Nicholas Piramal to acquire Pfizer's UK facility
Mumbai: The Ajay Piramal controlled Nicholas Piramal India will soon acquire Pfizer's manufacturing facility in the United Kingdom. This will make Nicolas Piramal the largest global contract manufacturer for Pfizer in terms of the value of orders according to Ajay Piramal, chairman of the company. The cost of acquisition was not disclosed.

Pfizer's plant located at Morpeth is an integrated facility, with production and supply chain capabilities across bulk drugs, finished forms of medicines, packaging and distribution. NPIL has also signed a supply agreement with Pfizer till November 2011, with the potential to bring in revenues of $350 million.

NPIL has a tie-up with Pfizer in the animal health segment, but that deal is outside of the latest agreement. This is Nicholas Piramal's third acquisition in UK in over a year.

The present Pfizer deal has been effected through NPIL's wholly-owned subsidiary in the UK, NPIL Pharmaceuticals (UK) Ltd (earlier, Avecia Pharmaceuticals, UK). The acquisition would be funded through internal accruals. The company recently got its board approval to raise $1.5 billion to support acquisition plans.
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Infosys plans large campus at Mahindra City, Chennai
Bangalore: Infosys Technologies' upcoming campus at Mahindra City SEZ near Chennai would be the company's largest campus in the country as it expects to hire some 25,000 people in three to four years. The company plans to invest Rs1,250 crore over three to four years in expanding the facility, said T.V. Mohandas Pai, director - education and human resources, Infosys. By the end of this year, Infosys would have invested Rs350 crore in the Chennai campus. The company already has about 3,500 people in Chennai and planned to add another 5,000 this year.

The company had already bought some 125 acres at Mahindra City. Infosys, which had a total headcount of a little over 52,000 at the end of fiscal 2006, plans to add about 25,000 people to its rolls in the current year.

The TN government would soon formulate a comprehensive IT policy and promote the tier-II and tier-III cities. The policy would involve setting up of a task force and addressing infrastructural issues.
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L&T wins Rs750-cr NHAI BOT contract
Mumbai: Engineering goods giant Larsen & Toubro has won a contract worth Rs750 crore from the National Highways Authority of India. The project has been awarded on the build-operate-transfer basis and is for the six-laning of the National Highway-8 between Vadodara and Bharuch in Gujarat, according to the company. L&T won the project through international competitive bidding.

The project will be handled by a special purpose company called L&T Vadodara Bharuch Tollways Ltd, formed exclusively for the project.

The 83.3-km stretch of NH-8 between Vadodara and Baruch, forms part of the Golden Quadrilateral and is an important link in the high-density corridor connecting Mumbai and Delhi, said L&T, in a statement. "This project is located on the corridor with the highest traffic density in the country and is one of the most prestigious six laning project being offered on BOT basis on the Golden Quadrilateral," L&T said.

The 15-year concession period includes a construction period of 30 months.
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Tata Chem unveils new look salt
New Delhi: Tata Chemicals is looking at acquisitions in the domestic market to fuel growth in its edible salt business.

TCL with a share 52 per cent share in the national branded salt market, is not considering overseas acquisitions but is looking at strengthening its position in the Indian segment and has unveiled a new look `Tata Salt'. The company has also introduced 100 g packs of Tata Salt priced at Re 1 at select locations in Eastern Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar.

The company would also be launching a new advertising campaign in 10 regional languages across television, radio and cinema for which it has allocated 15 per cent of its total promotion spends. TCL's new marketing campaign focuses on the catchline `Chutki ki chamak'.
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SAIL to set up greenfield facility
New Delhi: Steel Authority of India (SAIL) is setting up a greenfield facility for manufacturing long products near Kolkata. SAIL's greenfield facility for manufacturing long products would be coming up in the 121-acre freehold land that NISCO owns at Belur in the outskirts of Kolkata.

Before closing down because of poor market conditions, the company operated two electric arc furnaces, one foundry, one steel melting shop, one machine shop and a rolling mill till it was operational.

Officials pointed out that the new unit would have a lot of synergies with SAIL's Durgapur Steel Plant (DSP) and Indian Iron and Steel Company Ltd (IISCO) plant that had been merged with SAIL earlier this year.

Informed sources said the State Government has cleared the takeover on a clean-slate basis following which SAIL would not be carrying over NISCO's earlier liabilities. The major portion of NISCO's total liability of around Rs160 crore is with the West Bengal Government and is likely to be waived off.
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Mold-Tek plans campus near Hyderabad
Hyderabad: Mold-Tek Technologies is planning to set up a Rs10-crore technology campus near Hyderabad and a packaging unit in Tamil Nadu with an investment of Rs8 crore.

