Satyam signs joint venture with Planeview
Mumbai: Satyam Computer Services has entered into an alliance with Texas based enterprise portfolio management software company Planview.

According to a statement from Satyam Computer Services the Satyam-Planview alliance is uniquely positioned to deliver world-class IT Portfolio Management and PMO solutions to its customers, by virtue of Satyam's ability to craft IT governance and portfolio management strategy and comprehensive features of Planview Enterprise Software.

The collaboration would enable Planview's clients to receive optimal performance from Satyam's products and Planview would bring its solutions to Satyam's global customer base in various industries like energy, entertainment, financial services, healthcare, pharmaceuticals and telecommunications, Satyam informed the Bombay Stock Exchange. The alliance enhances the company's ability to deliver enterprise portfolio management, IT governance, and project management processes to companies around the world, the statement said.
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Tatas float pharma JV
Mumbai: The Tata Group has floated a pharma joint venture Advinus Therapeutics with Rashmi Barbhaiya the ex-research head of Ranbaxy. The former has set aside around Rs1,000 crore for investment over the next four years in the joint venture. The Tatas' have already poured in $15 million Rs70 crore) into the venture, which would focus on drug discovery and development of pharmaceutical and agrochemical products.

Tatas' Pune drug discovery facility was inaugurated on August 3 and the company is also planning to set up an R&D centre in Bangalore with an investment of $5 million.

"The Group has been keen on developing businesses in the knowledge sector and the investment in Advinus is seen as a part of this focus. It is also believed that Advinus is the first step towards the Tata Group's re-entry into the pharmaceutical industry," company sources said.

The Pune facility located in the Biotech park in Pune, is expected to be the nerve centre of the drug discovery activities being undertaken by the company.

The facility is spread over an area of 20,000 sq ft and will undertake novel drug discovery and generate IP primarily in the area of Metabolic Diseases and Inflammation. The facility currently has 55 scientists in various streams and the company will increase its headcount to 550 over the next four years.
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Tata Group to merge subsidiaries
Mumbai: The Tata group has merged Tata Economic Consultancy Services with the Tata Strategic Management Group (TSMG) to create a single consulting organisation that is focused on corporate restructuring and infrastructure advisory services.

The Tatas set up TSMG in 1991 as a division of Tata Industries, while Tata Economic Consultancy Services (TECS) was formed in 1970 as a division of Tata Sons.

Over the years TSMG has grown into a large corporate consultancy house with over 70 professionals and over 100 clients providing services such as strategy formulation, strategy deployment, and performance improvement and analytics solutions.

The move comes when infrastructure advisory work is rapidly gaining in importance. The emergence of special economic zones as a promising investment alternative and the increasing stress on roads, ports and the power sectors means that consulting outfits with experience and knowledge in these areas will benefit.
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Bharti looks beyond voice at enterprise business
New Delhi: The country's largest mobile operator, Bharti Tele-Ventures is in talks with 10 global long distance carriers for entering into bilateral agreements for its enterprise business. Under these agreements, Bharti will set up its points of presence (PoPs) on the networks of these global players around the world.

Under these agreements, Bharti will be able to offer end-to-end managed services for companies across the globe via these PoPs on a revenue sharing model with international carriers. The agreements will also see global carriers use Bharti's fibre network in India for their last mile.

Bharti is also talking to several software players such as Wipro, TCS, HP, HCL and IBM for sourcing the platform for managed services. Bharti estimates that about 40 per cent of its revenues will come from its enterprise business post '07, from about 23 per cent currently.

This also explains why Bharti has been exploring the option of signing joint 'go-to-the-market' deals with software companies like the one it has with IBM.

In the first stage, the company would focus on acquiring PoPs on destinations along the networks of international carriers such that it can provide complete end-to-end services to its existing customers in India.

With these moves Bharti also hopes to capture a major chunk of the $7.3bn enterprise sector. Hence a PoP in New York means that Bharti can carry its enterprise traffic of the corporate all the way to the United States, rather than hand it over any international carrier, just outside India.

Bharti will also announce a minor restructuring soon, where, its small and medium scale business will be brought under the enterprise segment.

