Jet agrees to buy Air Sahara for Rs1,450 crore
Mumbai: Jet Airways will buy out Air Sahara for around Rs1,450 crore- lower than the Rs2,300 crore the airline had agreed to pay in January 2006 when the two signed a contract that got into trouble and litigation.

Sources said the two airlines reached an agreement on the commercial aspects of the deal after two days of hectic negotiations. The agreement will be submitted to the arbitration panel tomorrow at 5.30 p.m.

Sources said the offer also includes the Rs500 crore Jet has already paid Air Sahara last year. However, it is not clear whether the deal also includes the Rs300-Rs350 crore debt on the books of the company. The offer will not include the Rs180 crore already paid by Jet Airways in April 2006 for the normal business operations of Air Sahara.

Jet Airways legal counsel, however, said the two parties have decided to resolve the issue amicably and the decision would be announced by the arbitrators on Wednesday.

Sources said Jet Airways did not want the issue to get stuck in arbitration procedures, as its funds would have been locked up. A Jet-Sahara merger will lead to the emergence of the largest private carrier in India, with a 42 per cent domestic market share. While Jet has a fleet of 59 aircraft, Sahara has 26, including 10 Boeings.
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Suzlon Energy hikes bid for REpower
Mumbai: Suzlon Energy has raised its bid for acquiring REpower Systems AG, the German wind turbine producer, to 150 per share from 126 per share. The new offer is 7.1 per cent higher than the rival bid made by the French company Areva SA on March 15, and puts the value of REpower to 1.22 billion. Areva had offered a price of 140 last month.

According to Suzlon, SE Drive Technik GmbH, which is acting in concert with Suzlon in its bid to acquire the German company, has purchased 6.27 lakh shares of REpower (7.7 per cent) at a price of 150 per share. As a result of this, the offer price has automatically been increased to 150, as per the German takeover regulations.

Suzlon through a special purpose vehicle - Suzlon Wind Energie GmbH - already holds 25.4 per cent stake in REpower. With the last week's purchase of 7.7 per cent stake, Suzlon's stake has gone up to 33.1 per cent.

Areva also holds 29.9 per cent stake in REpower.

A Suzlon official said the current offer expires on April 20 but if Areva puts up a counter bid, then the deadline could be extended by another two weeks.
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Kerala HC rejects order for closure of Pepsi plant
Kochi: A division bench of the Kerala High Court has quashed the Puthussery Panchayat's order cancelling the licence given to PepsiCo India Holdings.

The judgement has been criticised by state chief minister V S Achuthanandan as one issued without proper understanding of the Panchayat Raj Act. The chief minister added that the state government would approach the higher court against the division bench order.

PepsiCo had challenged the order of the village Panchayat, in Palakkad district, through a writ petition.

The court order gives it the right to continue operating its plant in the Kanjikode industrial area that had been closed for almost a year.

The bench said the Panchayat had no jurisdiction under the Panchayati Raj Act in the matter of issuing or canceling licences as the factory is situated in an industrial area notified under the Kerala Industrial Single Window Clearance Board and Industrial Township Area Development act of 1999.

The factory is situated at the Kanjikode Industrial Area in Puthussery village Panchayat.

The Panchayat cancelled the licence alleging that the factory was exploiting ground water exceeding the permitted limits causing severe water shortage in the area.
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Strides bids for Grandix brands
Bangalore: Strides Arcolab, the generic and specialty products export company, has said it plans to buy all the brands of Chennai-based Grandix Pharmaceuticals. With this acquisition the company's focus on the domestic market would get a fillip and would be the first inorganic growth pitch within India for the 17-year-old Strides.

Strides is now in an exclusive negotiation with Grandix and has begun due diligence of all its brands. The Grandix brands have sales of Rs 50 crore across seven States. The valuation exercise is expected to be completed by June this year. As part of the India growth plan, the company is looking at expanding its South-based operations towards north India.

The Grandix range includes anti-diabetic, anti-hypertensive and painkiller products. Grandix's turnover in 2006-07 was around Rs100 crore. Only in December 2006, it sold its manufacturing plant at Alathur near Chennai to Iceland-based generics major, Actavis, for an undisclosed sum.

Strides, which closed fiscal 2006 with a group turnover of Rs760 crore, operates in 55 markets and has a strong Latin American presence. In the last three years, it made full or majority acquisitions of drug companies in Poland, Italy and Brazil. The latest was a Rs60-crore deal in September 2006 to fully acquire Singapore's Drug Houses of Australia (Asia) P Ltd to drive its China and Asia-Pacific plans.

Strides is among the top five global soft gelatin capsule makers and is planning to be a key ARV (anti-retroviral drug) supplier to the US, having got the USFDA approval for ten of its drug applications.
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Ghosh, Singh to revise deal with Vodafone
New Delhi: Hutchison Telecom International (HTIL) and Vodafone have decided on a revised deal with Max India chairman Analjit Singh and Hutchison Essar (HEL) CEO Asim Ghosh on the valuation of their holdings in HEL.

According to the new deal the shares of Singh and Ghosh have been valued at a minimum of $226.25 million and $164.51 million, respectively, subject to HEL's equity valuation being $25 billion or less.

In case the valuation of Hutchison Essar crosses $25 billion at the time the options on these shares are exercised, the value of these shares will be calculated on the basis of a pre-agreed formula devised by Goldman Sachs. Hence the "fair market value" of $391million for the combined 12.26 pc indirect shareholding of Ghosh and Singh is significantly less, when compared to the $18.8-billion Vodafone transaction.

Sources said Singh and Ghosh had bought shares in the company through loans advanced to them against guarantees stood by Hutchison. If and when they Ghosh exit the company they will get a minimum of Rs972 crore and Rs707 crore, respectively.

The price at which Max India chairman Analjit Singh and Hutchison Essar CEO Asim Ghosh have the option of selling their shares to Hutchison or to Vodafone has become central to the recent controversy surrounding the Hutchison-Essar transaction.
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