The Hyderabad-based packaging and technology company recorded sales of Rs70.87 crore and net profit of Rs3.54 crore in 2005-06 as against sales of Rs 56.64 crore and net profit of Rs0.81 crore in the previous fiscal. For the fourth quarter, the company's consolidated sales stood at Rs17.31 crore (Rs11.18 crore) with a net profit of Rs1.25 crore (Rs0.20 crore). The company has announced a 10 per cent final dividend.
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IOC to buy petro products from Nagarjuna Oil refinery
Chennai: Indian Oil Corporation will buy petro products from Nagarjuna Oil Corporation's 6-million-tonne refinery coming in Cuddalore, Tamil Nadu. However, the purchase agreement between the IOC and Nagarjuna Oil will not bind IOC into a committed offtake. The PSU oil major will have the right of first refusal - Nagarjuna will have to offer its products first to IOC.
Nagarjuna Oil Corporation is putting up a 6-million-tonne refinery at a cost of Rs4,750 crore at Cuddalore. The Tatas are taking 26 per cent stake in the company.
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Adlabs ties up with Hyde Park Entertainment Group
Mumbai: The Anil Ambani Group company Adlabs Films is entering mainstream Hollywood. The company has informed BSE that it has entered into a co-production, film financing deal with Hyde Park Entertainment Group, a production, financing and international sales company promoted by Ashok Amritraj.

Adlabs Films has set up wholly owned subsidiaries in the UK and the US for its overseas distribution of Indian films, film co-production and post production business. Amritraj had announced at Frames 2006 that his company, Hyde Park Entertainment Group, was looking at tying up with Indian companies for producing films.
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Pfizer to launch blockbuster drugs in India
Tokyo: Pfizer Inc, the world's largest pharma company, plans to beef up its presence in the Indian market with launch of 20 new products over the next three to five years. This includes its blockbuster diabetes drug Exubera.

The company is upbeat about India's intellectual property rights regime and hopes to continue its double-digit growth in the Asian markets. Henry A. McKinnell, chairman and CEO, Pfizer, USA, speaking at the sidelines of the World Economic Forum's opening session said the company would introduce the Exubera inhalation drug for diabetes patients. Exubera inhalation powder is the first diabetes drug that can be inhaled by the patient. The drug helps control high blood sugar in adults with both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes.
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Symantec signs agreement with IBM
Bangalore: Symantec has signed an agreement with IBM that provides for the delivery of Symantec high availability, storage management, and backup products for the Linux on POWER platform by the end of 2006. This is another example of Symantec's commitment to support all major UNIX, Linux and Windows platforms in the data centre, enabling customers to standardise on a consistent software infrastructure across heterogeneous environments. Symantec offerings for Linux on POWER will be available worldwide and will be resold by IBM in the US Federal and Japan markets. These offerings are expected to be available by the end of 2006.
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VSNL to install cybercafes at 68 railway stations
Mumbai: Videsh Sanchar Nigam will install cybercafés at 68 railway stations in the country as it has won the franchisee rights from the Indian Railways. The first such cyber café is now open in Bangalore. The rest will be operational in the next few weeks, said a statement from the company.

Each of these cybercafes will be equipped with 10 to 20 high-end multimedia PCs and will be open 24x7. Tata Indicom will also create select areas at these railway stations that will be Wi-Fi enabled, allowing passengers to use their laptops or Wi-Fi enabled PDAs.

All Tata Indicom dial-up and broadband customers can use this facility by using their existing accounts, the company said. Apart from gaming and Internet browsing, other value-added services such as printing, scanning, mobile charging and CD-writing will be offered at these cafes. Passengers can use these cafes for making onward bookings, checking their bank statements, tracking their investment portfolios or for making international calls.
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Setback for Reliance Comm.'s Egypt entry
New Delhi: Reliance Communications has suffered a setback in its bid to enter the Egyptian mobile market as the Egyptian national telecom regulator disqualified its bid after the completion of the technical evaluation.

Reliance Communications which had formed a consortium with Egypt-based Arab Computer Manufacturing Co (a subsidiary of Mohammad Kharafi and Sons Co), will not be eligible for the final round of bidding scheduled for July 4. Along with Reliance, Egypt's national telecom regulator NTRA has also disqualified a consortium headed by Saudi Telecom and Telekom Malaysia from participating in the final round.

Earlier, Reliance Communications was among 11 bidders who had been shortlisted for Egypt's third mobile licence.

The nine groups who have qualified for the final round will have to submit financial bids and be part of an auction with a reserve price of $434m. The winner will have to compete with Vodafone (Egypt) and MobiNil - the two companies which currently offer mobile services in Egypt.
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