Bharti Airtel's competitors in the enterprise segment include, Tata Telecom, BSNL and Reliance Communications.
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BirlaSoft renews service agreement with GE
New Delhi: C K Birla group firm BirlaSoft has renewed its Master Service Agreement with GE for three years starting from January 2007, to run the company's Global Development Centre. BirlaSoft has set up three development centres in India in the last one year, the release said.
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Hutch to take Essar to court over termination notice
New Delhi: Hutchison Telecom International, the parent company of Hutchison that operates the Hutch-Essar JV in India with Essar group, has said the termination of BPL Mobile Mumbai circle merger deal by its Indian partner was wrong.

Hutchison Essar is taking all necessary steps and action to pursue completion in accordance with the terms of BPL Mumbai share purchase agreement, the company said in an update to its shareholders on the status of the merger, shortly before dragging Essar to court over the matter. Referring to its announcement of September last year about acquisition of BPL Mobile's Mumbai business, the company said the fruition of the SPA would have enabled Hutchison to have 100 per cent stake in BPL's Mumbai circle.

Since the announcement and the circular, Hutchison-Essar has completed its acquisition of the entire issued share capital of BPL Cellular while the BPL Mumbai SPA was signed in December last year.
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Bunge targets more than 25 pc growth in topline: looks for acquisitions
New Delhi: Bunge India, the wholly owned subsidiary of US based agribusiness and food company Bunge, is looking at a turnover of Rs1,100 crore by the end of this year as against Rs 800 crore last year. The company is also looking for acquisitions in the edible oils business. The company is planning to acquire brands, which are operating in niche markets but is finding that currently the valuations are unattractive. The company is targeting a 25 per cent marketshare in soybean oil by 2011 and a similar share in vanaspati by 2010. The company currently has a market share of 5 per cent in edible oil (soybean and sunflower) and 15 per cent in vanaspati.

The company plans to make investments in hiking manufacturing capacities after 18 months currently is focusing on making investments in acquiring brands.

The company currently has a crushing capacity of 1,600 tonnes per day spread equally across its two manufacturing plants at Pithampur and Bundi apart from 6 to 7 third-party units for crushing.
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Panacea gets India patent for ER Nimesulide
Mumbai: Panacea Biotec has received a patent by the government of India for the invention of 'Extended Release (ER) Pharmaceutical Composition Containing Nimesulide for 20 years in accordance with the provisions of the Patents Act, 1970.

According to a release issued by Panacea to the BSE today, Nimesulide is one of the most widely prescribed non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) with excellent analgesic, anripyretic and safety profile. "The company launched its extended release Nimesulide under the brand name WILLGO in 2004 in India which recorded a growth rate of around 48 per cent over last year.

The company said WILLGO provides effective management of Osteoarthritis by providing continuous relief from chronic joint pain in osteoarthritis patients. It said it has already received patent in 10 countries so far, out of 34 countries, where applications have been flied.
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Four states ban colas
New Delhi: The Governments of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh have banned the sale of Coke and Pepsi in educational institutions, Government offices and canteens.
On Monday PepsiCo India in a damage control exercise began a campaign assuring consumers that pesticide levels in aerated drinks were well within prescribed standards.

PepsiCo's media campaign stated, "... new regulations for carbonated drinks notified by the Health Minister on July 15, 2004 are comparable to the most stringent international regulations, including the European Union. All PepsiCo products in India meet these standards. Our products comply with the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act (PFA) directive on the use of water in the preparation of soft drinks."

When contacted, officials from PepsiCo refused to comment on the issue of ban on its products and the CSE's reaction to its advertisement. Coca Cola officials were unreachable for comment.
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Apollo Tyres to invest Rs500-cr in greenfield unit in TN
New Delhi: Apollo Tyres plans to invest around Rs500 crore in the next 5 years in setting up a greenfield radial tyre manufacturing unit in Tamil Nadu.

The company has signed an MoU with the Tamil Nadu government to acquire 135 acres of land, in the Oragadam Industrial Park, near Sriperumbudur for the construction of a radial facility, according to an official release issued today.

The company is developing the radial technology that it would use with its own internal R&D expertise. It would allow it to produce technology products across categories for both the original equipment and replacement markets.

