Phillips Carbon plans to expand capacity
Kolkata: RPG group company Phillips Carbon Black Ltd (PCBL), is planning to expand capacity by 1,25,000 tonnes and will cover both greenfield and brownfield projects. After the expansion, the company's installed capacity will touch 3,95,000 tonnes to meet the growing demand of carbon black, in the domestic as well as international markets.

The company achieved a turnaround in the fiscal 2006-07 with a PBDT of about Rs 65 crore (against Rs1.78 crore in the previous year).

The greenfield project, located in Mundra, Gujarat, will have an initial capacity of 75,000 tonnes. This will be PCBL's 4th plant in India, after Durgapur (1,40,000 tonnes), Baroda (95,000 tonnes) and Kochi (35,000 tonnes). Another 50,000-tonne capacity will be added at Kochi. The carbon black capacity expansion will involve capital expenditure of Rs244 crore.
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Nokia introduces seven new handsets
New Delhi: Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia has launched seven new mobile phones equipped with features like camera, multiple phone books and call tracking services, all at lower price points. The handset price ranges between 30 euros (Rs1,500) to 90 euros (Rs4,500).

India is the third largest market for Nokia after China and the US.
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Info Edge registers Q4 net at Rs10-cr
New Delhi: Info Edge (India), which owns and operates websites like Naukri.com, Jeevansathi.com and real estate portal 99acres.com has reported net profit of Rs10.13 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 31. The company reported net sales of Rs43.60 crore for the period.

Since the company listed on the stock exchange in November 2006, it has not released corresponding figures for the previous fiscal. The company registered a net profit of Rs27.06 crore for the financial year ended March 31, 2007 and net sales of Rs139.56 crore.
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Wockhardt acquires French firm
Mumbai: Wockhardt has acquired Paris-based Negma Laboratories in an all-cash deal worth $265 million (Rs1,091 crore).

The acquisition, Wockhardt's fifth in Europe, strengthens its presence in the continent, pushing the region's contribution to Wockhardt's total revenues to over 60 per cent. Wockhardt is at present sitting on a kitty of $230 million. The transaction is valued at 1.8 times the sales and 9.7 times the EBITDA, Wockhardt said.

The Negma deal was funded through internal resources and leverage financing, the Wockhardt Chairman, Habil Khorakiwala, told the press on Thursday. The deal would be closed in four to six weeks.

Negma is a research-based company with sales of $150 million and a presence in the osteoarthritis, rheumatology, blood-vessels related phlebotonic segment and in arterial hypertension.
Now, Wockhardt would have four manufacturing facilities in Europe, capable of producing bulk drugs, injectables, tablets, capsules and creams.
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Private telecom operators barred from carrying intra-circle calls
New Delhi: The Department of Telecom has barred private national long distance operators from carrying intra-circle telephone calls meant for state owned BSNL's subscribers. In a directive to private operators, the DoT said that BSNL can continue to exercise monopoly and recover charges from private access providers for carrying the calls within a circle. This will mean that a telephone call made by an Airtel user in any city to a BSNL subscriber in another city will have to necessarily be carried on BSNL's network.

Private operators, incensed by this order, are now trying to impress upon the Government to withdraw it. They say that BSNL charges 20 paise per minute for carrying intra-circle calls, while NLD operators like Bharti are willing to carry the same traffic for less than 10 paise per minute.

The private players also pointed out that the new direction nullifies the amendment announced by DoT on December 14, 2005, when private NLD operators were allowed to carry and terminate intra-circle traffic.

Private operators said that the earlier amendment would have increased competition and increase choice in the intra circle long distance segment binging affordable services to consumers. They said subscribers were not able to reap the benefits of this facility as despite the above amendment, this facility was not implemented as BSNL did not allow the private NLDOs to terminate the intra-circle traffic on its network.
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Honda Siel to set up second plant with $485 mn investment
Mumbai: Honda Siel Cars India, the Indian subsidiary of Japan's Honda Motor Co., will set up a second car plant in India with an investment of up to Rs 20 billion and raise its capacity to more than 150,000 cars by 2010.

The new plant situated in north-west Rajasthan would roll out its first car in the final quarter of 2009 and would have an initial capacity of 60,000 units per year, which would be increased to 200,000 units, the company said in a statement.

With the second car plant, the company plans to foray into the high volume compact car segment. Honda Siel said it plans to double its car production to 100,000 units by end of 2007 at its existing plant in Uttar Pradesh.

The new plant would raise Honda Siel's total production capacity to more than 150,000 units by 2010 in India.
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Moser Baer to offload stake in photovoltaic co to SPV
Mumbai: Moser Baer plans to sell its stake in its subsidiary firm Moser Baer Photo Voltaic, engaged in the business of production of electricity from sunlight, to special purpose vehicle for thin film project), PV Technologies India — with a view to maximise administrative and operating synergies.

