SAP to invest $1bn in India over 5 years
New Delhi: As part its decision to make India a strategic hub for the Asia-Pacific region, German software major SAP would invest $1 billion over the next five years to expand its operations here. The company also plans to increase its headcount in India to 3,500 by the end of 2006 from 2,750 employees currently and the number of employees would double over the next five years.

According to the company: "India is a vital component of SAP's research and development and global services and support network. The quality of talent, innovation and performance coming from India is truly impressive and our additional investments are designed to harness more of the same. By the end of this year India will make up a significant 20 per cent of the global R&D pie." SAP has research and development centres at Bangalore and Gurgaon and the company has already invested $500 million in its Indian facilities since 1998.

SAP is eyeing e-governance projects being launched by the various State Governments and public sector units and is also setting up a centre of excellence in Gurgaon specifically for the public sector to showcase applications that enable e-governance.
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Hutch moves HC against Essar
Mumbai: Hutchison Telecommunications International has filed a case in the Bombay High Court over Essar Group's decision to terminate the sale of BPL Mobile to Hutchison-Essar. The company is said to have disputed the validity of the termination and sought to restrain the sale of BPL Mobile by Essar to other parties, said sources.

The companies declined to comment saying that the matter is now sub judice.
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IOC, CPCL looking at 15 mt refinery, cracker unit
Chennai: Indian Oil Corporation and its subsidiary, Chennai Petroleum Corporation, are considering putting up a 15 million-tonne refinery and an aromatics-cum-naphtha cracker project at the Ennore petrochemicals complex. The project could cost around Rs33,000 crore. Recently officials from the oil companies made a presentation before the Tamil Nadu chief secretary, L.K. Tripathy, about the proposed project.

IOC officials said the project is was similar to the one the company was putting up at Paradip (where the oil major is building a 15-mtpa refinery, facilities to produce paraxylene, polypropylene, styrene and a naphtha cracker unit).

The project might be put up by an special purpose vehicle (SPV) in which there would most probably be a third partner too.

Earlier, IOC-CPCL intended to put up a 2.5 mtpa LNG terminal and regassification plant at the Ennore complex.
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Ruias to offload 15 pc stake in Dunlop
Bangalore: The Ruia Group plans to divest up to 15 per cent of its stake in Dunlop Tyres to raise around Rs450 crore to fund its expansion plan. In addition to this the group plans to invest around Rs200 crore in Falcon Tyres for setting up a plant in Uttaranchal for manufacturing tyres for two- and three-wheeler vehicles.

The Ruia Group chairman, Pawan Kumar Ruia, said the company was in talks with a few Indian banks to raise the funds because they may not be keen on picking up stake.

The Ruia Group currently holds 74 per cent stake each in Dunlop Tyres and Falcon Tyres.

In Falcon Tyres, the initial investment of Rs70 crore will go towards setting up a 6-MW power plant and for capacity expansion. While the tyre capacity is being expanded to 7.5 lakh units per month from 4.75 lakh units, the tube capacity is being expanded to 7.5 lakh units per month from 3.5 lakh units.

The Uttaranchal plant's capacity will be around 125 tonnes per day. For the quarter ended June 2006, Falcon Tyres posted a 6.82 per cent increase in net profit to Rs1.25 crore, while total income rose 30.72 per cent to Rs69.9 crore.
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BSNL to launch GSM-based fixed wireless telephones
New Delhi: The state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) has decided to roll out wireless in local loop based fixed wireless telephone services using GSM technology across the country.

Till now the company had been offering the fixed wireless telephone services using the CDMA technology and about two million subscribers.

BSNL sources said that the decision was taken to roll out GSM-based fixed telephone services on July 27 to counter competition from Airtel, which has recently launched fixed wireless services on its pan-India GSM network.

