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Oracle to buy $ 900 m stake in i-flex
Drug prices stable after amendments in Patent Bill
Managing Director of India’s budget airline Air Deccan G. R. Gopinath addresses a press conference in Bangalore on Tuesday. — AFP
photo
Reliance Dadri gas pact this month
Financial planning concept catches on
BoI to enhance overseas presence
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Karur Vysya Bank eyes North
FM hints at cutting revenue deficit
SAIL, NTPC to merge two JVs
Govt may revamp KVIC
IT Roundup
Telecom Snippets
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Oracle to buy $ 900 m stake in i-flex
Mumbai, August 2 Under the terms of agreement, Oracle will acquire Citigroup Venture Capital International’s 41 per cent ownership stake in i-flex, Oracle said in a statement here. The total outgo of about Rs 3,900 crore comprises consideration for both the 41 per cent equity as well as 20 per cent open offer. As required under the law, Oracle will have to make an open offer beginning tomorrow to purchase an additional 20 per cent shares outstanding from the remaining shareholders at Rs 882.62 per share with a total cash consideration of about $ 316 million if the entire 20 per cent tendered is offered, the press note added. The current i-flex management team would continue to run the company and will align product development, sales marketing, and services activities with Oracle, the statement said. Oracle said its President Charles Philips would join the board of i-flex. Described as the “hottest software company in the banking industry”, i-flex stock would continue to trade on the Stock Exchange, Mumbai, and National Stock Exchange. Oracle would make an open offer beginning tomorrow and the transaction is expected to close by the end of 2005, the statement said. Explaining the rationale driving the acquisition, Philips said this investment brings together complementary technology to offer customers the most comprehensive banking solution for next generation applications, technology and services. The inevitable transaction from legacy systems to modern applications has created a multi-billion dollar opportunity, and because no single supplier has been able to meet customer needs, the banking software market is highly fragmented, he said. Customers have been looking for a Tier I software partner to help modernise their systems and lower their maintenance costs, he added. The city-based Indian IT solutions company has provided software and services to 575 banks in 115 countries and has over 5,500 employees worldwide.
— PTI
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Drug prices stable after amendments in Patent Bill
New Delhi, August 2 Replying to a debate on a calling attention motion, Chemicals and Fertiliser Minister Ramvilas Paswan said the government had powers to bring under its control even patented medicines through compulsory licensing if the prices were rising unreasonably. He assured the Lok Sabha members that it would check the price rise of all essential and life saving drugs by taking various measures. The government would also hold price negotiations with the manufacturers of drugs, he assured the members. Further, there was a new provision in the Patent Act to raise post-grant opposition. Earlier, only pre-grant opposition was possible. In all, there were about 60,000 drugs in the market and the government monitored the prices of 31,000 of them and found that there was an increase only in the case of 843 drugs to the extent of 5 to 10 per cent. The prices of 245 drugs had come down. Even after the patent regime had come into being, 50 per cent of the drugs in the market were being produced indigenously, while the multinationals accounted for only 20 per cent. Only five per cent of the drugs came under the purview of patent.
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Air Deccan ties up with Reliance WebWorld
Bangalore, August 2 Air Deccan Managing Director Capt Gopinath announced here today that his company had arrived at an understanding with Reliance WebWorld under which people would be able to book air tickets at any of the 241 retail broadband centres across the country. These centres are situated in as many as 104 cities bringing the facility to almost all important cities in the country. Currently, Air Deccan tickets can be booked through Internet or any of its airport ticketing counters. Though this arrangement worked well theoretically, the facility was thrown completely out of gear whenever the airline announced the sale of its highly concessional tickets. Now people wanting to book Air Deccan tickets will have the advantage of Reliance’s broadband centres. Besides resulting in quick connectivity and ensuring immediate results, they will also be assisted by web guides of Reliance. Capt Gopinath said making air tickets easily accessible was the next logical step for the airlines after making air travel more affordable. The passengers will also have the flexibility of going in for cancellations or refunds on the spot rather than going to the original point of sale to get the refund. Customers can collect refund of their tickets from any WebWorld centre across the country. Capt Gopinath while speaking about the future plans of the company, said it had ordered 62 new aircraft which would be delivered in the next four to five years. He said this would help to further augment its daily flight capacity which had already jumped to 123 flights daily as well as to increase the number of destinations covered by airline from the present 37. Capt Gopinath also announced that Air Deccan would recruit 650 to 700 pilots in the next five years. He said each aircraft would need an intake of 11 pilots, half of them in the capacity of Captain. Meanwhile, the company has suffered a daily loss of Rs 75 lakh due to heavy rains in Mumbai on account of huge refunds to the passengers.