PV Technologies India would also function as an operating company, the company said. Moser Baer said it will invest 250 million dollars over the next three years to set up a thin film solar fab.

The company has also entered into a technology partnership with US-based Applied Materials to build the unit.
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Aditya Birla to invest $219 million in textile, insurance and BPO
Mumbai: Diversified Indian firm Aditya Birla Nuvo plans to invest Rs 900 crore in its textiles, insurance and business process outsourcing units as the company sees the highest growth coming from these sectors. The company would spend Rs 500 crore on its textiles business and Rs 200 crore on BPO services over the next year. The company has also set aside Rs200 crore to be invested in financial services by September 2007.

Aditya Birla Nuvo has reported a 17.7 per cent rise in quarterly net profit for the January-March period to Rs82.52 crore.
Shares in the company ended 0.5 per cent higher at Rs1,150 in a firm Mumbai market.
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Tatas makes big investment plans for Indian market
Mumbai: The Tata Group has earmarked Rs 1.2 lakh crore as investments in the next 7-8 years in the Indian market. The major focus of the investment will be on steel, power, auto and chemicals.

According to senior officials in the group the Tatas would be investing Rs70,000 crore in steel, Rs20,000 crore in power, Rs12,000 crore in auto and Rs5,000 crore in chemicals, while another Rs12,000-15,000 crore has been set aside for business segments like IT, hospitality, retail and telecom.
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RIL cannot sell gas allotted to ADAG to another company: HC
New Delhi: Anil Ambani-controled Reliance Natural Resources (RNRL) has secured an interim stay from the Mumbai High Court, which prevents RIL from selling 40 million standard cubic metres per day of gas, out of its estimated potential of 80 MMSCMD to any third party.

Mukesh Ambani-controlled RIL plans to appeal against the interim order in a division bench.

This has come as a first sign of hope for RNRL, which has been left without an effective fuel linkage for the proposed Dadri power project. Thursday's interim order restrains RIL from selling this gas to any third party or using it for its captive consumption.

RIL prefers to appeal to the Division Bench against this order.

RIL had entered into a contract with RNRL to supply 28 MMSCMD of gas to RNRL for its proposed Dadri power project in Uttar Pradesh. RNRL had a claim on an additional 12 MMSCMD of gas originally committed to NTPC, if the gas contract with NTPC failed to materialise, as per the demerger scheme that underpinned the parting of ways of the Ambani brothers.

The court order and the resultant litigation over the contract are likely to have an impact on RIL's work schedule. The company has been talking to consumers over the past few months to arrive at a price for the gas to be sold.

The gas contract between RIL and RNRL was signed at a time when RNRL was still controlled by Mukesh Ambani. Consequent to the approval of the demerger scheme by the courts, RNRL was handed over to ADAG.

Sources within ADAG alleged that the clauses in the gas contract were not in conformity to the demerger scheme. RNRL had moved the court in November 2006, seeking a stay on allocation of gas (committed to RNRL) to any third party.
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Videocon may get final approval from Daewoo creditors
Mumbai: Daewoo Electronics creditors may soon authorise the Seoul-headquartered Woori Bank, a member of the lenders' consortium, to sign the final documentation with the Videocon-led consortium on May 4.

The parties have been coming to an agreement during the month-long negotiations, resulting in the Videocon-led consortium agreeing to certain key issues. The creditors have agreed to a price of around 700 billion Korean won, taking the total enterprise value to $1 billion, sources said.

The complete documentation is expected to take six to eight weeks. Videocon officials refused to comment on the development. The company had earlier threatened to abandon the bid after failing to get the 40-odd Daewoo creditors to arrive at a mutually agreeable financial deal, sources said.

The deal would help Videocon reach out to emerging markets like Mexico, Poland, Vietnam and Chile and developed markets like the US, France, Japan; besides benefiting from the OE relationship with Maytag, USA and Bosch-Siemens, Germany.

The Videocon-led consortium emerged as the preferred bidder in September 2006 to buy a controlling 97.6 per cent stake in Daewoo Electronics. Daewoo has been under a creditor-led debt-restructuring programme since 2000 after its insolvent parent Daewoo Group was put under the workout programme.
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Forrester says Infosys tops in app outsourcing strategy
Bangalore: Forrester Research, a leading industry analyst firm, has given Infosys Technologies the top score for overall strategy in applications outsourcing (AO) among 13 leading providers of application outsourcing.

In its Forrester Wave: North American Applications Outsourcing, Q1 2007 report, Forrester rigorously and methodically examined all the vendors' solutions, and concluded that "Infosys leads all providers in strategy".

The report cites Infosys for its strong capability across virtually every aspect of AO and strong reputation for cultural fit among North American customers, allowing Infosys to compete effectively with MNCs and offshore rivals alike. The report describes Infosys' strong solution strategy, including a particularly strong vision for improving internal productivity.
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