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Ranbaxy wins patent claims against Abbot
Lending skewed, FM tells bankers
DSE Executive Director resigns
Indians talk more, pay less for phone calls, says TRAI
PM to open IITF, 2005
Businesswomen from India on Fortune list
EMC eyes deals in North
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Nigeria signs $6 b oil deal with India
India, Israel for pact to boost trade
Talbros may get Rs 100-cr US export order
Indiabulls to develop township in Sonepat
Daimler sells stake in Mitsubishi to Goldman Sachs
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Ranbaxy wins patent claims against Abbot
New Delhi, November 11 Ranbaxy, which won two patent claims at the US Court of Northern Illinois, however lost the third one that pertains to labelling and can now launch the drug (1,000 mg extended release) in US only after amending the label. The company will be entering into discussion with the Food and Drug Administration to amend its labelling for the as-yet unapproved 500 mg ER tablet to remove language that implicates the single claim at issue in the third patent. Ranbaxy Laboratories Limited today raised its equity stake to 50 per cent in Nihon Pharmaceutical Industry Co Ltd (NPI), a joint venture between the company and Nippon Chemiphar Co. Ltd (NC), Japan, from the present 10 per cent. With this enhancement, NPI will become a 50:50 joint venture between the two companies, a statement by Ranbaxy said here. An agreement in this regard has been signed today, it added. “Ranbaxy’s increase in the shareholding of the venture reinforces the company’s strong commitment to the Japanese market. The new structure recognises the equal commitment of both partners and their intent to grow the generics business in Japan, in a collaborative manner,” Ranbaxy CEO and Managing Director Brian Tempest said. Kazushiro Yamaguchi, President and CEO of NC said the strengthening of its relationship with Ranbaxy was crucial for its business strategy of making the generic business a pillar of the company’s business. “NC is one of the first companies to recognise the importance of generics and to make it a pillar of the company’s business. NC intends to be a leading company in Japan’s generics market,” he said. Under the partnership, while NC provides the regulatory know-how and knowledge of the Japanese market, Ranbaxy will bring its generics product pipeline and understanding of the global generics business, the statement said. Ranbaxy President- Pharmaceuticals and Executive Director Malvinder Mohan Singh said raising the company’s stake in the joint venture was a “logical move” resulting from the increased comfort level and resolve to take the business to higher levels of performance by the partners.
— PTI
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Lending skewed, FM tells bankers
Kolkata, November 11 Inaugurating the two-day bankers’ conference, Bancon 2005, here, Mr Chidambaram said it is important to increase the capital base of the banks and urged the industry to gear itself up to raise Rs 60,000 crore capital in the next five years. He said the issue would be discussed at the meeting of the bank CMDs convened on November 18. Banks, which do not have the scope to raise Tier I capital, would have to go for Tier II capital, he said, adding the additional capital could be raised by way of improved profitability, by better recovery or raising from the market. Stating that the contribution of the banking sector in the country’s GDP was low at 35 per cent, the Finance Minister said the sector should set the goal for raising the contribution to GDP at 50 per cent and it would be only possible by raising the size of the banks. . Mr Chidambaram said for banks to raise its share to 50 per cent, bank credit had to grow at a much faster pace. He said size of the Indian banks was a limiting factor, adding that Return on Capital (RoC) of country’s banking sector was high as compared to countries like Singapore, South Korea and China. To increase lending activity of the banks, the Finance Minister said the banking sector should focus on the bottom of the pyramid by giving loans to tenant farmers, small and medium enterprise (SME) sector, and extending micro-credit in the villages. He said the banking sector had neglected the poor and lending was skewed in favour of few industrial houses. For this reason, the government was forced to resort to ‘directive lending’ in favour of the farm and SME sectors of the Indian economy.
— PTI
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Liquidity scenario tight, says Reddy
The RBI will soon introduce a second liquidity adjustment facility (LAF) to reduce ‘frictional’ liquidity mismatch in the monetary system, its Governor Y.V. Reddy said today.
Speaking at Bancon, 2005, here, he conceded a tight liquidity scenario, but said it was temporary and to tide over which the second LAF would be introduced. “We have to make a distinction between what I may call structural liquidity and frictional liquidity. There are some issues in frictional liquidity and the second LAF will be used on a daily basis to manage it,” he said.