BSNL officials said that the tariffs being offered by Airtel were very aggressive and the PSU decided to follow suit to arrest any possibility of a churn from its 35 million fixed line subscribers.
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Satyam to hire more SAP pros
Chennai: Satyam Computer Services plans to hire 1,000 SAP professionals during the current fiscal and is recruiting about 250 SAP professionals every quarter. Out of the total 30,000 Satyam employees, about 3,000 employees have capabilities in SAP, an enterprise resource planning (ERP) software application.

Satyam hires people at entry level from colleges and trains them on SAP applications, and also gets them certified from SAP, the German company that has developed the application. The Hyderabad-based software company also hires professionals from sectors such as banking and automotive and puts them on a similar training on SAP. The company then puts the SAP trained professionals on shadow projects along with experienced people, and later allows them to work on regular projects, he said.

The global ERP industry, which includes software applications from companies such as SAP, Oracle and Seibel, is about $15 billion and is growing. SAP has a 22 per cent market share in the ERP space.

Forrester, a research company, in its report The Forrester Wave, Indian SAP Services, in October said Satyam has the strongest, most global SAP offering. It said that of all the Indian vendors, Satyam clearly has the largest and deepest SAP practice. Its track record and client references underscore its long-term investment in this area. Satyam will continue to invest in SAP skills and offerings and is likely to maintain a lead in this area for at least the next 12 months, despite the impressive SAP investments on the other Indian vendors, the report said.
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RIL hikes diesel margins for dealers
Mumbai: Reliance Industries has increased diesel margins for its dealers and plans to bear some of their loan interest costs. This came there was news that many of its dealers were readying for a nationwide strike. These include waiving network usage charges and substantial hike in diesel margins. The company has agreed to bear interest costs on retailers' loans for three months and has even negotiated with banks to re-schedule loan repayments, said the statement. RIL retails its fuels at higher prices compared to the public-sector companies, with the result that its dealers are facing decreased sales and now want increased margins to offset the dip in sales.
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Hindustan Lever to move corporate headquarters to Andheri
Mumbai: Hindustan Lever (HLL) has announced that it shift its South Mumbai Corporate Office to a new proposed campus at the western suburb of Andheri. This move will lead to an integration of all business offices of the company in Bangalore and Mumbai and the transition will be completed during 2008, the company said in a notice to the stock exchange. The company's Andheri site stands on 12.6 acres of land. The new campus will have a built-up area of over 5,00,000 sq.ft.

The transition to the new office will be done in two phases. In the first phase, the Bangalore foods team will be relocated to the Mumbai head office by January 1, 2007. In second phase, the Mumbai head office and training centre will be relocated to the new Andheri campus during 2008.The organisation has put in place a transition management team, which will ensure that the process is transparent, fair and empathetic. For those employees who choose not to relocate on account of any personal reasons, the company's commitment is to ensure their appropriate resettlement.

Analysts said that apart from unlocking real estate value, the move to shift office will have no impact on the profitability of the company.
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Award for Ranbaxy's US subsidiary
New Delhi: Ranbaxy Laboratories' wholly owned US subsidiary Ohm Laboratories Inc, has received the Private Label Supplier of the Year Award from AmerisourceBergen at the annual National Healthcare Conference & Exposition (NHCE) in Las Vegas recently. NHCE brings together community pharmacy leaders, pharmaceutical manufacturers, health and beauty aids manufacturers and industry experts, according to a release by Ranbaxy.
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Taj GVK to set up three new five-star hotel projects
Hyderabad: Taj GVK Hotels has registered a total income of Rs56.8 crore in the first quarter of the current fiscal as against Rs33.85 crore in the corresponding quarter last year, showing a growth of 68 per cent. Its profit after tax rose to Rs14.79 crore (Rs7.45 crore), an increase of 99 per cent.

The company has announced plans to develop new star hotels in Hyderabad, Chennai and Bangalore, as part of its expansion across the country.

