Infosys Q4 net profit up 69 per cent at Rs1,124 crore
Mumbai: Infosys Technologies has posted a 69.27 per cent increase in net profit at Rs1,124 crore for the quarter ended March 31, as compared to Rs664 crore for the year-ago period.

The total revenue of the company increased by 43.38 per cent to Rs3,675 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 31, from Rs2,563 crore for the corresponding quarter a year ago, the company informed the BSE.

For the year ended March 2006, the company posted a net profit of Rs 3,783 crore as compared to Rs2,421 crore a year ago. The total income increased to Rs13,524 crore for the year ended March 31 from Rs9,172 crore in the year-ago period. The company has declared a final dividend of Rs6.50 on shares of Rs5 each 130 per cent.

The group posted a net profit of Rs1,144 crore for the March quarter as compared to Rs673 crore in the same quarter last year. The total income increased to Rs3,891 crore for the fourth quarter from Rs2,696 crore for the corresponding quarter a year ago.

For the year ended March 2006, the group posted a net profit (after tax, exceptional items and minority interest) of Rs3,856 crore as against Rs2,458 crore a year ago. The total income of the group increased to Rs14,265 crore for the year ended March 2006, from Rs9,660 crore for the year-ago period.

In its guidance, Infosys Technologies said its revenues are expected to grow 22.6-24.6 per cent in 2007-08 and reach $4 billion.

It said its revenues were expected to be in the range of Rs17,038- 17,308 crore, a year-on-year growth of 22.6-24.6 per cent.
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Infosys hikes holding in BPO arm to 99 per cent
Bangalore: Infosys Technologies said its holding in Infosys BPO has reached 98.92 per cent as of March 31, 2007.

During the January-March quarter, Infosys acquired 2,11,909 shares of Infosys BPO and entered into a forward agreement to acquire 3,60,417 shares of Infosys BPO by February next year from various employees of Infosys BPO.

Infosys said in a statement that it also paid Rs 58 crore during the quarter to acquire stock options and issued 151,933 options of Infosys as a swap to the existing Infosys BPO options held by various employees.

Consequent to this, Infosys' holding in Infosys BPO reached 98.92 per cent as of March 31, 2007, it said.

The software major said Infosys BPO continued its growth momentum during the quarter.
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Spice offloads 48-per cent stake in Spice Systems to McorpGlobal
Mumbai: Spice has sold its 48.22 per cent stake in Spice Systems (SSL) to B K Modi controlled MCorpGlobal. The move would give MCorpGlobal 96.27 per cent control in SSL, engaged in office automation.

McorpGlobal has acquired 81.50 lakh shares of Spice Systems through 'inter-se transfer' on 31 March , according to a regulatory filing on the BSE.

Spice Ltd (formerly known as Spice Net) manufactures servers, PCs and other equipments.

McorpGlobal's focus and strategy is on expanding the scope of its operations to various businesses like real estate, health care, telecom & IT, finance & asset management.
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Sanmar group to invest Rs3,950 crore in 3 years
Chennai: The highly diversified Sanmar group with interests in chemicals, specialty chemicals, engineering and shipping, plans to invest Rs 3,950 crore in the next three years.

The company has acquired a caustic soda plant in Egypt for $300 million and Eisenwerk Erla foundry in Germany for 26 million Euros as part of its expansion plans.

The company plans to modernize its Egyptian plant at a cost of $550 million in two years to increase the caustic soda manufacturing capacity to 2,75,000 tonnes per annum and to produce 4,00,000 tonnes of VCM, a basic raw material for PVC pipe manufacture.

Company officials said the facility at Egypt would have very low operational costs as the power tariff works out to only 90 paise per unit apart from a 15 years tax holiday.

The foundry at Germany would help the company meet the demands for turbo charger for automobile companies.
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Gujarat Ambuja Cements changes name to Ambuja Cements
Mumbai: Gujarat Ambuja Cements will now be known as 'Ambuja Cements' with effect from April 5, as per a notification received from the company.

