Reliance Industries is India's most valued firm
Mumbai: Reliance Industries has displaced ONGC from the number one position in market capitalization in India. The former has a market cap of over Rs1,96,000 lakh crore as against ONGC's Rs1,93,653.29 crore.

Reliance has gained over 2 pc (Rs29.75) to close at Rs1,407 while ONGC gained marginally (Rs5) to end at Rs905 .40 on the BSE on Thursday.

Telecom major Bharti Airtel is the third most valued firm with a market cap of Rs1,50,000 crore followed by Infosys with Rs1.32 lakh crore and TCS at over Rs1.26 lakh crore.
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Ranbaxy`s US office raided by FDA
Mumbai: Ranbaxy Inc, the US subsidiary of India's largest pharmaceutical company Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd office in New Jersey, USA was raided by federal officials on February 14.

Confirming the development, Ranbaxy issued a statement later in the day saying that the search had come as a surprise as the company was not aware of any wrongdoing.

The company said it was co-operating with the investigation and its operations were running normally, the statement added.

The US is Ranbaxy's largest market, accounting for around 30 per cent of its global turnover.

This is not the first time that Ranbaxy's overseas operations have got into trouble. For instance the company's UK subsidiary was earlier accused of overcharging local health bodies for generic medicine.
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Artemis, Philips enter into pact for healthcare research
New Delhi: Artemis Health Sciences, promoted by Apollo Tyres chairman Onkar S Kanwar, has signed an agreement with global medical equipment major Philips Medical Systems for exclusive partnership in healthcare delivery and research.

According to the agreement, Philips will supply $7 million worth of state-of-the-art medical equipment to Artemis Health Institute at Gurgaon near New Delhi, and the latter would share real time scientific data generated out of the treatments with Philips.

The feedback would be utilised for modification of Philips' existing medical equipment and also help the company develop patient-centric products for the future.

The Rs200 crore hospital project will be functional from April 13, and will specialise in cardiovascular diseases, oncology and orthopaedics.

The hospital, which will begin functioning as a 260 bed facility, will increase its bed capacity to 500 within a year.
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Testing started on Rs1 lakh car: Tata
New Delhi: Tata Motors on Thursday said its Rs1 lakh was being tested and squashed any suspicions that the project was too ambitious to come true.

Tata said, "Tata Motors hopes to launch its Rs1 lakh car in 2008. It is undergoing tooling at present," Ratan Tata said.
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Tata mulls restarting Bangladesh investment talks
Tata Group is thinking of resuming talks with the current caretaker government of Bangladesh about its $3 billion investment plan in the country.

We are exploring the possibility of seeing if we can start off again from where we left last time and come to a good conclusion,'' the Group's Resident Director in Dhaka S Manzer Husain said, The group's investment proposals include setting up a 2.4 million tonne steel plant, a fertiliser plant, a 475 MW gas-fired power plant and development of Barapukuria coal mine through opencast methodology. The project has remained suspended since last July.
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Tata Steel UK subsidiary holds 21.90 pc stake in Corus
Mumbai: Tata Steel has told the BSE that Tata Steel UK, the wholly owned subsidiary of the company has acquired 71,36,094 of equity share capital of Corus Group Plc, UK at 601.75 pence per share on February 14, 2007. With the above purchase, Tata Steel UK holds 207,092,046 (21.9 pc) equity share capital of Corus Group Plc, UK.
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S Kumars to foray abroad
Mumbai: S Kumars Nationwide (SKNL) retail arm, Brandhouse Retail, will announce its overseas expansion plans within the next three to four months. The company is also aggressively ramping up its retail expansion within India. The company had earlier announced its plans to invest Rs400 crore in phases to open 1,200 outlets in the country over a period of four years. It is targeting countries in South-East Asia, Middle-East, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh as part of its overse as operations. The company says it is looking for a franchisee in Bangladesh for its premium brand Reid & Taylor and is also getting many enquiries from South East Asia, Middle East, Pakistan and Nepal. With a view to boosting its new mid-premium men's brand 'Belmonte', the company has signed on Bollywood superstar Shahrukh Khan as its brand ambassador for an undisclosed sum.

The company plans to open 200 exclusive outlets for the brand over a period of three years.
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ABB announces 56 pc increase in net
Bangalore: ABB India, the power and automation major, has reported a 56 per cent increase in net profit at Rs340.3 crore in 2006 and has declared a 100 per cent dividend. Revenues rose by 44 per cent to Rs4,347.7 crore for the year. With these results ABB has joined the one billion dollar club. The company has declared a 100 per cent dividend (Rs10 per share) and a stock split of 1:5 implying Rs10 per share split into five shares of Rs2 each, subject to shareholder approval in the Annual General Meeting. The company plans to invest Rs250 crore over the next two years to set up new factories, augment existing capacities and foray in new areas.
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Lokesh Machines gets export order worth Rs20 crore
Hyderabad: Lokesh Machines (LML), which makes machine tools and automotive components, has bagged an export order worth Rs20 crore from a Germany-based firm Wenig.