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Reliance Dadri gas pact this month
New Delhi, August 2 “The gas agreement for the Dadri plant is to be signed shortly... within 3-4 weeks,” sources said. The over-Rs 20,000 crore Dadri project, touted as the world’s largest gas-based plant, will receive gas from RIL beginning 2008-09 when the first unit is scheduled for commissioning. RIL will supply gas through a pipeline from
Kakinada. Reliance Industries, which has found some 14 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves in Bay of Bengal, plans to begin production by the second half of 2008, selling its first gas to state-owned National Thermal Power Corp (NTPC). NTPC is to buy three million tonnes of gas from Reliance for its Kawas and Gandhar power plants in Gujarat at $ 2.97 per million British thermal unit and this may be the benchmark price even for Dadri project, officials said.
RIL AGM today
Mukesh Ambani-controlled Reliance Industries Ltd will hold its 31st Annual General Meeting tomorrow, the first since the group was split between the two Ambani brothers, and may discuss the company’s plans post division. The RIL AGM will be held tomorrow and is to approve a dividend for the shareholders, the company said in a statement here.
— PTI
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Financial planning concept catches on
Chandigarh, August 2 People are no longer saving to save themselves from income tax deduction but are putting their money wisely in various schemes to derive more money. Financial planning essentially entails juggling with the liquidity that one has. It involves deciding where to invest, for how much time and in what form. It also means striking a balance between debt, equity and investment so as to derive maximum benefit from the existing market conditions. Saving is no longer about surplus. The client base, which includes salaried class, industrialists, agriculturists and even moneylenders, who are no longer willing to put all eggs in one basket, is swelling and market estimates put them around 1.5 lakh in Chandigarh itself. Where there is a sound business concept, can entrepreneurs be far behind? Individual financial planners, besides a few corporate backed ones, have set up consultancies in the city and they estimate that the market of customised investors is expected to rise by 20 per cent this fiscal. “A financial planner adopts a holistic approach to an individual’s financial life and painstakingly draws up a client portfolio wherein personal and taxation needs are integrated with the financial goals. They are different from financial advisors, who are trained to focus on a particular area like insurance, taxation or mutual funds,” says Rajesh Handa, a financial planner from the city who runs the firm by the name of Positive Financials. Handa adds that since a planner is paid on the basis of financial plan, there is no commission-driven product bias. “Customised solutions are being lapped up because they are client oriented and not driven by company gains,” says Aparjit Singh, another investment planner from FNF Investment. He says that the mutual funds industry is much smaller in India as compared to the banking industry, which is the reverse of what is in advanced countries like the US. “This scenario will change within the next 15 years or so,” he adds. “Investment now is not just about getting your money back but about how to make every single penny stretch longer. It is about trimming the wastages,” he says. Besides individual entrepreneurs, reputed companies are also on to the investment planning bandwagon. “The customised and planned savings concept has grown tremendously, especially in Chandigarh,” says Vice-President of New Delhi-based Bajaj Capital Uttam Aggarwal. “The market of such investors is growing by 20 per cent and last year we registered nearly 2 lakh folios in mutual funds segment itself. This all can be attributed to people whose disposable incomes have grown,” he says.
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BoI to enhance overseas presence
Ludhiana, August 2 Ludhiana is one of the 11 clusters across the country identified for this purpose, Mr M.Balachandran, Chairman and Managing Director of the bank, told The Tribune today. He said the bank was focussing on the SME and agricultural sectors besides retail for growth. He said the SME niche was being strengthened with organisation-level changes for faster decisions, advisory services and diversified product range, including corporate- linked finance and cash management. To increase credit flow to the SMEs, the bank would also accept warehousing receipts by commodity exchanges like MCX. For the agricultural sector, the bank would encourage farmers to go in for agro-processing, for which it would assist them in framing proposals. Information dissemination regarding the same would be done by the bank in association with Nabard's consultancy agency, Nabscon, Mr Balachandran said. Talking about the bank's expansion plans, he said Punjab being an important market, the bank was planning to open at least eight new branches by the end of this financial year. Besides, over 20 more branches would be opened in other states. The bank has also got approval for opening branches in Qatar, Tanzania, Belgium besides upgrading its two centres in China and Vietnam to branches. "We are now waiting for approval from authorities in those countries," he said and added it would increase the number of their overseas branches from 24 to 30. For the current financial year, the bank has set a target of 20 per cent growth in business from Punjab. Mr Balachandran disclosed that the bank had planned to increase its deposits to Rs 3,600 crore and advances to Rs 2,400 crore, against last year's total business of Rs 5,000 crore in Punjab.
