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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