Tata Sons to acquire 26 pc in Nagarjuna refinery
Chennai: Tata Sons is acquiring a 26 per cent stake in the Nagarjuna refinery at Cuddalore in Tamil Nadu for Rs350 crore. The equity size of the project is Rs1,370 crore. The Tata group has signed an agreement to pick up the stake and a definitive agreement is expected to be signed shortly.

The six million tonnes a year refinery, being set up by the Nagarjuna Oil Corporation, will soon achieve financial closure. IDBI has sanctioned its part of the Rs3,380 crore debt for the project and is also syndicating the loans, including the foreign currency debt.

The Nagarjuna Oil project is expected to get a boost with the entry of the entry of the Tatas. The project was originally scheduled to go on stream in 2002, but the date was later put off to 2005.

The Nagarjuna group, which is the main promoter, will hold 51 per cent equity in the project followed by Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO), a State Government undertaking at 5 per cent; Krupp Uhde, the technical collaborator, 7 per cent; and Sun Itera, a joint venture between the Itera group, a leading producer and trader of natural gas in the CIS countries, Sun Energy of India, 10 per cent and IDBI 1 per cent. The remaining would be held by the Tatas.
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MUL to make motorbike parts for Suzuki
New Delhi: Maruti Udyog is setting up a new joint venture company to make components for Suzuki motorcycles and cars in India. Maruti is learnt to have a 30 per cent stake in the project. The joint venture would also involve Japanese components firm Bellsonica Corp, Maruti and a local manufacturer and would make sheet metal and chassis, as well as other components for Maruti's cars and Suzuki Motorcycles India.

Maruti already has a stake in a number of components makers in India. These include Jay Bharat Maruti Ltd, Sona Koyo Steering Systems Ltd, AIS Glass Ltd, Krishna Maruti Ltd and Caparo Maruti.
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Vedanta to acquire stake in Sterlite Gold
Mumbai: Vedanta Resources plc has entered into an agreement to acquire a controlling interest in Sterlite Gold for Canadian $68.45 million (around Rs285 crore). Sterlite Gold is a gold mining company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange and the deal at C$68.45 million, works out to C$0.258 per Sterlite Gold common share.

Vedanta plans to make a cash offer to acquire, directly or indirectly, all of the outstanding common shares of Sterlite Gold. As part of this transaction, Vedanta has entered into an agreement to acquire the entire share capital of Twin Star International Ltd (TSI), the holding company that has 55 per cent stake in Sterlite Gold's common shares, for C$37.68 million in cash representing an imputed price of C$0.258 per Sterlite Gold common share.

Sterlite Gold's principal assets are located in Armenia and include an open pit gold mine at Zod and a gold processing plant at Ararat.

Vedanta and Sterlite Gold are under common control. Volcan Investments owns 53.76 per cent of the ordinary shares of Vedanta and 100 per cent of the shares of TSI, the controlling shareholder of Sterlite Gold. The transactions comprising the TSI acquisition and the Sterlite Gold Offer therefore constitute a related party transaction under the Listing Rules of the UK Listing Authority and an insider bid under Canadian securities laws, including Rule 61-501. Vedanta formed a special committee of directors who are independent of Volcan to consider and supervise the making of the TSI acquisition and Sterlite Gold Offer.
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Tata Motors receives Rs55-cr order for buses from Congo
Mumbai: Tata Motors has received an order worth Rs55 crore to supply buses to the Democratic Republic of Congo. As part of this order, 228 buses have been delivered so far. The company would be supplying buses to revamp the urban transport system of Kinshasa, the capital city of Congo. The buses are being supplied under the Indian Government's Line of Credit to the Democratic Republic of Congo through the Exim Bank of India.

In 2005-06, Tata Motors exported over 6,000 buses, registering a growth of about 45 per cent over the previous year.

"The company is setting up a complete services network in Kinshasa. We are proud to partner with the Government of the Democratic Republic of Congo in its endeavour to revamp the urban transport system," Tata Motors said in a news release.
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Man Ind gets order worth Rs500-cr
Mumbai: Man Industries (India), which manufactures large diameter submerged arc welded line pipes and coating systems, has bagged orders worth Rs500 crore. The company received a fresh order worth Rs400 crore from a gas transmission company in Iran for supply of 252 km of line pipe and has also got another order worth Rs100 crore from Reliance Industries for the supply of pipelines. At present, the company has total orders worth Rs1,250 crore.

The total installed manufacturing capacity of the company is over 2,000 km of line pipe and over 5 million square meters of coating systems per annum.
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Srei Infrastructure gets Rs3,000-cr worth road projects
Kolkata: Srei Infrastructure Finance, has bagged numerous NHAI/annuity road projects in various parts of the country in partnership with construction companies like the AP-based Madhucon Projects, Rajasthan-based Sadbhav Engineering, Tamil Nadu-based KMC Construction and Maharashtra-based Atlanta for a total of Rs3,000 crore. The biggest of these projects is the Rs650-crore Madurai-Tuticorin project in Tamil Nadu, in partnership with the Hyderabad-based Madhucon Projects Ltd.
Srei would be working on both fee-based project consultancy as well as raising of financial resources covering both debt and equity. The other projects are: Bharatpur-Mahua in Rajasthan, Nagpur-Kondhali in Maharashtra, Thrissur-Angamali in Kerala, Lakhnadon in Madhya Pradesh, and Karur-Dindigul in Tamil Nadu.

