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AUTO EXPO
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Sensex dips 130 pts
IDBI Bank, BPCL forge e-deal
Change soft approach to white collar crime: Murthy
NEEPCO turns around; ties up with SBI Caps for Rs 800 cr
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AUTO EXPO New Delhi, January 15 “Just imagine, if only we had a people’s car costing no more than Rs 1,00,000, how many millions of people would be queuing up to buy it,” Mr Advani said while delivering the inaugural address at the 7th Auto Expo here. “My first request to you is to provide cost-effective products which fulfil the aspiration of a large chunk of our population,” he told the gathering attended by leading Indian and global automobile manufacturers. The challenge, he said, was to bring down the cost of the vehicle and make them more affordable. “At this point, our automotive products are still far too expensive for most of our rural population,” he said. The Auto Expo, which has been dubbed as the largest automotive show of Asia, is jointly organised by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), the Auto Component Manufacturers Association
(ACMA) and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). Mr Advani hoped that the Auto Expo would encourage more original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) around the world to use India as a platform for outsourcing as well as a global R&D hub. “To make this a reality, the Indian automotive industry needs to increase its attention and expenditure on research,” he said. He said India was committed to participating in the free trade arrangements with several countries and region. “SAFTA, the India-Asia Free Trade Agreement, the India-Thailand FTA must all be reviewed as an opportunity for the Indian automotive industry to become truly global players. Go out, invest boldly and grasp global business opportunity,” he said. Reminding that the Prime Minister’s golden quadrilateral programme of road connectivity sought a suitable response from the auto industry in the form of good inter-city and inter-state people and goods carriers, he said challenge for the industry was to come out with better, more comfortable and energy efficient public transportation vehicles.
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Tata promises it by 2007
Maruti, which doubted the feasibility of making a car at such a low cost, said it would match any challenge posed by Tata Motors. Tata told newspersons at the Auto Expo that “what we hope to do is to break new ground. We would not like to strip down a car, but start with a clean sheet of paper. We are exploring new material and manufacturing techniques. However, it is still in an early conceptualisation phase”. The Rs 1 lakh car will be between two-wheeler and low-end car, meant for a family of four to five persons. “Also, it would meet the stipulated safety emission standards,” he said. Stating that the market for this car was tremendous, he said there were over five million two-wheelers in the country. Tata said the estate version of Indigo, Indigo Marina, would hit the Indian markets soon and would be priced below Rs 6 lakh. Indigo Marina will go up for sale in a few months. The company also launched a new version of the Indica V2. However, it did not tinker with the price and kept it at the level of the earlier versions, which range between Rs 3 to 4 lakh. The company also unveiled its inter-city, intra-city and custom-built buses. One of the models is a high capacity ultra low floor CNG bus, designed for high density bus corridors. It is fitted with GPS, automatic ticketing, passenger communication systems and electronic destination boards. Tata said the deal for Daewoo’s commercial vehicles unit would be closed soon and start reaping benefits in the next three months. Tata Motors, which emerged as a preferred bidder for Daewoo Commercial Vehicle Company Ltd
(DWCV), has signed a binding MoU for due diligence of the target company’s operations. He said the deal would provide Tata Motors a product range it did not have. “It offers us entry in to heavy vehicles and advanced commercial vehicles segment for the domestic and export market,” he said. The acquisition of DWCV would also facilitate the company’s planned foray into south-east Asian markets like South Korea, Thailand and Malaysia as well as China. Tata said the company would go in for a capacity expansion for its passenger vehicles, as part of which it may even set up assembly facilities in neighbouring countries. “We may hike the capacity from the present level of 1,50,000 as part of our expansion plans. The route for this may also include sub-assemblies in neighbouring countries,” he added. However, he refused to divulge the level of capacity addition the auto-maker might make.
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Bajaj unveils new logo
New Delhi, January 15 The company will explore new markets in the ASEAN region and South America to make exports worth Rs 650 crore in the next financial year The auto major is showcasing Bajaj Wave, Super 100 and step-shift Chetak four stroke at the Auto Expo. The 110 cc Bajaj Wave comes with the advanced DTSI technology. The company has introduced several innovations in Super 100 while Chetak 4-S has one-step gear shift, similar to that in motor cycles. The company also plans to increase its annual production to three million vehicles in the next few years. The new corporate symbol has the Bajaj logotype in capital letters. The traditional hexagonal symbol has been replaced by an open abstract form stylised ‘B’. It was unveiled in the presence of senior company officials, including Joint Managing Director Rajiv
Bajaj. He said brand essence for new Bajaj had been identified as “excitement”. He said that change in identity was a part of the ongoing changes at Bajaj and would help invite a paradigm shift in consumer perception of the company.
Hyundai launches Accent Viva
CRDi
Hyundai Motor India today unveiled another offering from its Accent stable and launched the diesel powered Accent Viva CRDi with an ex-showroom price tag of Rs 6.55 lakh. The 1493 cc Accent Viva CRDi is powered by three cylinders and according to company President
B.V.R. Subbu, the latest offering is aimed at consolidating Hyundai’s position in the C segment. The CRDi engine has 12 valves. The car comes with a central door locking, power antenna, power windows, rear defogger and rear wiper. It is the fifth version in the Accent category and the second in the diesel Accent segment. The price of the car is uniform across all states and is lower than the Accent
CRDi, which is priced at Rs 6,90,000. Mr Subbu said the company wanted the pricing to be transparent to avoid any arbitrage opportunities of buying vehicles from a particular region.
