Honda Siel sells 5566 units in October
New Delhi: Honda Siel Cars India sold 5,566 vehicles in the month of October compared to 1,254 vehicles in the same month of last year.

HSCI's growth in October this year, as compared with the corresponding period last year, was 343.5 per cent because the Honda City was in the run-out phase last year, prior to the launch of the City ZX according to a release from the company.

The cumulative sales in the Jan-Oct period increased by 38.57 per cent at 47,412 units as against 34,214 units sold in the same period of last year, the release said.

In the month of October, HSCI sold 3,673 units of its Sedan 'Honda City', 1,726 units of its latest offering 'Civic', 165 units of the luxury sedan 'Accord' and two units of its SUV 'CRV'.

The company has sold 8,011 units of Honda Civic since its launch in July this year.
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Nokia in expansion mode in Bangalore
Bangalore: The world's leading mobile handset maker Nokia has expanded its research and development facility in Bangalore and has set up a 2.10 lakh sq ft development centre at the Prestige Tech Park here.

Nokia' s Bangalore R&D centre, is the largest Nokia site in India and focuses on development work for software platforms, chipsets and high-end Nokia mobile devices.

The centre would provide Indian developers the opportunity to work on telecommunications technologies, it said.

Nokia's R and D centre in Bangalore was established in 2001 with the acquisition of Amber Networks.
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GM India reports 12 pc rise in October sales
New Delhi: General Motors has reported a 12 per cent increase in sales for October at 3,153 units as against 2,829 units in the same month last year. The company sold 2,011 units of Chevrolet Tavera, 902 units of Chevrolet Aveo and 240 units of Chevrolet Optra in the month, the company said in a release. GM India's sales in the January-October period increased 16 per cent at 30,868 units as compared to 26,371 units in the same period a year ago, the release said.
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Eicher Motors acquires BMC's Dewas gear unit
New Delhi: The automotive component division of Eicher Motors (EML), Eicher Engineering Components (EEC), has acquired Dewas-based transmission gear unit of British Motors Car Company (BMC). According to the company the gear unit at Dewas in Madhya Pradesh would strengthen EECs manufacturing capability by adding to its other units at Gurgaon and Thane.

Eicher Motors had entered into a business purchase agreement with BMC on October 20 and formally completed the transaction today.

"Our engineering components business has a portfolio of products ranging from differential and transmission gears to gear boxes," Mr Lal added.
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Sunil Hitech bags Rs123.40-crore worth of orders
Mumbai: Sunil Hitech Engineers has bagged orders worth Rs123.40 crore from RINL, BHEL and JSW Energy for undertaking structural steel works and separate orders from Maharashtra and Haryana for setting up substations in the states. The company has secured a Rs17.70 crore project from RINL, Vizag for carrying out structural steel works and added that it had forayed into infrastructural development for steel plants with this contract.

Sunil Hitech has also received three projects worth Rs46.60 crore from BHEL. These projects include structural steel works for 250 MW expansion of Neyveli Lignite Thermal Project, 2x125 MW for Surat Lignite project and setting up, testing and commissionin g of CFBC Boiler 2x125 mw at Rajasthan.

The execution period for the contracts is two years, the company said. Sunil Hitech specialises in fabrication, setting up, testing and commissioning of thermal power plants.
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JSW Steel raises prices of galvanised steel
Mumbai: Private sector steel firm JSW Steel has increased its galvanized steel prices by Rs1,000 per tonne. The company informed the BSE that prices of galvanised steel were hiked while the price for HR Coils was kept unchanged.

According to the company the price of zinc has gone up by $800 - $900 in the international market in the last 30 to 35 days.
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Lakshmi Cotsyn to increase capacity
New Delhi: Textile firm Shri Lakshmi Cotsyn will invest Rs189 crore in setting up two new manufacturing facilities, and venturing into the ready-made garment segment.

Officials said the company would invest Rs125 crore for setting up a unit at Fatehpur in Uttar Pradesh to produce specialised industrial textile fabric, particularly for defence organizations.

The unit scheduled to be commissioned by the yearend, will have an annual capacity of four-five million metres.

The company is also investing Rs64 crore to set up an export oriented unit at Roorkee in Uttaranchal, in line with its plans to foray in the readymade garment segment. The unit would be commissioned by March 2007 and would produce garments such as denim jeans, trousers and shirts and have an annual capacity of six million pieces.

The company is eyeing exports to the tune of Rs200 crore in June 2006-07. The expansion undertaken by the company would increase its annual capacity from t he current level of 38 million metres to about 91 million metres.
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HLL received shareholders' nod for de-merger, amalgamation
Mumbai: The shareholders of Hindustan Lever (HLL) have given their approval to the scheme of arrangement between HLL, Shamnagar Estates, Jamnagar Properties, Hindustan Kwality Walls Foods for de-merger of shares.

