TCS obtains $100mn deal from Kimberly-Clark
Mumbai: India's biggest software consulting company Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has bagged a $100 million (nearly Rs450 crore) deal from US healthcare company Kimberly-Clark.

Dallas, Texas, headquartered Kimberley Clark, is one of the world's leading health and hygiene companies.
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TV18 Group buys Crisil MarketWire
New Delhi: Television Eighteen India has acquired all assets and staff of financial news agency Crisil MarketWire (CMW) from Crisil. The acquisition will be effective from January 1, 2007 and follows the earlier decision of Crisil and TVI8 to jointly develop a framework for business collaboration, the two companies said in a joint statement.

CMW would be rechristened NewsWire18 Pvt Ltd and will be a group company of the TV 18 Group. The TV 18 Group is committed to grow in the news and the information terminal business, it said.

The TV18 group will take over all the assets and liabilities and staff of CMW from the effective date. Pankaj Aher, currently chief executive officer of CMW, would continue to be the CEO of the new entity.

The new venture will carry with it all the staff of CMW across all locations and functions.
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Carrier India hikes AC prices
New Delhi: Carrier India which provides air conditioning, heating and refrigerating solutions, has announced a 4-5 per cent price increase across its residential and light commercial air conditioning products, with effect from Tuesday.

The company cited rising prices of inputs like copper to its decision.
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Indo Tech bags new orders
Mumbai: Indo Tech Transformers has bagged orderssd worth Rs12 crore from the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB) and corporate customers. The company received Rs7.6 crore order for supply of distribution transformers from the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB) and power-distribution transformers worth Rs4.4 crore from corporate customers during last week, Indo Tech informed the BSE. Earlier in October, the company procured Rs95 crore order for power transformers from the TNEB.

In addition to the TNEB order, the company procured Rs2.2 crore order from industrial clients and export orders worth Rs1.2 crore.

After successful trial runs, the company would be commencing commercial production at its new distribution transformer plant from November 20, onwards.
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Zydus Cadila files new drug application obesity drug
Mumbai: Cadila Healthcare has filed an Investigational New Drug (IND) application for the New Molecular Entity (NME)- ZYO1, a novel drug candidate for treating obesity and related disorders with the DCGI.

ZYO1 is a novel experimental drug working through CB-1 mechanism, which will help obese patients lose weight, and also help in controlling blood sugar levels in type2 diabetes. The drug could also have a role in protecting the heart. The company plans to initiate Phase I clinical trials to ensure the safety and tolerability of ZYO1. Once the safety of the drug is established the company plans to develop it to treat various cardiometabolic risk factors in patients with obesity and prove its beneficial effects in improving HbA1c, HDL-cholesterol, triglycerides, systolic blood pressure and reducing waist circumference.
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Grasim signs agreement to set up cement project in Orissa
Mumbai: Grasim Industries has concluded an MoU to set up a 3.50 million tpa integrated cement plant in the Sundergarh District in Orissa. The plant will involve an investment Rs1,200 crore and will include a 50 MW captive thermal power plant with a split, grinding unit. This is expected to be the largest cement project in Orissa and is likely to be commissioned in 3 years.

The State government has agreed to assist in acquisition of the necessary limestone mines and land for the plant as well as for a rail link, apart from adequate sources of fly ash, slag and coal.
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HCL Tech signs JV with Canada's Celestica
New Delhi: HCL Technologies has formed a joint venture with Canada-based electronics manufacturing company, Celestica Inc, to provide complete concept-to-manufacturing (C2M) solutions for customers.

This joint venture will provide a fully integrated product lifecycle solution to Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) customers, including product concept, design, engineering and manufacturing among others.

HCL will set up a design services centre in Chennai to address the electronics market space. The centre will employ about 200 people in the next 6 months.

The company expects incremental revenue of $100 million over the next five years from the joint venture.
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Garware Offshore submits bid with ONGC for building vessel
Mumbai: Garware Offshore Services has submitted a bid with Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), for constructing 28 newly built Offshore Vessels on behalf of a leading Norwegian Shipyard, namely Havyard Leirvikas.
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Tata Sons readies for Corus, sells TCS stake
Mumbai: The Tata group has raised Rs900 crore by selling less a 0.86 pc stake in its software company, Tata Consultancy Service (TCS), in the open market.

Tata Sons sold 8.5 million shares of TCS at Rs1059 apiece.

HSBC Global Investment picked up 7.095 million shares, representing 0.72 pc stake, for Rs751 crore. It is not known as to who acquired the remaining shares.

As on September 30, Tata Sons held 79.5 per centstake in TCS. The combined holding of the group, including shareholding of 13 other firms, in TCS stood at 83.64 pc.

The stake dilution is said to be for funding the aquisition of the Anglo-Dutch steel company Corus Group by Tata Steel.

The company is likely to further dilute its holding in TCS in future.
The cumulative turnover in TCS shares at the BSE and NSE rise to more than Rs1,000 crore with 1.03 crore equity shares changing hands at the bourses. TCS recorded a turnover of Rs165 crore with as much as 15 lakh shares on National Stock Exchange. Shares of the company today surged nearly 3 pc to Rs1,106.25 per share at the BSE.
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Carraro gung-ho on India; plans Rs85-cr capex
Pune: Carraro Group which manufactures tractors and automobile transmission equipment plans to expand its production capacity in India.