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Ford to launch exchange offer Chandigarh, January 15 He was in the city to inaugurate the new dealership of Saluja Automobiles in Industrial Area. Talking to TNS on the sidelines of the function, he said out of 6.5 lakh cars sold during 2003, about 80 per cent were sold in the price range of Rs 2 lakh to Rs 4 lakh. But Ford, he said, was not a player in this segment as its range started from Rs 5 lakh. He said, “As per our assessment, about 15 lakh car owners in the lower segment are ready to exchange their vehicles with new models in the upper and luxury segment. We will make efforts to exploit this potential in the market. Customers will get competitive exchange values for their old vehicles, besides a discount of Rs 15,000 on the purchase of any of the company’s vehicles.”
Piparsania disclosed that the company was offering zero per cent finance scheme on its Mondeo model (Rs 16.13 lakh) for a three-year loan amount of Rs 12 lakh. To boost the sales, he said Ford had tied up with ICICI and HDFC Bank to offer easy finance at 4 to 6 per cent interest rate, inclusive of dealer’s margin on other models.
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Sensex dips 130 pts
Mumbai, January 15 Market which opened on a buoyant note and exhibited volatile swings in morning trade, fell sharply towards the fag end following reports that the Union Cabinet has deferred the hike in foreign investment limit in telecom sector, Mr Sumeet Lala, an analyst at the Asit C Mehta Intermediaries said. Notably, the Cabinet also decided to allow 100 per cent Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in petroleum sector but the markets were not in any mood to relent. Of the four scrips in the Sensex which stayed in positive territory none were from petroleum sector. Sentiment also become extremely nervous after foreign funds, the main driving force for the market in the last eight months, reportedly turned net sellers on Tuesday. For the first time in 2004 on Tuesday (13 January 2004), FIIs pulled out a net Rs41.50-crore, compared to the inflow of Rs173.20-crore on Monday, virtually creating some panic in the market, he added. The 30-stock Sensex which opened firm at 6,219.81 points, touched a high of 6,248.81 points and dipped by a whopping 200 points to a low of 6,045.30 points, before ending at 6,063.91 points, down by 130.20 points or 2.10 per cent from its previous close of 6,194.11. The CNX Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) also ended 37.70 points or 1.70 per cent lower at 1944.45 points, after coming off from morning high of 2000.30 points. Telephone shares were hit badly after the cabinet decision to defer the FDI
limit, while cement, auto, pharma, steel and public sector shares also crashed on hectic selling. Software stocks lost ground, weighing down to the global fall in technology shares after a downbeat sales forecasts from US Intel Corp.
— UNI
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| IDBI Bank, BPCL forge e-deal
Mumbai, January 15 The high-tech interface resulted in the integration of the technologies of IDBI Bank and BPCL to automate the payment and purchase process for the corporate and industrial clients, said G V Nageswar Rao, CEO and managing director of IDBI Bank. “This is a technology expertise where the transactions would be completed in few seconds instead of few days in the past.’’ he said. Asked about the exclusivity of the tie-up, Ashok Sinha, Director (Finance), of BPCL, said that it was not exclusive since many other banks are making effort to develop such payment and transaction gateway to enhance their business. Already, the State Bank of India (SBI) and ICICI Bank are in discussions with BPCL on similar tie-up in near future.
— UNI
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Change soft approach to white collar crime: Murthy New Delhi, January 15 Delivering the 21st Dr C D Deshmukh Memorial Lecture on corporate governance here, Mr Murthy said corporate governance was a necessity. He said unless a corporation was fair to all stakeholders, it will not be successful in the long term. He lauded the government’s steps at deregulation. “They have removed licensing and brought about drastic reduction in bureaucratic hurdles,’’ he said. He said the ratio between the salary of the highest and lowest level had moved up from 10 at the beginning of liberalisation to 100 now.
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NEEPCO turns around; ties up with SBI
New Delhi, January 15 The company, which posted a loss of Rs 408 crore last year, is expected to end the current fiscal with a profit of Rs 160 crore, the CMD of NEEPCO, Mr S. C. Sharma, told reporters here, while adding it has set a target of adding 2690-MW capacity in the 11th Five Year Plan. The company, which was rated poor by credit rating agency ICRA in view of losses of Rs 408 crore in the last fiscal, is hoping to get positive rating now.
Finolex Indus Q3 net up
Pune-based Finolex Industries Ltd has posted a higher net profit at Rs 28.39 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, 2003 as against Rs 12.86 crore in same period last fiscal. The net income for the reporting quarter grew to Rs 241.61 crore from Rs 204.33 crore in October-December 2002, the company informed the Stock Exchange (BSE) today.
Samsung posts Q4 profit
South Korea’s Samsung Electronics today said its net profit in the fourth quarter to December jumped 24 per cent year-on-year to 1.86 trillion won (1.57 billion dollars), exceeding market expectations. Sales stood at 12.89 trillion won, up 21.7 per cent from a year earlier.
JP Morgan to buy Bank One
JP Morgan Chase & Co and Bank One Corp have announced that they are merging in a $ 58 billion deal that will create the second-largest US banking company. The merged company, to retain the JP Morgan Chase name and be based in New York, will have assets of $ 1.1 trillion with 2,300 branches in 17 states, the two banks said in an announcement after the stock market closed. Only Citigroup, with assets of about $ 1.19 trillion and operations in more than 100 countries, would be bigger if the deal is approved.
— Agencies
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New Delhi, January 15
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New Delhi, January 15