A copy of the fresh certificate of incorporation (CoI) dated April 10, 2007, confirming the company's change of name issued by the registrar of companies in Gujarat has been received, Gujarat Ambuja Cements informed Bombay Stock Exchange.

Meanwhile, the company would declare the un-audited financial results for the first quarter ended on March 31, 2007, after a meeting of the board of directors scheduled for April 20.

Ambuja Cements had reported a phenomenal rise of 4.84 times in its net profit at Rs 337.76 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2006, as compared to Rs87.9 crore recorded in the year-ago period.
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Tata Motors gets order for buses from DTC
Mumbai: Tata Motors has received an order for 500 low-floor CNG-propelled buses from the Delhi Transport Corporation's (DTC). The buses would be manufactured at the company's Lucknow centre and would be delivered in the second half of this year, Tata Motors said.

This is the single largest order for low-floor buses received by Tata Motors, it said in a release. The company won the order after participating in a global tender floated by DTC.
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Pyramid Saimira to make big investments in Malaysia
Mumbai: Leading Indian digital theatre chain operator Pyramid Saimira Theatre (PSTL) has formed a joint venture with Malaysia-based Asian Integrated Industries Sdn Bhd, to form Malaysia Sdn Bhd into which it would invest over Rs 12 crore (10 million Malaysian Ringgits) with the aim of digitising about 50 theatre screens in Malaysia within two months.

"An Indian business model and modus operandi is being taken outside India for the first time at such a large scale for films and entertainment sector,'' PSTL MD (India) P S Swaminathan said in a release to the BSE.

PSTL, the Indian partner in the joint venture would provide the back end resources for digital display of contents in Malaysia by leveraging its domain expertise and infrastructure.

Pyramid Saimira Theatre also plans to produce its first ever Malay language film ''Berikan Hatimu'', scheduled to be released in September this year.
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Reliance Fresh comes to halt in West Bengal
Kolkata: Reliance Retail onward march has come to a halt in West Bengal where the Left Front, a key constituent of the state government is against big businesses entering agriculture and allied fields.

Shortly after two key ministers in the Left Front government made public their opposition to Reliance's entry into the agri-marketing business, the Forward Bloc stoutly rejected the company's proposal to set up a joint venture with the state apparatus for sourcing agri products.

The party, which is a constituent of the Left Front government, also controls the state agriculture marketing board without the support of which the company cannot go ahead with its farm-to-fork project.
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India to become Red Hat's services strategy hub
Mumbai: Open source software leader Red Hat Inc which bought out its Indian JV partner a year and half ago and set up a fully-owned subsidiary in the country, is making India the hub for its new services strategy.

Red hat is also looking at new revenue streams like consulting and services. The company also plans to roll out solutions with home grown IT majors like Satyam, in what could a win-win deal for Red Hat and many of the country's top exporters.

Red Hat's services push will pay a big role in this strategy. The company will double the strength of its captive in Pune from 100 to 200, and provide architecture solutions to clients who are running Red Hat and also training on its platform to partners.

Its clients include the likes of Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan and Lehman Brothers in financial services and back home, banks such as IDBI, UTI Bank, Canara Bank and in the enterprise segment players such as Bharti Airtel.

The company's biggest push will come from the tie-ups it plans with Indian software services players. In December 2006, the company announced a tie-up with Satyam Computer Services, the country's fourth largest exporter, to develop open source solutions for customers.

The two firms also plan to set up a centre of excellence and open source lab in Bangalore for developing horizontal competencies and business solutions on the Red Hat and JBoss platforms.

The company has also announced a partnership with Patni Computer Systems, which is among the top 20 exporters from the country. Other top software exporters are also believed to have entered into similar partnerships engagements with Red Hat.
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AT&T launches commercial operations in India
Mumbai: AT&T has announced the launch of its commercial operations in India and will invest $750 million globally this year.
The Indian operations would run through its India subsidiary, AT&T Global Network Services India, and Mahindra Telecommunications Investment, a company floated by Mahindra & Mahindra.

AT&T would invest $750 million in 2007 to provide global customers with consistent services worldwide and help drive their business growth.
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