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Karur Vysya Bank eyes North
Chandigarh, August 2 The bank, which has an extensive network in South and west India, will be opening its 233rd branch at Chandigarh tomorrow, after having opened one in Ludhiana yesterday. Mr P.T Kuppuswamy, Chairman, KVB, said branches would also be opened in Jalandhar and Amritsar during the next six months. Currently it has nine branches in North India. The region contributes 6.31 per cent to its total business. The bank will be focussing on retail and small and medium enterprises (SMEs), besides advancing agricultural loans to the farmers. Talking about the technology initiatives at the bank, Mr Kuppuswamy said the bank had implemented core banking solution in all its metro, urban and semi-urban areas covering 96 per cent of the business, giving the customers anywhere banking convenience. The bank has also entered into an agreement with MITR Consortium of Punjab National Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, UTI Bank and Indian Bank offering access to over 2,500 ATMs in the country.
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FM hints at cutting revenue deficit New Delhi, August 2 “Although no fiscal correction has been contemplated in the Budget for 2005-06 for various reasons, yet, encouraged by the actual fiscal performance in 2004-05 in the face of various odds, the government intends to continue with its efforts to reduce the revenue deficit and effect a change in the quality of public expenditure”, the quarterly review report, tabled by Finance Minister P Chidambaram in Parliament, said today. While admitting that Centre’s finances were “under stress” due to cut in duties to ease inflation and higher spendings on some heads during last year, it said “government would continue to improve fiscal performance.” Centre’s revenue deficit is budgeted at 2.7 per cent of GDP and fiscal deficit at 4.3 per cent for 2005-06, same as that of 2004-05. The government has already initiated a number of corrective measures to tone up tax administration, which have been spelt out in the Mid-year review (December 2004) as well as the Fiscal Policy Strategy Statement, it said. “On the expenditure side, even after absorbing the extra commitments, the overall increase in the expenditure was contained through improved expenditure management, notably as a result of efforts to reduce accretion in the build-up of unspent balances with the implementation agencies and enforcement of prescribed conditionalities”, it said. Defends BHEL disinvestment
Meanwhile, the Finance Minister today defended the disinvestment of BHEL as "good economics" and within the guidelines of NCMP. He said "no further decision" has been taken in the wake of objections raised by workers’ union and others. "Monetising a part of ownership at an appropriate time and price is good economics. There can be an opposite point of view. But I would not agree that it (disinvestment) is bad economics," he said responding to a calling attention of Gurudas Dasgupta (of CPI) and some others on the issue. "There are a number of large, profitable, unlisted public sector undertakings, which would gain by getting listed on domestic stock exchanges through initial public offers of a small portion of government shareholding," Mr Chidambaram said. He said the employees of these public sector undertakings would also get an opportunity for investing in the shares through reservation of a part of the offered shares for their subscription.
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SAIL, NTPC to merge two JVs
New Delhi, August 2 The two companies — NTPC SAIL Power Company Pvt Ltd (NSPCL) and Bhilai Electric Supply Company Pvt Ltd (BESCL) — are 50:50 joint ventures and were formed to meet the electricity requirements of SAIL’s plants at Durgapur, Rourkela and Bhilai. The two companies were initially SAIL's subsidiaries but the steel major later offloaded half the stake in each to NTPC for better operational management. The Union Cabinet had last week allowed navratna public sector companies to establish joint ventures with
investment up to 15 per cent of their net worth in one project. The limit for navratna companies for setting up subsidiaries and JVs was raised to Rs 1,000 crore from Rs 200 crore in one project. The merger would also help the two companies reduce their operational, administrative, and management expenses.