The general body meeting of shareholders, held on October 30 as per the directives of Bombay high court, approved the transfer of shares from HLL to the three companies, namely Shamnagar Estates, Jamnagar Properties and Hindustan Kwality Walls Foods, the company informed the Bombay Stock Exchange.

The shareholders also approved the scheme of arrangement involving amalgamation of Modern Food Industries (India) Ltd and Modern Food and Nutrition Industries Ltd with HLL.
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Hero Honda bike sales for Oct grow at 17 pc
New Delhi: Hero Honda Motors has reported a 17 per cent rise in sales in October, including exports, at 3.53 lakh units as against 3.02 lakh units in the same month last year.

The company's total sales, including scooters, in the month stood at 3.63 lakh units, a growth of 20 per cent over the same month last year. Hero Honda had started scooter sales in November last year. Exports in the month stood at 7,073 units against 6,358 units in October 2005.

Sales including exports, in the seven months of this fiscal stood at 19,48,139 units, a growth of 12.1 per cent over the 17.3 lakh units sold in April- October 2005.
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Praj Ind in tie up with Belgian co to supply brewery mash filters
Mumbai: Praj Industries has formed an alliance with Belgium-based Meura to supply mash filters in India as well as the Asian subcontinent.

Meura range of filters can replace the traditional brew-house equipment which performs the task of extracting wort from the malt and can especially be applied to breweries planning capacities higher than 0.5 million HLPA. The company said the filters are ideal for revamping existing brewhouses, due to the tower space requirement.

The company said for breweries with lower capacities, it would continue to supply the high performance Lautertun or brewhouse which has been recently upgraded for delivering 10 brews per day.
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RIL to raise $2bn for oil & gas projects
Mumbai: Corporate giant Reliance Industries (RIL) plans to raise $2 billion for oil and gas exploration and production. The company's board of directors is scheduled to meet on November 9 for approving a proposal to raise funds by way of Foreign Currency Convertible Bonds, syndicated loan or fixed or floating bonds.
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Maruti sales up by 11 pc in Oct
New Delhi: India's largest carmaker Maruti Udyog (MUL) has reported an 11.10 per cent increase in domestic sales at 55,894 vehicles during October 2006 as compared to 50,308 vehicles in the year-ago period.

According to a press release from the company total sales during the month stood at 60,163 vehicles, including 4,269 units of exports. During October, the company sold 22,294 units of Alto, highest-ever monthly sales for any model and make in India. The previous record of highest sales is held by Maruti 800 (20,687 units in March 03), it added.

MUL's sales in the domestic A2 segment (Alto, Wagon-R, Zen, and Swift) rose by 23.5 per cent and in C segment (Omni, Versa) grew by 21.6 per cent during the month compared to sales in October 2005.

However, in the A1 segment (M800) the company's sales went down by 30.1 per cent and in the A3 segment (Baleno and Esteem) it dipped by 11.7 per cent during the month as compared to the year-ago period.

In the MUV segment (Gypsy, Vitara), sales went down by 42.6 per cent during the month compared to sales in October 2005.
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Amtek Auto enters into JV with Canadian firm
Mumbai: Auto components maker Amtek Auto has entered into a joint venture with Canada's Magna Powertrain for setting up a facility outside Delhi to manufacture 2-Piece Flex Plate Assemblies for automotive applications. Both the companies would hold a 50 per cent stake in the joint venture, which would initially export FlexPlate Assemblies to European markets, with production to follow for the Indian market. FlexPlate Assemblies are used in automobiles with automatic transmission systems.

The joint venture which is expected to commence operations in late 2007 expands the company's existing relationship as a supplier of ring gears to Magna Powertrains North American operations. Magna Powertrain, an operating unit of Magna International Inc, designs, develops, manufactures and supplies powertrain and drivetrain products (and related devices) such as transaxles, gearboxes, transfer cases and a wide variety of engine and transmiss ion components for the global automotive industry.
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Chiria, Rowghat indispensable for SAIL's expansion: Roongta
New Delhi: The Steel Authority of India has said that Chiria and Rowghat iron ore mines are indispensable for its capacity expansion .

According to Sushil Kumar Roongta, the chairman of SAIL the organization has set a target of producing 22 million tonnes of steel in next five years. We find that equation of cost has undergone a sea change. Considering the fact that raw material prices have shot through the roof, those who have iron ore are at an advantage.

He said Sail has a legitimate claim on Chiria mines after IISCO's merger with SAIL. Chiria and Gua had ten leases, earlier given to IISCO Steel Plant (ISP) and said Sail was in talks with Jharkhand government on the mines.

