Tata acquires Corus with 608 pence bid
Mumbai: Tata Steel has announced the acquisition of Corus for $12 billion, outbidding Brazilian rival CSN. Tata Steel, which is one fourth the size of Corus, will now become the world's fifth largest steel firm from its existing ranking of 56. The combined entity will have 23.5 million tonnes of production and $24.4 billion of revenue with two-third of sales in Europe.

The Tata Group will fund the acquisition through a combination of debt and equity of nearly 2:1, that is debt of nearly $8 billion, and equity infusion of nearly $4.1 billion by the Tata Group.

CSFB, which is the banker of Corus, will now fund 45 pc of the debt component of the deal. The remaining 55 per cent will be equally organised by Deutsche Bank and ABN Amro.

Standard Chartered Bank, which had agreed to provide $375.24 million subordinated debt financing for the acquisition, has agreed to step up funding by another $1 billion.
Back to News Review index page  

Tata Steel put on rating watch
Mumbai: Rating agency Standard & Poor's has maintained its `BBB' long-term corporate credit ratings on Tata Steel on CreditWatch with negative implications. This is following the UK S&P has also retained its `BBB' foreign currency rating on Tata Steel's senior unsecured bank loans of $750 million and $500 million on CreditWatch with negative implications.

S&P said the size of the acquisition and the potential cash outflow in Tata Steel's offer for Corus could have an adverse impact on its financial risk profile. It said that in addition, the company could face challenges related to the integration and improvement of Corus' comparatively weaker business profile.
Back to News Review index page  

Govt 'ready to help'
New Delhi: Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram, expressing his delight at the acquisition of Anglo Dutch steel giant by the Tata group said the Government would be ready to "help" the Tata Group in completing the acquisition transaction for Anglo-Dutch steel-maker Corus.

He clarified this to only mean "general help" in the nature of facilitating "clearances or approvals or permissions" within the country. He termed Tata Steel's success in the bid for Corus as another example of the newfound confidence of Indian industry to go further than what one would have expected a few years ago.
Back to News Review index page  

Sony Ericsson to set up manufacturing facility in TN
Chennai: Sony Ericsson plans to manufacture mobile phones at Sriperumbudur, near Chennai, through its global outsourcing manufacturing partners, Flextronics and Foxconn and would launch its first "Made in India" Sony Ericsson phone in June this year.
Flextronics has a facility at Sriperumbudur and the construction of Foxconn's is progressing.

The annual production capacity for the company in India is expected to reach 10 million units by 2009. Sony Ericsson would provide the designs and Flextronics and Foxconn would manufacture the handsets.

In India, Sony Ericsson would focus only on GSM phones. Other than Japan, the company does not contemplate entry into CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) markets.

Initially, the focus would be to manufacture basic colour phones and mid-level music-enabled phones for the domestic market. In addition to competitive pricing, the phones manufactured at Sriperumbudur would offer features such as local content and customised keypads, he said.
Back to News Review index page  

Nagarjuna Construction net up 53 pc at Rs44.90 crore
Hyderabad: Construction major Nagarjuna Construction Company (NCCL), has earned a net profit of Rs44.90 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, 2006, registering a 53 per cent growth over Rs29.38 crore achieved during the same quarter of the previous fiscal. The turnover of the company stood at Rs700 crore (Rs475.5 crore), representing a growth of 47 per cent. The company's board which took on record the unaudited financial results also accorded in-principle approval for increasing the investment limits by FIIs in the equity shares of the company to 74 per cent from the existing 49 per cent subject to approvals from the shareholders.

The board also gave its in-principle nod to the company to raise Rs810 crore through issue of equity shares to Qualified Institutional Buyers/GDRs/FCCBs/other permitted securities in accordance with the SEBI guidelines.

The order book as on January 31, 2007, stood at Rs7,025 crore. For the 9-month-period NCCL recorded a turnover of Rs2,005 crore (Rs1,201 crore) and a net profit of Rs123 crore (Rs69 crore), a company release said.
Back to News Review index page  

Kinetic to launch three products this fiscal
Mumbai: The Pune-based Kinetic Motor Co (KMCL) plans to launch three products this year and the first one would hit the market by early April this year.

The first one to be rolled out will be the Euro brand of scooterrete, designed and developed by Italy-based Italjet. Euro is one of the seven models that the Kinetic group had bought from Italjet in 2004.