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DSE Executive Director resigns
New Delhi, November 11 DSE is scheduled to hold its Annual General Meeting on Monday to consider demutualisation and corporatisation of the exchange to enable it to run professionally. Although Mr Singhal’s tenure of five years comes to an end on February 5, 2006, he resigned prematurely without assigning any reason. Mr Singhal is one Executive Director, whose tenure witnessed a long period of zero business. DSE has invited fresh candidates for the post of Executive Directors, sources said, adding that the exchange would be without any functional authority for at least two months — December, 2005 and January, 2006. When contacted Singhal refused to comment on the issue. The resignation of Mr Singhal is yet to be accepted as a section of persons, including brokers, want him to stay for the smooth execution of demutualisation and corporatisation of DSE. Meanwhile, the Delhi Stock Exchange today suspended 69 companies from the bourses for non-compliance of the listing agreement. The suspension in these companies were effected with immediate effect for non-payment of listing fee for the last two consecutive years, DSE authorities said here. DSE suspended trading in eight major companies on which the payment crossed Rs 50,000, besides 61 small companies that defaulted on payment of Rs 25,000 each. The authorities said about 92 companies were issued show- cause notices last month, of which, 23 firms cleared their dues for listing, while 69 others failed to meet the guidelines and suspended. The eight major companies were Modi Rubber, Morepan Lab, Nexcon Softech, Nicco Corporation, Ambuja Cement Rajasthan, Prakash Industries, Saurashtra Cement and Suashish Diamonds, the exchange said. The exchange, which is tradeless since last three years with ‘Zero’ business, had 3,800 companies listed but 800 major companies got themselves delisted as per the Sebi guidelines in 2003. Among the 3,000, notices were served to 2,000 more companies and only 1,000 met the listing norms so far. Of the 800 companies, which were delisted, most of them were A Group companies such as Reliance Industries, Infosys, Bajaj Auto, Escorts and ACC. The list has now reduced to almost 2,900 due to liquidations and merger of some companies, the sources said. Surprisingly, the exchange recorded a gain of Rs 3.27 crore in the current fiscal ending March 2005.
— PTI
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Indians talk more, pay less for phone calls, says TRAI
New Delhi, November 11 Comparative data of fastest growing telecom network countries has revealed this startling fact and the figures assume significance as the government had recently hiked the FDI investment to 74 per cent to give a fillip to the growth of this sector. The regulatory body has compared the data of India with much-talked-about country China, city-state of Singapore and Australia. The data indicated that Indians used 287 minutes per month to chat compared to 239 minutes by Singaporeans, 236 minutes by Chinese and only 93 minutes by Australians. In contrast, Indians pay only $8 per month for such high usage compared to $33 by Australians, $32 by Singaporeans and $12 by Chinese, the TRAI data indicated. With such incentives ,the number of subscribers to the telecom network in the country is witnessing a quantum jump every month. The telecom base in the country has jumped to 116 million subscribers with 3.24 million new subscribers joining the fixed and mobile network in October with GSM network being the most preferred amongst the new entrants. TRAI said during the first seven months of this year 18 million subscribers had been added to various networks. For the mobile segment, the regulatory body said 2.90 million subscribers were added in October compared to 2.48 million subscribers in September. The mobile additions consisted of 2.11
million GSM and 0.79 CDMA subscribers as against 1.96 million GSM and 0.52 million CDMA subscribers last month.
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PM to open IITF, 2005
New Delhi, November 11 Uttaranchal is the ‘’partner state’’ while West Bengal is the ‘’focus state’’ in the fair, said ITPO Chairman and Managing Director Nripen Nath Khanna The annual fortnight-long fair, organised by the India Trade Promotion Organisation (ITPO), is expected to be visited by nearly four million persons. More than 7,500 Indian and 360 companies from 33 countries are participating in the mega fair.
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Businesswomen from India on Fortune list
New Delhi, November 11 Besides Mazumdar-Shaw, Chanda Kochar, Executive Director of ICICI Bank, and Vidya Chhabria, Chairman of the Jumbo Group, have secured a place in the list of 50 most powerful businesswomen. Kochar runs the $1.3 billion retail banking business of India’s largest private ICICI Bank. “Three out of five executive board members are women, and 11 more head business. Kochar is the brightest star among them, having increased ICICI’s customer base from two million to 14 million in four years, replacing Citibank as the market leader in credit cards,” Fortune magazine said. Chhabria took over the reins of the $2 billion empire when her husband died three years ago. She has
shifted the company’s focus to its profitable electronics business and this year sold off a 55 per cent stake in Shaw Wallace, an Indian alcoholic beverages company. Another prominent woman of Indian origin, Indra Nooyi, President and Chief Financial Officer, PepsiCo, has occupied 11th place in the list of America’s powerful 50 business women.