Sail has set a production target of 3 million tonnes for ISP by 2011. The SAIL chairman pointed out that out of the ten leases the company had only one valid lease. The Jharkhand government cancelled the lease but later the mining t ribunal asked the state to consider SAIL's appeal.
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'Acquisition of TKS-Teknosoft not to impact TCS' credit profile': Moody's
New Delhi: Moody's, the rating agency, has said that Tata Consultancy Services' acquisition of Swiss company TKS-Teknosoft would not affect the credit rating profile of TCS.

It said the acquisition cost of CHF 100.5 million (Swiss francs) is insignificant compared to the size of TCS. Moreover, the acquisition has been funded by TCS's cash reserves. So, there has not been any material impairment to the company's strong existing credit metrics said Ken Chan, assistant vice president and analyst at Moody's said.

The rating agency has retained the 'A3' issuer rating with 'stable' outlook and an indicative foreign currency debt rating of 'Baa1' with 'stable' outlook for the company.

TCS, India's largest software exporter, had yesterday announced acquiring 75 per cent equity stake in TKS-Teknosoft.

Chan noted with the acquisition TCS now has full control over its banking and financial products in the European market.
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Reliance ADAG bets big on new technology
Bangalore: Reliance ADA Group's media innovation company plans to launch a new technology - CHOIS - that could make Direct-to-Home (DTH) services obsolete. The new technology also has the potential to earn Rs 1,000 crore in revenue through royalty and fees in two years.

The company has been developing CHOIS (Converged Home & Office Integrated Services) technology, for the last ten years, and has been in the pilot stage with 5,000 users for the last four years, is ready for launch within a few days.

CHOIS is capable of delivering digital TV channels, personal video recorder, video-on-demand, Internet browsing, VoIP telephony and video serving facility. It is a complete end-to-end technology, which provides all the building blocks for constructing a fully dually- redundant, Ethernet everywhere, fibre-to-home network (called Netway), providing 100 Mb symmetric bandwidth to each home and office. The technology's human interface is a set-side-box, called CHOISpad, a Hexa-play device for delivery of services to end-users.
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SUN TV to become pay channel
Mumbai: Sun TV, the flagship channel of South India television broadcaster Sun TV Ltd, will become a pay channel from December 2. Cable operators would now have to pay Rs12 per month per subscriber to access the channel, the company said in a filing on the BSE.

Shares of the Chennai-based company were trading at Rs1,235 on the BSE, up 2.05 per cent.
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Spentex announces net loss of Rs 4.7 cr
New Delhi: Spentex Industries has reported net loss of Rs4.7 crore for the quarter ending September compared to a net profit of Rs3.36 crore in the corresponding period last year. Net sales on a standalone basis dropped 24.2 pc to Rs72.7 crore during the quarter.

The textile manufacturer which acquired Indo Rama Textiles, Amit Spinning and an Uzbekistan based textile company this year reported net profit of Rs2 crore on a consolidated basis on net sales of Rs187.81 crore during the quarter.
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Bosch announces Rs900-cr investment in India
Kolkata: Bosch, the German auto components giant, will invest Rs900 crore in its Indian subsidiaries over two years. The investment would largely be in Motor Industries Co (Mico), the Bosch flagship in India.

Albert Hieronimus Mico's managing director said: "As part of its India growth plan, the company decided to invest Rs1,800 crore between 2005-08. We have already invested Rs900 crore. The balance Rs900 crore will be invested over two years."

Mico, in which Bosch holds 60.55 percent stake has received investment of Rs550 crore to develop diesel technology and common-rail system at its four facilities-Bangalore, Nasik, Naganathapura and Jaipur. It will receive another Rs850 crore in the next two years to ramp up capacities at Jaipur and Nasik and for setting up new facilities.

Following this fresh investment, the company expects 30 pc growth in 2006. In the third quarter, the company registered net sales of Rs997.4 crore.

Bosch has three other subsidiaries in India -- Robert Bosch India (RBIL), Robert Bosch Chassis System (formerly Kalyani Brakes) and Box Rexroth.

RBIL, with is based out of Banaglore, is a software company that purely caters to Bosch.
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Apollo JV considers foray into health insurance biz
New Delhi: Apollo Group joint venture with Germany-based Deutsche Krankenversicherung AG (DKV) is planning to enter the health insurance business in India. The two companies had formed a joint venture company - Apollo DKV Insurance Company - with an equity capital of Rs100 crore in which the German company has a 26 per cent stake. The Apollo group companies would hold the remaining 74 per cent.

The company plans to initially offer in-patients and travel health insurance products. One company already provides standalone health insurance -Star Health Insurance.
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