Mega Power Project policy. The project would come up alongside the existing 3x210 MW Anpara 'A' and 2x500 Anpara 'B' power plants. The proposed project is pending for over a decade now. Anpara 'A' and 'B' were commissioned in the early 1990s.

Other companies in the race for the project included Reliance Energy, AES Corp, Tata Power, Birlas, Torrent and Essar Power.
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IBM, Bharti enter into pact
Bangalore: Bharti Airtel has signed a pact with technology major IBM which according to Sunil Mital chairman of Bharti Airtel is for the next level of integration to offer an unified consumer experience to all consumers.

Further details are not yet out. The business transformation deal signed between the two companies two years ago, was estimated to be in the range of $250-275m for the first five years, while for a 10-year period it would be between $700-750m.

The contract involved outsourcing Bharti's hardware, software and IT services requirements to IBM. This includes all customer-facing IT applications, such as billing, customer relationship management (CRM) and data warehousing.

In addition, the technology major IBM was also to service the telecom operator's internal-facing applications, for example, intranet, e-mail and online collaboration. On the infrastructure front, IBM will consolidate Bharti's data centres, IT help desks and enhance its disaster recovery capabilities.
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Atul Auto in Rs180-cr capex plan
Mumbai: Atul Auto has envisaged a Rs180 crore capital expenditure over five years to fund its expansion plans, including setting up a plant in Uttaranchal and rolling out its one-tonne mini truck by 2009.

"We have a Capex plan of raising Rs40 crore in the year 2006-07 by securatisation and private placement in our subsidiary Khushbu Auto. Another Rs120 crore would be raised in 2007-08 through public offering and Rs20 crore in 2008-09 through internal accurals and debt," Atul Auto finance manager Hiren Doshi said.

Atul Auto also is setting up a plant in the state of Uttranchal with an investment of Rs10 crore, with a production capacity of 12,000 vehicles. The plant is expected to be operational by August 2006 and aims to make this its hub for northern market, Doshi said.

Atul Auto aims to sell around 72,000 vehicles by 2010 and capture a market share of 12 per cent and increase its delearship to 280 from its current strength of 79 spread across nine states.
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Corporate results: HDFC, Tata Tea

HDFC announces audited consolidated FY 06 results
Housing Development Finance Corporation Ltd (HDFC) has announced the following audited consolidated results for the year ended March 31, 2006:

The company has posted a profit after tax attributable to the corporation of Rs13491.50 million for the year ended March 31, 2006 (FY 05-06) as compared to Rs11120.00 million for the year ended March 31, 2005 (FY 04-05). Total income has increased from Rs36856.00 million in FY 04-05 to Rs46492.50 million for FY 05-06.

Tata Tea announces Q4 & FY 06 results
Tata Tea Ltd has announced the following audited results for the quarter and year ended March 31, 2006:

The company has posted a net profit after tax of Rs193.20 million for the quarter ended March 31, 2006 (Q4 FY 05-06) where as the same was at Rs258.30 million for the quarter ended March 31, 2005 (Q4 FY 04-05). Total income is Rs2435.30 million for Q4 FY 05-06 where as the same was at Rs2493.60 million in Q4 FY 04-05.

The company has posted a net profit after tax of Rs1869.30 million for the year ended March 31, 2006 (FY 05-06) where as the same was at Rs1289.20 million for the year ended March 31, 2005 (FY 04-05). Total income is Rs10400.10 million for FY 05-06 where as the same was at Rs9500.50 million in FY 04-05.

Previous years figures have been regrouped, to the extent necessary, to conform to current years figures and are not strictly comparable to those of the current year, in view of the amalgamation of Tata Tetley Ltd and exit from South India plantation operations.

The audited consolidated results are as follows:

The company has posted a consolidated net profit of Rs2991.50 million for the year ended March 31, 2006 (FY 05-06) as compared to Rs2154.70 million for the year ended March 31, 2005 (FY 04-05). Total income has increased from Rs30765.30 million in FY 04-05 to Rs31508.60 million for FY 05-06.

The board of directors has recommended a dividend payment of 120 per cent (previous year 100 per cent).
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