The company is hopeful of completing the Chennai hotel project by March 2007 built at a cost of Rs125-crore. The company has started the initial excavation works for a new five-star hotel project at Begumpet in Hyderabad. The 189-room hotel is being built at a cost of Rs70 crore and will be ready by 2008. The company is also in the process of acquiring land in Bangalore to set up a five-star hotel.

The Taj GVK has three hotels in Hyderabad city - Taj Krishna, Taj Residency and Taj Banjara. It is awaiting approvals for the proposed expansion of Taj Krishna, where it proposes to add 135 guest rooms, besides construction of 75 apartments. The outlay for the expansion was put at Rs120 crore. The company was also finalising plans for renovating Taj Residency at a cost of Rs100 crore.
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Hindustan Tin in JV with UK co for manufacture of beverage cans
New Delhi: Hindustan Tin Works has entered into a joint venture with the UK-based Rexcam Plc's Indian subsidiary Rexam Beverage Can India to manufacture two-piece beverage cans from a greenfield plant in Mumbai with an investment of about Rs88 crore. The plant is in advanced stages and expected to be operational by the end of 2006. According to the deal, Rexam Beverage will hold a majority stake of 51 per cent in the new entity while Hindustan Tin will hold the rest.

The joint venture will operate through a new entity, HTW Beverage Can (India), which will eventually become Rexam HTW Beverage Can (India).

The new facility will have an initial capacity of nearly 450 million cans per year.
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Kinetic's Blaze to be sold in Japan soon
Pune: The Kinetic Blaze will be launched in Japan this week. According to a press release, Kinetic Motor is exporting one container of Blaze this month valued at Rs10 lakh. The company is estimating an export of 250 units to Japan within the next five to six months. Blaze, a 165cc large-format scooter with big wheels, is India's first motoscooter - the first of the seven-vehicle series that Kinetic acquired from the Italian two wheeler major Italjet SpA.
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ONGC looks to acquire Columbian co
New Delhi: The Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs (CCEA) is likely to consider ONGC Videsh's (OVL) proposal to put in a final bid to buy out Omimex de Colombia, a Delaware-USA listed company with operations in Columbia.

OVL has submitted a joint bid with China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) for Omimex de Columbia, a 100 per cent subsidiary of Omimex Resources, USA. The company has onshore production and exploration (E&P) blocks in Columbia, with net proven reserves of about 157m barrels and has oil and gas assets in seven states.

The CCEA would evaluate geopolitical risks associated with the Project Amazon. OVL may arrange funds internally to acquire the company. It may also take the help of its parent company ONGC to fund the project. It does not need any budgetary support from the government for this transaction, the sources said.
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Pesticides found again in colas
New Delhi: Tests conducted by CSE on cola samples found many toxins way above permissible levels. The tests found the presence of chemicals like Lindane (Used as insecticide for seed treatment. Used topically for head and body lice), Chlopyrifos (an organophosphate)

(Used to control cockroaches, fleas and termites), Heptachlor (an organochlorine):

(Used to kill termites or fire ants in power transformers), Chlorpyrifos (a known neurotoxin) levels were 47 times higher.

The average amount of pesticide residues found in all samples was 11.85 parts per billion (ppb) - 24 times higher than the BIS standards for total pesticides in soft drinks (0.5 ppb).
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Delhi airport comes under DIAL from today
The GMR-led joint venture Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) will take over the management of the Delhi Airport from midnight today. Some changes are already being felt.

The airport director will henceforth be known as the chief operations officer and general manager finance as the chief financial officer. At the VVIP entry, two brand new Toyota Camrys and two Toyota Innovas have replaced the official Ambassadors to carry VVIPs to aircraft.

Terminal 1B at the domestic airport has been lit up more brightly and the entry point is being widened with electronic sensors in place. The Delhi and Mumbai airports account for almost 60 per cent of Airports Authority of India's estimated 2005-06 revenue of Rs3,352 crore. While GMR has to complete the modernisation job by 2010, DIAL will not be able to start work on the main integrated terminal until design consultants Matt McDonald handover the master plan in September this year.
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