Powered by a 125-135 cc engine the Euro will be priced higher than Honda Activa, Bajaj Wave and Hero Honda Pleasure, but would be cheaper than the company's premium brand, the Blaze.

The company's next offering will be a four-stroke scooterrete developed by SYM, which holds 11.1 per cent stakes in KMCL. The bike will have an engine of less than or upto 100 cc capacity. The trial production of the bike is likely to begin in April this year followed by its launch in May.

The last of the launches this year will be the Dragster brand of moto-scooter, co-owned by Italjet and KMCL. This is the only brand that is not completely bought out by the two-wheeler manufacturer, and may be launched by end-2007.
Back to News Review index page  

PC sales at 3 mn units in H1, FY07
New Delhi: Sales of computers, desktops and notebooks combined, touched 2.96 million units in the country in the first half of fiscal 2007, a growth of 19 pc over the same period the previous year.

The trend is likely to continue in the second half of the year, pushing PC sales for the full year 2006-07 to 6.5 million units, a 30 pc jump over the five million units sold in 2005-06. The forecast includes sales of 5.6 million units of desktops, and 0.9 million units of notebook sales. This will take India's total installed base for computers to 20 million.

According to industry performance review released by hardware association MAIT, of the overall sales during H1, desktop sales stood at 2.53 million units, an increase of 8 pc over 2.3 million units sold in the year-ago period while notebooks market sales stood at 4.29 lakh units, a growth of 180 pc over the same period last year.

Amongst microprocessors, Pentium IV was a clear favourite in desktops commanding a marketshare of 82 pc even as others like AMD and Cyrix had to contend with a 13 pc marketshare. The period also saw the assembled PC brands making a comeback-of-sorts, at the cost of the Indian brands.
Back to News Review index page  

ITC net up 24 pc
Kolkata: Cigarettes major ITC's net turnover for the quarter ended December 31, 2006 stood at Rs3165.57crore, a growth of 24 per cent over the last fiscal.

The net profit of the company's non cigarette division which currently comprises 52 per cent of ITC's turnover was higher by 23.2 per cent to Rs717.4 crore.

The non-cigarette business grew by 31 per cent during the quarter with higher growth in the FMCG, hotel and agri segments. The packaged foods division posted a growth of 65 per cent during the quarter over the last fiscal. The lifestyle retailing business also grew by 38 per cent.

The hotels business also recorded a growth of 28 per cent to Rs282 crore with revenue per available room growing by 37 per cent. The agri-business grew by 20 per cent on the back of tobacco leaf exports and increased trade in soya, non-basmati rice, chana and coffee.
Back to News Review index page  

Hero Honda net down
New Delhi: Motorbikes major Hero Honda has posted a 20 per cent dip in its net profit on the back of increasing competition and rising input costs. The company's net profit after tax stood at Rs209.18 crore for the quarter ended December 31 compared to Rs261.78 crore in the year-ago period. The total turnover (net of excise) rose by approximately 15 per cent to Rs2,699.63 crore in the third quarter of the current fiscal against Rs2,350.81 crore recorded in the corresponding period of 2005.

Total income (net of excise) rose 29.5 per cent to Rs2,729.18 crore against Rs2,107.32 crore last year.
Back to News Review index page  

Ashok Leyland posts two fold rise in profit
Chennai: Ashok Leyland has registered an almost two-fold increase in net profit at Rs105.25 crore for the quarter ended December 31 against Rs54.50 crore last year.

Total income (net of excise) of the company increased 48.21 per cent to Rs1783.94 crore from Rs1203.64 crore for the corresponding quarter a year ago.
Back to News Review index page  

Reliance Communications net triples
Reliance Communications has announced a net profit of Rs924 crore (US$ 209 million), up 198 pc compared to the net profit of Rs310 crore (US$ 70 million) announced in the corresponding quarter last year.

EBITDA stood at Rs1,527 crore (US$ 346 million), a growth of 76 pc over the corresponding quarter last year. Growth of revenue stood at 26 pc at Rs3,755 crore (US$ 851 million) from Rs2,991 crore (US$ 678 million) in last year's corresponding quarter.

The company said its performance had lifted it into the select group of companies with annualised EBITDA of well over Rs5,000 crore (US$1.1 billion), EBITDA margins above 40 pc, shareholders equity of over Rs20,000 crore (US$4.5 billion), and a Stockmarket Value of nearly Rs94,000 crore (over US$21 billion).
Back to News Review index page