— PTI
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Govt may revamp KVIC
New Delhi, August 2 A 10-member committee set up for revamping the Act has suggested changing the composition of KVIC, providing a consultative mechanism at the zonal level, redefining the powers of the CEO and providing for the reconstitution of the Commission after its dissolution, Minister of Small Scale Industries and Agro and Rural Industries Mahabir Prasad said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha today. The Committee also recommended modification of the existing rebate scheme, strengthening and re-orientation of the programmes and schemes being implemented by the KVIC in respect of marketing, credit and formulation of a scheme for the upgradation of old charkhas and looms, the Minister said. On the issue of rehabilitation of the sick SSI units, he said based on the recommendations of the working group constituted under the chairmanship of former Chairman of IBA S S Kohli, the RBI has drawn up revised guidelines, which include inter alia change in the definition of sick SSI units, norms for deciding on their viability and concessional finance. It has circulated the revised guidelines to all scheduled commercial banks for the implementation, Mr Prasad said. Replying to another question, he pointed out that a total of 1,38,811 sick SSI units existed in India, according to the RBI. On the proposed enhancement in the investment limit of small enterprises in the SMED Bill 2005, he said the increase in limit from Rs 1 crore to Rs 5 crore was aimed at facilitating promotion, development and enhancing the competitiveness of these enterprises .
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IT Roundup
Bangalore, August 2 India, basically Bangalore, where Sun has its engineering centre, Beijing in China, St. Petersburg in Russia and The Prague in Czech Republic would see “major investments” in terms of facility and the number of people, Sun Microsystems India Managing Director Bhaskar Pramanik told reporters here. Sun has invested $ 150 million in India since 1998 and expansion would “only accelerate”, he said. India contributed “significantly” to Sun’s global revenues, Mr Pramanik said but declined to mention the numbers. The company grew faster in India than in China, he said.
Xenitis centre
Xenitis Infotech, the city-based IT hardware company, would commence production at its computer component unit, the first such facility in India, early next month. The company, which has tied up with Chinese PC component major Unitek Computers Company for the project, would start production at its Rs 250 crore Chinsurah plant in Hoogly district of West Bengal on August 5. Company Chairman Santanu Ghosh said that the joint venture firm Xenitis Unitek would produce components like computer cases, SMPS, media chips and peripherals like keyboard, mouse, CD ROM drives and speakers at the new facility and also sell the products to other PC makers in the country. Xenitis, manufacturer of lowest-priced desktop PCs under the brand ‘Amar/Apna PC’, is eyeing to capture about 25 per cent market share in the domestic market by 2005-06 following commencement of production at the new unit.
Subex bags order
Telecom software company Subex Systems Ltd today said it has bagged an order for its flagship fraud management system, Ranger, from a US-based Internet Service Provider. The Bangalore-based company bagged the fraud management system order from a tier-1 US-based Internet Service Provider (ISP), it informed the National Stock Exchange. Ranger FMS belongs to Subex revenue maximisation suite RevMax. This suite maximises revenue and profits through, assuring earned revenue, enhancement of revenue and cost optimisation. The suite offers telecom operators an integrated platform for revenue maximisation solutions and thus eliminates the need to invest piecemeal in point solutions, it said.
— PTI
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Telecom Snippets
New Delhi, August 2 “We are in an advanced stage on finalising the tenders for the Sri Lanka-Chennai undersea cable project and hope to issue tenders in the next two weeks. The cost of this cable is approximately Rs 80 crore and it will be shared half between us and Sri Lanka Telecom. We expect the cable to go on stream by April 2006,” Mr Sinha told PTI. Sri Lanka Telecom is the state-owned
operator in the island nation. The undersea cable between Chennai and Sri Lanka is on the route of several undersea cable systems crossing the seas from the Africa-West Asia region to South East Asia. He said BSNL was also evaluating a second undersea cable link between Andaman and Nicobar Islands (Port Blair) and Singapore “but it is still in the thought process. We are evaluating the pros and cons of this”” India already has a cable system jointly owned by Bharti Tele-Ventures and SingTel that connects Chennai and Singapore. As and when the cable comes live, BSNL would be able to step up international connectivity. Its decision to choose Sri Lanka rested on the fact that several international cables pass through from there and it could link with them to get connectivity to the West.
Nokia centre in
Chennai likely
Nokia, the Finnish mobile handset major, is planning to locate its Network Operations Centre (NOC), for Asia operations, in Chennai, Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Dayanidhi Maran, said yesterday. This is in addition to its plan to set up a mobile handset manufacturing unit near Chennai with an investment up to $ 150 million, Mr Maran said after launching HCL’s low cost personal computer here. “Besides this manufacturing unit, the NOC is also expected to be located in Chennai. We are expecting the statement from the company soon,” he added.
— Agencies
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