Tata Power to make more acquisitions overseas
Tata Power Company may acquire coal assets in Australia and South Africa after it completed the $1.1 billion deal to buy a 30 pc stake in Indonesian PT Bumi Resources Tbk's two coal mines, The company made the acquisition to support its upcoming projects requirements on the west coast where 7,000 MW has to be developed over the next five years and also supports the assumptions the company made in the bid for Mundra UMPP officials of the company said.
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BEML Q4 net soars 80 pc; FY07 net up 10 pc
Bangalore: Public sector undertaking, under the ministry of defence, Bharat Earth Movers (BEML) has registered a net profit of Rs155 crore for the fourth quarter ending March 2007 up 80 pc over the corresponding period last fiscal. Sales for the fourth quarter stood at Rs1,000 crore, up 16 pc over the same period last fiscal.

BEML however, reported a moderate 10 pc rise in net profit at Rs206 crore for the 2006-07 fiscal over the previous fiscal. Turnover went up to Rs2,600 crore, a growth of 18 pc V R S Natarajan, chairman and managing director, BEML, said.

The company board of directors has announced an interim dividend of 40 pc. The company's net worth has gone up to Rs1,000 crore and earning per share to Rs55.60.
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Ranbaxy, Glaxo to develop new drug
Mumbai: Ranbaxy Laboratories' new drug discovery research (NDDR) initiative with GlaxoSmithKline Plc (GSK) will pursue further research on a compound for respiratory inflammation. A steering committee, consisting of senior members from GSK's center of excellence for external drug discovery (CEEDD) and Ranbaxy has approved the selection process.

The GSK-Ranbaxy R&D collaboration began in 2003 to develop new drugs, and the scope of research and terms and conditions between the partners were revised in February 2007. As per the multi-year agreement, Ranbaxy will progress and further profile the drug candidate through pre-clinical studies needed to support an investigational new drug (IND) application. Ranbaxy will also be responsible for conducting Phase I and Phase II clinical studies through to Proof of Concept. GSK will then have the option to conduct further development through to final commercialisation.

The new milestone payments and royalties, as enumerated in the revised agreement, will apply to this current development program and to future discovery programs.
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Pfizer wins Lipitor patent extension
Mumbai: Pfizer Inc has come out victorious against a US Supreme Court appeal filed by Ranbaxy Laboratories that aimed to open the company's Lipitor cholesterol drug, to generic competition.

The high court rejected arguments from Ranbaxy Laboratories, seeking to block a patent extension that protects Lipitor in the US through March 2010.

A federal appeals court upheld the extension in August.

Lipitor, the top-selling drug in history, had sales of $12.9 billion last year and accounts for as much as 40 per cent of Pfizer's profit.

Ranbaxy argued unsuccessfully that Pfizer forfeited its right to an extension by failing to disclose important information to the US Patent and Trademark Office. Pfizer urged the Supreme Court not to hear the appeal.

Lipitor already faces competition from cheaper generic copies of Merck & Co.'s Zocor cholesterol-reducer, which lost patent protection in June. Pfizer is also trying to protect its Lipitor sales against newer, more potent cholesterol pills that are gaining market share, such as Merck and Schering-Plough Corp.'s Vytorin.
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Toyota registers 26 pc growth
Toyota Kirloskar Motors registered a growth of 26 pc in the fourth quarter of the fiscal 2006-07 compared to same period last year. In March 2007, the company sold the highest number of cars in a month, crossing sales of 6600 units.

TKM sold 5411 units of the Toyota Innova, 1083 units of Corolla and 197 imported vehicles of Toyota Camry and Prado Landcruiser this month.

The company launched Corolla Executive six months ago and has sold 900 units till date. The company says it has no plans to launch a new Corolla in India this year.
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M&M March passenger vehicle sales up 25.8 pc
New Delhi: Sports utility vehicle and tractor maker Mahindra and Mahindra has reported a 25.8 per cent increase in its passenger vehicle sales (including exports) during March at 20,623 units compared to 16,393 units in the same month last year.

The company sold 5,260 units of its multi utility vehicle Scorpio in March, an increase of 56 per cent over same month previous year, M&M said in a statement.

In the farm equipment segment, the company's domestic tractor sales grew 12 per cent in March at 7,053 units while exports in the month dipped 25 per cent at 753 units, it said.

For the fiscal year ended March 31, the company sold 95,004 tractor units in the domestic market as against 78,048 units in the previous fiscal, up 22 per cent year-on-year.

Exports in the year grew 8 per cent at 7,525 units as against 6,980 units, the company said.
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Symantec opens second R&D facility in Chennai
Chennai: Security (anti-virus) and storage software provider, Symantec Corporation plans to launch its next generation security products in the country in two to three months including Norton 360 and Norton Confidential — both part of the company's Security 2.0 suite of applications, according to Anil Chakravarthy, vice-president, India Technical Operations, Symantec.