Srei, having strategically positioned itself in the Indian infrastructure development space through project participation and equipment financing, now intends to utilise its strategic relationships with the construction companies on a pan-Indian basis, he said.
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India Cements plans pan India presence
Chennai: India Cements is setting up plants in various parts of the country in line with its plans of having an all India presence. Apart from signing up for a two million tonnes a year cement plant in Himachal Pradesh, the company is scouting for mining leases in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh for setting up plants in these States.

For its Himachal Pradesh plant the company will sign an agreement with a State Government undertaking, in the next month or so. The company expects to complete this project in the next three to four years.

With its plans to enter Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, India Cements wants to be present in all the major markets. India Cements' profits before exceptional items for the fourth quarter of 2005-06 more than doubled over the same period in the previous year while sales grew 26 per cent. For the year ended March 31, 2006 the company's net profit jumped almost 10 times while sales were up 32 per cent.
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Eveready to set up new plant in Uttaranchal
New Delhi: Eveready Industries India is investing Rs60 crore in setting up a new plant in Uttaranchal to take its overall annual production capacity of dry cell batteries to two billion units.

The new plant would have an annual production capacity of four million batteries. This will be the 12th plant of the company, which currently commands about 55 per cent of the market after its takeover of BPL's dry cell battery unit last year. According to the company, it hiked prices across different product categories in January and April-May ranging from Re0.50 to Re1 in order to lessen pressure on margins following rising input costs specially that of zinc, which has almost tripled in the last 14 months.
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Opto Circuits Q4 net rises 64 pc
Bangalore: Healthcare equipment maker Opto Circuits has registered a 64 per cent increase in net profit to Rs11.81 crore during the fourth quarter of 2005-06. Sales during the same period grew 23.48 per cent to Rs35.45 crore. The company has declared a dividend of Rs 4 per share, subject to approval of the shareholders. The board has also recommended a 1:1 bonus.

For the entire year, the company's net profit rose 82.77 per cent to Rs35.02 crore while sales grew 46.61 per cent to Rs116.03 crore. Exports recorded a 48 per cent increase to Rs115.17 crore compared with the previous year.
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BSNL lowers rentals for One India plan
New Delhi: State owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam has lowered its rental for fixed line subscribers to Rs225 a month from Rs299. The company has also offered 25 free calls for those availing the plan, which offers subscribers a flat rate of Re One per minute for STD telephone calls made to any part of the country.

The One India tariff plan in force now does not offer any free calls to subscribers, which made it an expensive option compared to other BSNL packages. One India plan was planned by Dayanidhi Maran, minister for Communications to make long distance calls affordable. However due to its higher rentals and zero free calls, the scheme was not finding too many takers.

The local call rates under the One India would continue to be Re One for a three-minute call.

BSNL said all other existing tariff plans would continue to be in operation including the lower rentals scheme in rural areas and 'OneIndia' tariff plan would be optional.

Under the new tariff package for BSNL's landine users, the local call charges will be Re1 for three minutes within BSNL network while calls to other networks both landline and mobile will be Re1 per minute within a state.
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Tulip net up 265 per cent
New Delhi: Tulip IT Services, which provides end-to-end data connectivity, has reported a 265 per cent jump in its net profit to Rs48.8 crore for the financial year ended March 31, against Rs13.91 crore for the same period last year. The company's turnover stood at Rs508.17 crore, a 49 per cent increase from Rs342.20 crore last year, and the board of directors has recommended a dividend of 10 per cent.

The 265 per cent growth in net profits has come mainly from Tulip Connect's Internet Protocol Virtual Private Network (IP/VPN) business, and it is this section which will primarily see a substantial growth in the future as well according to Tulip IT Services managing director, H. S. Bedi.

The company has expanded to 540 cities from 350 cities in March, with an investment of Rs180 crore.
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Wipro gets place in IN25 innovation listings
Bangalore: Wipro Technologies, the global IT services business of Wipro has received a place in the IN25 Champions of Innovation listings, published in the latest issue of BusinessWeek, according to a release issued by the company.

Divakaran Mangalath, chief technology officer said Wipro Technologies, was also the only Indian firm to be profiled in the high-powered list of 25 companies published by BusinessWeek.
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GSM association plans to cut 3G handset prices
New Delhi: The GSM Association (GSMA), which held its board meeting for the first time in India, plans to work towards reducing the cost of 3G handsets so that the technology becomes affordable to all and gives a further impetus to the growth of the technology.
Currently, 3G handsets are priced at around Rs10,000 and the aim is to ensure that it comes down by half and then further down to around Rs2000-2,500, chairman Bharti Enterprises and board member GSMA Sunil Mittal said. GSM technology has clocked 2 billion subscribers worldwide and new users are signing up at the rate of 1,000 per minute.
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Reliance ties up with Intel to offer Net service
Bangalore: Reliance Communications has tied up with chipmaker Intel for providing instant Internet connectivity to 11 cities and towns in Karnataka. The programme would be rolled out nationally in the next two months, said Inder Bajaj, head, post paid business, Reliance Communications. Bajaj said the tie-up would enable Reliance Communications to bundle the service to users of Intel chip-based PCs and portable computers.

Reliance Communications has appointed genuine Intel dealers across the 11 towns to market the new offering, which would provide PC buyers Internet-enabled Reliance fixed wireless phones. The programme covers Belgaum, Bellary, Bhatkal, Chitradurga, Davangere, Dharwad, Gulbarga, Hospet, Mandya, Shimoga and Karwar.

Reliance Communications has a subscriber base of 1.2 million in Karnataka, of which 7,000 are data card users.
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