Reliance restarts VGO Hydrotreater II unit
Jamnagar: Reliance restarted its VGO Hydrotreater II Unit of its Jamnagar refinery on Friday, December1, 2006.

The VGO Hydrotreater II Unit was shut down after the fire that occurred on 25th of October 2006 and the damaged portion of this unit was refurbished within a record time of 35 days.

The refinery has sustained normal production through out the entire period of the shutdown.
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Opto Circuits acquires European firm for Rs72-cr
Mumbai: Opto Circuits India, which designs and manufactures a wide range of balloon catheter assemblies and related products for coronary, renal and other applications, will acquire a European firm for Rs72 crore.

"The company has signed a letter of intent to acquire a medical equipment company in Europe. The company reported a turnover of about Rs87 crore on a stand-alone basis and a net profit of Rs29 crore for the first half of the current fiscal. Analysts expect the company to report a net profit of more than Rs65 crore for the year ending March 31, 2007.
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Honda Motor to target existing customers for its new CR-V
Pune: Honda Siel Cars India (HSCI) will target existing customers with its newly launched CR-V.

According to company officials this is the third generation of CR-V being launched across India.

The company will target its existing customers with the new product and also pitch for business from 'the young audience with an average age of 35-40 years, as the new CR-V is meant for the educated, tech-savvy, well-travelled and adventurous.

The company said the car has a much flexible tilt and telescopic steering, driver-side 8-way power seat adjustment, dual climate control air-conditioner and latest music system. The new CR-V is available for Rs21.16 lakh (manual transmission) and Rs22 lakh (automatic transmission) in Pune.

The company expects to sell about 1200 units of the CR-V per year.
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Ganesh Housing signs MoU with Guj for IT SEZ
Mumbai: Ganesh Housing Corporation has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Gujarat government to develop an IT & ITES SEZ to be located at Nirma University, Ahmedabad, Gujarat.

The "Million Minds" SEZ being set up under the the aegis of Vibrant Gujarat — IT Summit 2006 will be spread over 125 acres and involve investment of about Rs700 crore.
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Porsche opens first showroom-cum-service centre in India
New Delhi: German sports car maker Porsche plans to expand its sales network in India and launch its four-door coupe Panamera in 2009 priced at around Rs1 crore.

Porsche sold around 200 units (all above Rs50 lakh) in the last two years through the import route, hopes to achieve similar sales figure in 2007 as it will expand its network to other cities. Porsche has opened its first showroom-cum-service centre in India and said it will expand these to Mumbai and the southern region.

Porsche currently imports vehicles its range from the 'Boxster', 'Cayman', 'Cayenne' and 'Carrera' and their different variants.
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Marico raises Rs15-cr for acquisitions
Mumbai: Marico Ltd has raised Rs15 crore through a private placement of 29 lakh fresh equity shares at Rs522 per share. The placement has been done through QIP route to fund fresh acquisition opportunities.

Marico is the first FMCG company to raise equity through the QIP route recently enabled by the SEBI. The issue, which opened on November 30 and closed on December 1, saw a significant over subscription of about 3.4 times-against the issue size of Rs15 crore.

Citigroup Global Markets and Kotak Investment Banking acted as the joint global coordinators and joint book runners for this QIP.
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Havells India ties up with European motor company
Mumbai: Havells India has entered into a collaboration agreement with a leading European motor manufacturing company for its new project of electric motors at Nimrana, Rajsathan.
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Pratibha Ind gets contract from MMRDA
Mumbai: Pratibha Industries has secured a contract from Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) for widening and construction of Andheri-Kurla Link Road (Saki Naka to LBS Road and Jari Mari Road) . The value of the contract is Rs24 crore.
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Sterlite commissions BALCO's Korba Aluminium smelter plant
Mumbai: Sterlite Industries India has fully commissioned of its new 2,45,000 tpa aluminium smelter consisting of 288 pots has been completed successfully.

A full capacity of 245,000 tpa is expected to be reached by the end of this financial year and the company said all four units of the 540 MW power plant are operating well.

The expansion takes the total aluminium capacity of BALCO at 3,45,000 tpa with full energy-integration.

The de-bottlenecking of the Tuticorin copper smelter to expand its capacity to 4,00,000 tpa, is also complete and the smelter is now fully operational. This increase in capacity by 100,000 tpa has been achieved ahead of schedule.

The smelting and refining costs at Tuticorin are one of the lowest worldwide and were at a level of US cents 5.2 per pound for the six months ended on September 30, 2006. The above expansion will further help in reducing the costs of production.
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JSW Steel cuts hot-rolled coil prices
Mumbai: JSW Steel has reduced the prices of its hot-rolled coil by Rs500 per tonne with effect from December 1, to align with international prices.
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Two Indian firms named among technology pioneers
New York: Strand Life Sciences and Drishtee are among 47 'visionary' firms worldwide selected by the World Economic Forum (WEF) as 'Technology Pioneers 2007' for their life-changing innovations that have the potential for long-term impact on business and society.