Norton 360 will be offered as a subscription service through the Internet similar to Windows Live OneCare and McAfee Total Protection.

Security 2.0 is a second-generation security software offering protection against viruses, spam, phishing, identity theft and other online interactions, besides protecting one's computer. Symantec is also working on developing software for identity management as part of Security 2.0.

All these and future products under the Norton range would be developed at the company's second Indian R&D centre in Chennai, inaugurated on Monday.

John W. Thompson, chairman and chief executive officer, Symantec, said the company's Indian operations would have around 6,000-people in the next two to three years, including 1,000 employees in Chennai. At present, it has 2,100 employees at its Pune centre working on storage foundation and security technology development projects.

Symantec reported revenues of over $5 billion last fiscal with the Norton brand of home user products contributing about $1.6 billion. The company also owns two other brands — Symantec (catering to enterprises) and Veritas (catering to infrastructure and storage management).
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Lanco bags projects worth Rs102 crore
Hyderabad: Lanco Infratech has bagged three construction projects in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, valued at Rs102 crore. The company said with the addition of the three projects, Lanco's order book for its construction and engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) division now stands at more than Rs5,000 crore. In Karnataka, the company has got a Rs55-crore order for upgradation of primary health centres to community health centres and taluka-wise hospitals. The other project of Rs41 crore is for construction of a medical college at Belgaum. The third project relates to Chennai Metro Water Supply and Sewerage Board (Rs6 crore).
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Fiat launches Palio Stile from new facility
Pune: Fiat rolled out its first offering, the Palio Stile (pronounced Stee-lay) from its new plant at Ranjangaon inaugurated here. The commercial launch of the car would be held in Mumbai on April 4.

The project involves setting up of a paint shop in November this year and a manufacturing facility for 2,00,000 engines and transmissions to be used by the Tatas as well as Fiat cars by next year. A second step for manufacture of Fiat's Grande Punto and the Linea here has been scheduled for the middle of 2008.

The project, a 50:50 joint venture between Tata Motors and the Fiat Group, involves an investment of 660 million over the next five years, with 470 million, including 250 million for the car plant, being planned for the first stage. The investment in the project to date has been Rs 300 crore. The hitherto un-named joint venture is expected to get a new name once the investment from the Tata group begins to roll in later this year.

The new plant will have a total installed capacity of manufacturing 1,00,000 cars annually for both domestic and export markets. In addition to Fiat models, it will produce a number of new generation cars from Tata Motors by the middle of next year.

The restructured Palio Stile outfitted with a 1.1 litre engine presently has 70 per cent local content, to be enhanced significantly once the engine plant gets operational. The current production of 30 cars per day will be marketed through the present network of 63 Tata-Fiat joint dealerships.
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Haldia Petro to set up second complex
Haldia: Haldia Petrochemicals is planning to set up another naphtha based petrochem facility this year which will enhance the company's product range and will be located within the existing plant premises in Haldia. Company officials said the management was extremely hopeful of approaching the board with a detailed proposal this year.

HPL is currently commissioning a Rs672 crore augmentation project to enhance the naphtha cracker capacity from 520 kilo tonne per annum to 670 KTA. The project will be fully commissioned in the fourth quarter of this fiscal. He said the company is expected to double its net profit from Rs300 crore in 2005-06 to Rs584 crore in 2006-07. Turnover has increased from Rs6641 crore to Rs8300 crore. The debt-equity stands at 1.15.

Meanwhile, in its bid to generate higher value, HPL has forayed into naphtha based petrol (motor spirit) production. The company currently produces roughly 2.4 lakh tonne of high octane Euro-III motor spirit a year which is sourced by almost all the oil marketing companies except IndianOil.

Overall MS generates a revenue of over Rs700 crore annually which is close to nine per cent of HPL's turnover.
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Tata Steel produces more than 5 mt steel
Kolkata: Crude steel production at Tata Steel crossed five million tonnes in 2006-07. During the last fiscal, the steel major produced 5.55 million tonnes of hot metal, 5.05 million tonnes of crude steel and 4.93 million tonnes of saleable steel, according to a communiqué issued by the company here.

The communiqué adds that, with crude steel production surpassing five million tonnes, the Jamshedpur plant of Tata Steel has emerged as the only steel plant in India to produce more than five million tonnes of crude steel. During the last fiscal, Tata Steel's New Bar Mill achieved its rated capacity of 50,000 tonnes per month.

The company said the last fiscal was also a record-breaking year for both flat and long products. Flat products achieved the highest-ever sales to the automotive segment at 0.85 million tonnes, a rise of 28 per cent against the previous year's sales of 0.67 million tonnes. Sales of specialty HR coils and high-end cold rolled and coated sheets were higher than best-ever figures achieved earlier. Domestic sales of long products at 1.3 million tonnes in 2006-07 were higher by 27 per cent as compared with the previous year.
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