The Tamil Nadu unit will be used exclusively for the manufacture of high quality truck, bus and light truck radial tyres, along with high and ultra-high performance passenger car radial tyres for the domestic and export markets, the release said.
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FinMin may impose Rs250-cr entry fee for 3G spectrum
New Delhi: The Finance Ministgry is considering imposing an entry fee of Rs250 crore per metro circle for allotting 3G spectrum, while for category B circles it could be around Rs150 crore.

3G spectrums support faster and larger quantities of data, which enables additional service offerings in the form of games, music and video using voice, video and data (together known as 'triple play') and helps to bring about broadband on mobiles.

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is also in-principle agreeable to the Finance Ministry's suggestion on pricing of 3G spectrum, but according to sources it may not agree with this quantum of pricing as it feels it to be too high.

DoT is said to be looking at a cumulative Rs200 crore entry fee for the entire country while telecom regulator TRAI is set to come out with recommendations on 3G spectrum pricing and allocation next month.
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Tata Tele hangs up on 32,000 subscribers
Mumbai: Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Ltd has disconnected 32,000 customers from April 23 to now, saying it received dissatisfactory verification details.

The numbers disconnected are more than 26 per cent of the numbers added. The disconnections pertain to not just new applicants during the period, but also older pre-paid users who had subscribed from 2004 onwards, said a spokesperson for the company. The company has employed four private agencies and in addition the Government-run India Post to verify the authenticity of its customers.
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TCS develops gene based malarial cure
Mumbai: India's leading software services firm, Tata Consultancy Services, has developed a novel gene-based therapy for the treatment of malaria.

The scientific team at the Advanced Technology Centre (ATC) of TCS Health in Hyderabad has undertaken this initiative as part of the New Millennium Indian Technology Leadership Initiative of the Council of Indian Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).

The new research involves an improved annotation of the genomic structure of P.Falciparum- a parasite that is the principal cause of Malaria.

M Vidyasagar, executive vice-president and head of the Advance Technology Centre, said the TCS approach in this first gene-based technology for malaria treatment involves identification of genes and their possible functions based on combination of machine learning algortihms to predict the locations of genes and experimental verification of the predictions.

The verification part will be undertaken by TCS' academic partners in this project. The technology is expected to be ready for further development to the therapeutical usage soon.

TCS in consensus with CSIR would transfer the technology to prospective partners like a pharmaceutical or biopharmaceutical company.
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Toyota Kirloskar comes under control of Toyota Motor Asia Pacific
Bangalore: The complete manufacturing operations of Toyota Kirloskar in India have come under the direct control of Toyota Motor Asia Pacific Company based out of Thailand.

Toyota Motor Asia Pacific Company will also support Toyota production operations in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan. The new company, which is a fully owned subsidiary of Toyota Motor Corporation in Japan, has been floated to strengthen the car maker's production and supply network through improvements in efficiency and speed of individual production companies.

Toyota Kirloskar is also expected to increase its capacity by another 10,000 units next year as a part of its capacity expansion programme for production of its existing models. This may not involve further investments except for setting up of an additional paint shop.

The existing capacity of the plant is 60,000, which will go up to 70,000 next year.

Toyota expects to sell around 2 lakh cars in India by 2010. The number of dealerships will also increase to 200 from 57 this year.

Between January and July, 2006, Toyota sold over 22,700 units of Innova, 4,480 units of Corolla, 1,515 units of the newly launched sixth generation Camry and around 75 units of Prado.
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Indian Oil raises loans worth $370 million
New Delhi: The cash strapped Indian Oil Corporation has signed loan agreements for raising foreign currency loan of $370 million that will used to meet the company's oil import requirements, a statement from the company said.

The loan facility, comprising $200 million from BNP Paribas, Singapore, and $170 million from Bank of America, Taiwan, at highly competitive rates, was signed on Friday. The maturity of the loan from BNP Paribas is one year, while the loan from Bank of America is revolving in nature within the availability period of one year. The revolving facility would enable Indian Oil to manage its cash flows more efficiently, the company added.

The company plans to import about 40 million tonnes of crude oil during 2006-07.
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