LN. Mittal to acquire stake in HPCL's Bhatinda project
New Delhi: LN Mittal's group has decided to pick a 49 pc stake in Hindustan Petroleum Corporation's Rs 16,700-crore Guru Gobind Singh Refineries (GSSRL) project at Bhatinda, Punjab for an investment of Rs 3,300 crore.

Exxon, Saudi Aramco, TOTAL SA, and BP were other players who had envisaged interest in the project sometime or the other.

The Union Petroleum Minister, Murli Deora, told the press that HPCL is entering into a joint venture with Mittal Investments for the nine million tonnes per annum project and allied facilities. HPCL and Mittal Investments will hold 49 per cent equity each in the project.

The remaining two per cent stake will be allocated to the financial institutions. The current estimated cost of the project is Rs 16,700 crore.

The project would be financed with the debt equity ratio of 1.5:1 making the equity portion work out to Rs6,600 crore.

Mittal Investments is wholly owned by the Mittal family and is registered in Luxembourg. It holds 38 per cent in Mittal Steel Company, the Netherlands-based flagship company of the L.N. Mittal Group.
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HLL sales growth down in Q4; margins rise
Mumbai: FMCG giant Hindustan Lever (HLL) registered sales of Rs3,156.1 crore and profit after tax of Rs483.4 crore in the final quarter of 2006. Sales grew by 6.9 and profits by 10.3 per cent (adjusted for exceptional items) against the comparable growth rates of 11.8 per cent in sales and 19.4 per cent in profits seen in the first nine months of 2006.

The company announced a higher dividend payout for 2006 (Rs6 per share compared to the Rs5 in 2005), giving investors some cause for cheer.

The home and personal care business saw sales growth slowing to 8 per cent in the quarter, after expanding by 15.7 per cent in the first nine months. The company said this was partly explained by one-off factors such as the delayed onset of winter (which impacted skin care sales) and a base effect in shampoos caused by high launch activity during the same period last year. The foods business accelerated, its revenues growing by 10.8 per cent in the quarter against 8.4 per cent in the first nine months, with both processed foods and ice-creams chipping in with higher growth.

Contrary to expectations, HLL did manage to expand its profit margins in the fourth quarter to 17.2 per cent of sales at the EBIT level despite a sharp upward spiral in prices of inputs such as palm oil. HLL attributes this to "selective price increases, improved mix and robust cost savings initiatives".
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HLL changes name to Hindustan Unilever
Mumbai: Hindustan Lever has changed its name to Hindustan Unilever, subject to shareholder approval.

"The company believes that the proposed name change provides the optimum balance between maintaining the heritage of the company and the future benefits and synergies of global alignment with the corporate name of Unilever," a release to the stock exchanges said.
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Dabur Foods to invest Rs100-cr over 3 yrs
New Delhi: FMCG major Dabur Foods plans to invest Rs100 crore over the next three years to upgrade and expand its existing facilities, as it hopes to double revenues to Rs500 crore. The company plans to spend the money in upgradation and expansion work at its Jaipur, Siliguri and Nepal facilities. Dabur is also looking to double revenues by 2010 to Rs500 crore. Currently the company's revenues stand at Rs250 crore.
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ICI to sell refinish biz to Asian PPG
New Delhi: Automotive paints maker Asian PPG Industries a joint venture between Asian Paints Ltd and US-based PPG Industries Inc will acquire the advanced refinish business of ICI India for Rs52 crore. The acquisition would make PPG the largest company in the auto refinish paints market in India. ICI India said the divestment would help the company to focus on its growth strategy for its decorative paints and conventional paints business.
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Aurobindo gets approval for Lisinopril from SA
Hyderabad: Hyderabad-based pharma major, Aurobindo Pharma (APL), has obtained regulatory approval for its Lisinopril tablets in different dosages of 5, 10 and 20 mg strengths from South Africa.

Lisinopril is the generic version of Zestril marketed by Astra Zeneca. Lisinopril dihydrate is an effective, long lasting orally administered ACE inhibitor used in the management of hypertension. Lisinopril belongs to a class of drugs that has a market size of $27 million in South Africa. APL said it is its seventh product to get the marketing authorisation approval from Medicines Control Council (MCC) of South Africa.
The South African market is highly regulated.
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GE, Air India sign agreement for eco-friendly engines
New Delhi: General Electric Company (GE) has entered into agreement with Air India to help the airline achieve its goal of becoming an environmentally sustainable airline with proper environment- friendly programmes and practices.

According to the MoU signed between the two companies, GE would deliver the aircraft engines from its ecomagination portfolio, including GE-90-115B engines for the Boeing 777-303 Ers and the Genx engines for the Boeing 787-800 aircraft ordered by Air India. Apart from aircraft engines, GE would partner Air India to convert its headquarters into a green building through eco-friendly technologies and provide in-flight content and through a co-branded credit card.

Air India said the new engines being sourced from GE would be around 15 per cent more fuel efficient compared to the existing engines.

GE and Air India are also in talks to jointly set up a maintenance, repair and overall (MRO) facility.
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India Inc's salary payout rises by 40 pc
New Delhi: According to an Assocham study based on third quarter results of FY07 of 160 companies, India Inc's payout in salaries rose by 40 pc.

The findings show that the wage cost of the firms engaged in the services sector went up by 60 pc at the end of third quarter of FY07 compared to the same period last year. Media and entertainment sector topped the list with an increase of 184 pc followed by real estate (171 pc) infrastructure (156 pc), hotels (107 pc), IT (57 pc) and finance (56 pc).

Assocham president Venugopal Dhoot said the industry was facing shortage of trained manpower resulting in higher wages. Rising salaries are also the result of high rate of inflation which is also affecting the interest rates.
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