Strand Life Sciences develops algorithms and solutions in the area of bio-informatics and helps in accelerating the drug discovery process by developing a suite of products for genomics, proteomics and silico-biology. The products called Oyster include micro arrays, sequence analysis, and structure analysis products.

Drishtee is a rural network for delivering services and related information to the village community through an ICT (information and communication technologies) centre or information kiosk. The Kiosks are run by entrepreneurs selected from the villages and have been designed to follow a service-delivery based revenue model.
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Indian real estate attracts Israeli companies
Jeruselam: Two companies from Israel have joined hands to invest $100 million in the booming real estate sector of India.

These are Israel's Property and Building Corp, a subsidiary of the country's largest holding company IDB Development Corp, and Electra Ltd have agreed on a joint venture in which both of them will hold 45 per cent stake. The joint venture also includes an Indian partner, which will hold a ten per cent stake.

The companies are examining investments in southeast India, including a 42.9-acre site and a 9.9 acre site for construction of 1,200 housing units.
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GHCL acquires hospitality textile division of Best
New Delhi: GHCL is acquiring the $80-million hospitality textile division of New Jersey-based Best Manufacturing Group through its US subsidiary Dan River.

This would be the fourth merger & acquisition deal closed by the Sanjay Dalmia group over the last one year. The hospitality division of Best Manufacturing primarily constitutes of HW Baker Linen which was acquired by the company in 2002.

Founded more than a century back, Baker was one of pioneers in the field of textile for hospitality sector. The division provides each sector of the hospitality industry with bed, bath and dining linens as well as front and back-of-the-house apparel.

As a part of the transaction Dan River would acquire the assets of Best Manufacturing division, which includes the manufacturing unit of the company located at New Jersey. The size of the deal is learnt to be modest. It would be financed through debt raised by Dan River in the US.

Last year in a master branding exercise Best Manufacturing had decided to put Best as the master brand for the hospitality division after the integration of the two acquired units of HW Baker and Artex with the parent. It is learnt that Dan River has also got the right to use the Best brand for the acquired business.
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Rajesh Exports forms JV with US-based Fossil Inc
Mumbai: Rajesh Exports has entered into a 50:50 joint venture (JV) with US-based lifestyle consumer products firm Fossil Inc.

The JV firm would be named Fossil India Inc, would be engaged in manufacturing, distribution and retailing of jewellery, watches and lifestyle products. It will also outsource all its domestic jewellery retailing requirement and Fossil's international requirement from Rajesh Exports.

According to Rajesh Exports the JV will have a significant impact on the profitability of Rajesh Exports due to the high margin nature of the products. The Indian company will have access to the global marketing strengths of Fossil Inc and would benefit tremendously from Fossil's experience of building global brands. Apart from establishing the retail network of the JV, Fossil would exclusively supply some of its globally known brands to Rajesh Exports' retail stores, the release said.
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ONGC may enter fuel retailing
Mangalore: ONGC along with its subsidiary Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals (MRPL), has acquired land in 30 locations to set up retail outlets.

ONGC chairman & managing director RS Sharma said: "We have decided to open 30 retail outlets by 2007-08."

Most of the retail outlets will be under the MRPL's brand, while some of them will be owned by ONGC. Outlets are located in southern states mainly in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, MRPL managing director R Rajamani added.

Sharma said that a presence in retail business would help them in creating "brands" for the companies. While "OvaL" is the brand name for ONGC's retail outlets, MRPL intends to sell fuel under "HiQ" brand. So far, ONGC has only one retail outlet in the country, located in Mangalore.

The company is also considering plans to start ATF marketing to air-lines and setting up auto LPG stations.
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Sinosteel eyes mine asset listing, India project
Beijing: Sinosteel Corp of China is planning to list its mining assets overseas and hopes to raise US$500 million from the listing. Over the next 3-5 years, Sinosteel intends to reorganise into five business units and list them all. The company hopes to list the assets -- including those in South Africa, Australia and China -- in the second half of 2007, in Hong Kong.

Sinosteel is also in talks to set up a at least a $200 million integrated iron ore and steel project in India.

Sinosteel is in talks with UBS, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and China International Capital Corp. (CICC) as potential underwriters.

Sinosteel and its partners could spend at least $200 million on an integrated iron ore and steel project in India. Also along with its potential consortium members such as Chinese steel giant Baosteel Group, Sinosteel is in talks to build a greenfield steel plant with capacity for 3-5 million tonnes a year of long products including construction steel. The company feels Indian needs steel for infrastructure, ports, roads, railways, etc and is 10-15 years behind China.

The Chinese consortium is looking at several locations for the project, including Orissa state.
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