L&T gets orders worth $86 million from China
Mumbai: Larsen & Toubro has received two contracts, valued at $86 million, from the Chinese petrochemical company Sinopec. L&T has been contracted to design, manufacture and supply three ethylene oxide reactors, each weighing above 1,000 tonnes. The reactors will form part of the methyl ethyl glycol (MEG) unit in a petrochemical plant.

In the last two years L&T has supplied equipment valued over $300 million to China including the world's largest coal gasifier and advanced acronitrile reactors.

L&T has also recently set up a factory for the manufacture of switchgear in Wuxi, Jiangsu and valves in Yangcheng, Jiangsu.

L&T has been approved by the Chinese Heavy Industry Ministry with SQL certification for supply of critical equipment.
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Due diligence completed for Qatar stake in Petronet
New Delhi: The consultants appointed by Qatar Investment Agency (QIA) have completed the due diligence exercise for Qatar to buy a stake in Petronet LNG.

Petronet LNG now expects a response from Qatar shortly. India had made an offer of an equity stake to Qatar during a meeting between the Qatar Finance Minister, Yusuf Hussain Kamal, and the Union Petroleum Minister, Murli Deora, in October.

This was even as India was seeking an additional LNG supply from Qatar. The possibility of such deals coming through sent the PLL stock surging by 20 per cent on October 5 closing at Rs57.90. PLL stock on Thursday closed at Rs49.80 on BSE.

Qatar was offered an opportunity to subscribe for Petronet's $100-million foreign currency convertible bonds (FCCB), which upon conversion into equity shares would translate into 7.5-12.5 per cent equity stake.
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Tata Motors, Fiat plan investment in new facility
Mumbai: Tata Motors and Fiat Auto plan to jointly invest upto Rs4,000 crore in a 50-50 joint venture to make cars and engines at Ranjangaon near Pune. The new manufacturing facility would be set up at Fiat's existing plant and will have an annual capacity to produce 1 lakh cars and 1 lakh engines and gearboxes.

Both partners would invest equal amounts in the new venture over a period of three years and the new plant will start making cars and engines by 2008. As yet unnamed the joint venture will employ about 3,000-4,000 skilled workers.

Both Fiat and Tata vehicles would be manufactured at the same facility, and Fiat Auto will introduce its premium cars for the B-plus and C-plus segments thus avoiding overlapping of segments with its partner, Tata Motors. The first batch of cars will be rolled out in early 2007.

The joint venture will manufacture the Fiat 1.3-litre multi-jet diesel engine, the 1.4-litre and a new 1.2-litre petrol engine, both part of the `Fire family and Fiat transmissions'.
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Ranbaxy gets US FDA nod to make, market Cefprozil
New Delhi: Ranbaxy Laboratories has received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) to manufacture and market Cefprozil tablets in US. The drugs will come in 250 mg and 500 mg, and treat pharyngitis or tonsillitis, otitis media, acute sinusitis, bronchitis and uncomplicated skin infections. The total annual market sales for Cefprozil tablets are $76.6 million.

Jim Meehan, vice-president of sales and marketing of its wholly owned subsidiary Ranbaxy Pharmaceuticals Inc based in Jacksonville, Florida, said this represented yet another addition to their product portfolio of anti-infectives, that will be available as an affordable generic alternative to the brand equivalent.

The company claims that the US FDA has determined its formulations to be bioequivalent and have the same therapeutic effect as that of Cefzil, a registered trademark of Bristol Myers Squibb Company Pharmaceutical Research Institute.

The formulation is to be produced in their facility located in Dewas, in Madhya Pradesh. The company plans to bring the product to the US market in early 2007.
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Parsvnath plans 14 hotels
New Delhi: Real estate player Parsvnath Developers plans to construct 14 hotels across the country. The company will enter in to a tie-up with a hotel chain for the operation of the hotels.

The company thus plans to build 2,100 rooms in the 4-star and 5-star category with a total investment of Rs2,000 crore including the cost of the land.

The hotels will be located in Delhi, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Shirdi, Jodhpur, Ahmedabad and Kochi among other places. The first hotel made by the company will be operational by March 2009.
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Tata Steel to set up Rs450-crore smelting plant in Thailand
Mumbai: Tata Steel plans to invest Rs450 crore in its Thai subsidiary Millennium Steel to set up an iron ore smelting plant that will make its production line in the country fully integrated.