The euro 668 million (Rs3,874 crore) Carraro will also use India as a base for its high design development projects.

The company plans to invest euro 15 million (about Rs85 crore) to expand its transmissions manufacturing capacity from 20,000 now to 35,000 in the next couple of years. Some of the products planned to be manufactured at the expanded facility are being relocated to India from other locations in the world.

the company said it will continue to invest strongly in India, because of the high quality of production and would make India the hub to service the company's markets in the Asia Pacific region.

Carraro India was started in 1999 as a joint venture between Carraro and Escorts of Rajan Nanda Group. The company manufactures axles and drivelines for tractor and farm equipment and transmissions for industrial applications. The Carraro Group has since taken over the Nanda's stake in the company and runs the operation as its Indian arm. The group has also set up Turbo Gears India, which manufactures gears for diverse applications.
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RNIL to raise its steel making capacity to 16 mt
Kolkata: Rashtriya Ispat Nigam (RINL), which operates the Vizag steel plant is planning to raise its total steel making capacity to 16 million tonnes (mt) with a total investment of Rs25,000 crore over the next 14 years.. The plant makes 3.2 mt of saleable steel at present will scale up its capacity in stages.

RINL is responding to the significant developments in the steel sector. State-owned SAIL is raising capacity to 22 million tonnes by 2012, Tata Steel's recent acquisition of Corus Group is set to propel into third position in world steel production rankings.

The company is also initiating steps to acquire stakes in coking coal mines in Australia and the US. The company has shortlisted 8 to 10 mines will undertake necessary due diligence before firming up plans. Last week, RINL initiated a dialogue with authorities in Oman for picking up a stake in limestone mines in that country.
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BSNL slashes local, STD call charges from its PCOs
New Delhi: State-owned BSNL has cut call charges from its Public Call Office booths under which local and intra-circle calls to any network will be Re1 per minute for a 60-second pulse, while STD calls will be cheaper by 50 paise.

As per the new tariffs, the calls from these PCOs to any network and to anywhere within the state (LSA) will be charged uniformly at Re1 a per minute with 60 second pulse. The inter circle/STD calls from GSM PCOs have also been reduced to Rs2.50 from the existing Rs3.00 per minute with 60 second pulse. The minimum guarantee for Local PCOs, including CCB PCOs has also been reduced from existing Rs500 to Rs300/- per month in urban areas.

In addition, BSNL has also liberalised the policy for allotment of Local and STD/ISD PCOs that PCO may be allotted to any person who are running private operator's PCOs.

The tariff for GSM PCOs will be applicable from tomorrow and the tariff for Local PCOs/VPT/CCB PCOs has been made applicable earlier.
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ONGC Videsh finds oil in Iran Block
Mumbai: ONGC Videsh., the overseas arm of India's state-run flagship explorer Oil and Natural Gas Corp.. (ONGC), has found oil in Iran's Farsi exploration block. The company said it was still testing the discovery. The Farsi block is spread across 6,700 km (4,163 miles) in the Persian Gulf and sits in water depths of up to 90 metres.

Shares in the firm were up 1.14 percent at 881 rupees in a firm Mumbai market.

ONGC Videsh, which is the block operator, owns 40 percent of the asset. India's top state-run refiner Indian Oil Corp. Ltd. also has 40 percent, and Oil India Ltd. the rest.

ONGC Videsh produced about 6.62 million tonnes of oil and oil equivalent gas in 2005-06 from assets in Sudan, Vietnam and Russia. The company owns oil and gas assets in 15 countries.
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Ford to set up diesel engine plant in India
Mumbai: Ford Motor Co is planning to set up a diesel engine plant in India.

The plant would have a capacity to make about 100,000 units of the 1.4-litre Duratorq engine each year, the source said.
Ford, which makes 60,000 vehicles a year in Chennai, now buys petrol engines from a unit of Hindustan Motors Ltd and imports diesel engines.

The company's managing director Arvind Mathew said the decision was dependent on having the appropriate levels of volume and technology available in India.

Ford's Endeavour sport utility is a diesel model and 70 per cent of sales of its Fiesta model have diesel engines. The Fiesta is powered by the 1.4-litre Duratorq diesel engine.

Ford could also launch a diesel variant of the Fusion.

Diesel's share of the Indian passenger vehicle market is forecast to rise to 35 per cent by 2010 from 30 per cent now, according to estimates by JD Power.
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United Phosphorus to acquire Europe co
Mumbai: Chemicals and pesticides maker United Phosphorus acquisition spree continues. The company now plans to buy a crop protection products maker in western Europe for 'slightly higher' than 100 million euros, a top company official said on Tuesday.

Yes Bank is the advisor to the deal.

United Phosphorus recently acquired South Africa's Cropserve (Pty) Ltd. and the worldwide Bensulfuron-methyl business of DuPont Co.
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