The company has designed and manufactured prototypes of prototypes of CNC Lathe and CNC Vertical Machining Centre as per the specifications of German machine tools giant Wenig Wemas GmbH (Wenig) and its associates in Europe.

Wenig has placed an initial order for 100 machines worth Rs20 crore while another 300 pieces would be manufactured and dispatched in the next phase.

The company will start the dispatches from April. The off-take could increase to 300 machines a year in the next three years. The machines being supplied by LML would have applications in aircraft manufacturing, chip manufacturing and automotive industries.
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DCM Shriram plans 250 agri retail outlets
Bangalore: DCM Shriram Consolidated (DSCL) plans to set up 250 more Hariyali Kisaan Bazaars which are basically agri retailing stores with an investment of more than Rs500 crore by December 2007.

DSCL currently has 54 outlets (Bazaars) in rural areas of Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan.

The company plans to open agri retail outlets in Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh within the next six months and in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra thereafter.

The company says the chain of Hariyali Kisaan Bazaars is a micro-level effort of the company, aimed at providing end-to-end ground level support to farmers.

Such Bazaars sell a range of inputs including fertilisers, seeds, pesticides, farm implements and tools, veterinary products, animal feed, irrigation items, petrol and diesel, besides household and FMCG products.

Agri-business contributes to 60 per cent of the company's total revenues, company officials said.
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Solar power equipment for households from NEPC
New Delhi: NEPC India has launched Power House solar energy equipment to provide power for households and shops in 500W and 1000W capacities. The company is targeting offices, domestic and industrial houses for its new products. The product can run televisions, computers, lighting and fans and can support shops, small restaurants and households, for 8-10 hours. With an estimated cost of about Rs3 lakh, the product has a payback period of 4 years if one assumes an electricity bill of Rs4,000-6,000 per month for a household. The equipment will have a lifespan of 10 years and augmenting an investment of Rs40,000 after 10 years, the product will run another 10 years.

The company expects a turnover of Rs200 crore in the current year and Rs1,000 crore in the next year with the product. The company also plans to arrange institutional finance for small shop owners to purchase the product.
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Bajaj Electricals readies for Rs100 crore acquisition
Kolkata: Bajaj Electricals is negotiating for acquiring a Western-India based electrical company at an approximate cost of Rs100 crore. The company will also pump in Rs30 crore for capacity expansion. The acquisition could be completed within one-and-a-half months and the deal size could be up to Rs100 crore. Bajaj Electricals is looking at acquiring companies with a high level of manufacturing ability in similar product range but weak in financials.
Part of the Rs13,500-crore Bajaj Group, the company produces electrical goods ranging from fans to lighting to brown goods. It also offers turnkey engineering services.

The company will invest Rs30 crore in 2007-08 in enhancing high-mast lighting and galvanising capacity from 30,000 to 50,000 tonnes.

Through both organic and inorganic growth strategies, the company aims to reach the targeted turnover of Rs2,000 crore in 2010.
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Tatas to get into airport modernisation
New Delhi: The Tatas are planning to get into the business of airport modernization and could partner with the Singapore-based Changi Airport International which made a bid to get involved in the development of airport infrastructure in the country.

The Tata group is expected to take a majority stake in the venture and an official announcement is expected as early as next week.
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NTPC to raise Rs1 lakh-cr to expand capacity
Mumbai: National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) plans to raise Rs1,00,000 crore in debt to finance its plans to increase its power-generation capacity from 27,000 MW to 51,000 MW over the next five years, according to A.K. Kundu, executive director of NTPC.

NTPC has all options open for raising the funds, including US pension funds under the US Private Placement Program. The total capital expenditure on these projects was Rs1,60,000 crore, of which 30 per cent will be equity and the remaining debt. Kundu said NTPC will be raising money based on its balance sheet and not seeking government guarantee. Currently NTPC has 14 coal-fired power plants and seven gas-fired plants located across the country.
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Biocon plans Rs1,000 crore project in AP
Hyderabad: Biotech major Biocon has announced an investment of Rs1,000 crore to set up a project in Jawahar Pharma City, a special economic zone near Visakhapatnam.

Biocon chairperson and managing director Kiran Mazumdar Shaw announced this after meeting Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy at his camp office.

Reddy handed over allotment letter for 50-acre land in the SEZ being developed by Ramkey group which has a state-of-the-art common effluent treatment plant with marine discharge facility. Biocon is one of the major anchor investors in the SEZ.

The biotech research company is also set to establish another centre on a 10-acre plot in a Hyderabad bio-tech SEZ being developed by the state industrial infrastructure corporation.
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