Tata Steel acquired a 40 -per cent majority stake in Millennium Steel, for Rs600 crore last year, and has renamed the latter Tata Steel (Thailand).

Construction of the smelting plant, with a capacity of 500,000 tonne per annum, is expected to begin in early 2007 and the plant will be ready for commissioning in 15 months.

The company will apply to Thailand's board of investment privileges for the smelter next month. Sources added the investment will be 'wholly financed by loans, raising the company's debt-equity ratio to 0.9:1 from the present 0.7:1'. An email query sent to the company spokesperson remained unanswered.

The smelter, which transforms iron ore into billet and pig iron used for upstream steel production, will reduce costs by 10 per cent.
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Tribunal asks Tata Power to refund Rs354-cr to REL
New Delhi: Tata Power (TPC) has been directed by the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity to refund Rs354 crore along with interest to Reliance Energy (REL). The latter had paid the amount earlier to Tata Power as standby charges for electricity supply in Maharashtra.

Judical Member Justice E Padmanabhan gave the judgment when the matter was referred to him after a bench comprising technical member A A Khan and tribunal chairperson Justice Anil Dev Singh had given a different ruling on the issue.

In October, Khan had said that TPC must refund Rs354 crore, but Justice Singh had calculated the amount to be paid as Rs133 crore after and said TPC and REL must share the payment of standby charges to be paid to Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB) in a ratio of 2:1.
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BSNL beats private players in broadband
Delhi: State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam plans to offer broadband services with speed of up to 2 megabits per second to all its existing subscribers who were till now getting a 256 kbps connection.

Subscribers will not be charged for migrating to the high-speed broadband access nor will they have to change their consumer premise equipment.

The Communication and IT Minister, Dayanidhi Maran, said, "The year 2007 will be known as the Year of Broadband in India.

BSNL has come out with an aggressive plan for providing five million broadband connections in 2007 itself and that too with minimum download speed of 1 Mbps. It is now for the private operators to match it or beat it."

Maran said fresh investment commitments of about $2 billion (about Rs9,000 crore) from telecom equipment providers was expected in the next one year for setting up manufacturing units in the country.

"The entry of Nokia into manufacturing followed by Flextronics, Motorola and a whole lot of others has laid the platform for positioning India as a global hub for telecom manufacturing," he added.
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Nimbus to sell 25-per cent stake for $125 million
Mumbai: Nimbus Communications has agreed to sell its 25-per cent stake to an international media giant for $125 million (Rs562 crore).

The amount values the company at Rs2,250 crore.
Both the companies will announce the deal, which will be the largest investment by a foreign company in an Indian media company, in early January.

The foreign company will pick up the stake through a preferential allotment. After the issue, Nimbus chairman and managing director Harish Thawani's stake will come down from 54 per cent to 40 per cent. The combined shareholding of 3i and Deutsche Bank in Nimbus will come down from 40 per cent to 30 per cent.
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TCS gets contract from SCI
Mumbai: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has received a contract spanning 22 months to implement end-to-end solutions for national flag carrier Shipping Corporation of India.

The deal size of the contract could not be ascertained.

This is a part of automisation programme launched by SCI to compete with private and international shipping companies. According to sources, TCS will implement software solutions which will enable SCI to connect ships plying anywhere to headquarters.
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Reliance Comm to raise $1-billion debt from overseas markets
Mumbai: Reliance Communications has raised a $1 billion, five-year, unsecured loan from international lenders.

Leading bankers including ABN Amro, Standard Chartered and Citibank are the facilitators of the loan.

The company will use the proceeds for expansion of networks and facilities, apart from general corporate purposes said sources close to the development.

The loan comes amid speculations that the company is looking at acquiring 67 per cent stake in the GSM operator Hutch-Essar.

Reliance Communications had also earlier announced that it would raise up to $1 billion by issuing securities in overseas markets.
The company has invested a total of Rs1,945.8 crore in various projects like wireless (Rs1,499 crore), global initiatives (Rs367 crore), broadband (Rs270 crore) and other initiatives (Rs528 crore) as on September 30, 2006.

Reliance is also planning strengthen its GSM presence by setting up a pan-India presence and had applied for Department of Telecommunications (DoT) for radio frequencies in the 1800 MHz band.
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