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EMC eyes deals in North
Chandigarh, November 11 Talking to The Tribune, Mr Manoj Chugh, President, India and
SAARC, who was in Chandigarh today to kick-off a road show, stated the company is on the verge of clinching a “major deal” in the North. Already, EMC has Quark and Ralson Cycles from the region as key clients. He said that the company was tapping various North Indian governments for e-governance projects and ‘positive signals’ had been received from the Chandigarh Administration and Punjab Government. He, however, ruled out owning space in Chandigarh Technology Park saying that they would rather focus on their local partners (Spectra and Fore) to help make the regional market grow. He said that Chandigarh could address the IT needs of SMEs not only in Punjab but also in Haryana, Himachal and Jammu and Kashmir and that they expect the customer base to triple within a year. “Chandigarh, Ludhiana and Jammu cities hold a lot of promise,” he stated. EMC India is the market leader in storage technology and management devices grossing a market share of 25 per cent with revenue of Rs 106 crore. It has a software development centre in Bangalore, the largest for the company outside the US.
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Nigeria signs $6 b oil deal with India
Abuja, November 11 Nigeria, Africa’s top oil producer, is desperate for foreign investment in its decayed infrastructure to pull its economy out of decades of stagnation. India, where fierce economic growth is driving oil consumption, is keen to secure stakes in oilfields amid fears of a looming global scarcity. Nigeria will give ONGC Mittal Energy Ltd exploration blocks with a potential for large discoveries, and in return the Indian venture will invest up to $6 billion in power, railways, oil refining and agriculture, Minister of State for Petroleum Edmund Daukoru said. ONGC’s overseas arm ONGC Videsh has only recently started producing oil in Russia and hopes to reach 6 lakh bpd worldwide by 2010. “They are targetting raising their production to 6.5 lakh barrels per day. We will give them oil blocks where they have to find that,” Mr Daukoru told Reuters in a hotel lobby shortly after signing the agreement. The oil exploration blocks could be chosen from those that failed to receive bids in a recently-concluded licensing round, he added. The power project in Nigeria would be a coal-fired independent power producer while the railway is meant to travel from the southern oil city of Port Harcourt to Kano 1,000 km to the north. Investments will also cover large-scale agriculture and one refinery, Daukoru said, without elaborating. Investments would be proportional to the scale of oil discoveries under the agreement, and could be lower than $6 billion depending on what is found, he added.
— Reuters
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India, Israel for pact to boost trade
New Delhi, November 11 “The JSG report is forward looking and lays down a vision for the coming years and envisages important steps like moving towards PTA, an agreement on standardisation and conformity assessment, establishing a financial protocol and an investors dialogue,” an official press note said here quoting Commerce Minister Kamal Nath. Trade relations between India and Israel have grown significantly from less than $200
million a decade ago to $2 billion last year. The trade between the two countries is growing at more than 30 per cent.
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Talbros may get Rs 100-cr US export order
Mumbai, November 11
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Indiabulls to develop township in Sonepat
New Delhi, November 11 The company’s real estate arms have entered into the purchase agreements to acquire land in Sonepat (Haryana), about 15 km from Delhi. The area is an upcoming suburb in the NCR, which includes Delhi, Gurgaon and Noida. “Around 56 per cent of the area will be reserved for housing units. Commercial spaces will occupy 4 per cent while 40 per cent will be reserved as per norms for roads, civic amenities and parks,’’ the company said in a statement here. Indiabulls is a retail financial services company providing diverse array of products and services through its nationwide network of over 270 Indiabulls offices located in over 90 cities. Along with its subsidiary companies, Indiabulls offers consumer loans, brokerage and depository services, mutual funds, personal loans, home loans and other financial products and services to retail mass markets.
— UNI
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Daimler sells stake in Mitsubishi to Goldman Sachs
Tokyo/Frankfurt, November 11 The fate of DaimlerChrysler’s reduced ownership of Japan’s only unprofitable car maker had been a subject of speculation after the German-US auto giant refused its former affiliate further financial assistance in April last year. Stuttgart-based Daimler, which still has some close operational tie-ups with MMC such as the joint development of engines and vehicle platform sharing, had repeatedly said it would hold on to its former partner’s stake. The partners said existing projects with the MMC would not be affected by Daimler’s disposal of the shares, adding the companies planned to extend mutually beneficial projects. “Daimler showed good timing with the sale,” said Michael Punzet, an analyst at Landesbank Rheinland-Pfalz. “The money will help offset the financial burden from its planned job cuts,” he added, referring to a planned reduction of 8,500 jobs at the Mercedes group in Germany. DaimlerChrysler said its earnings would also improve, by about Euro 500 million ($590 million), this year from the sale. Goldman Sachs would not comment on the purpose of its purchase of DaimlerChrysler’s 548.372 million MMC shares.
— Reuters
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