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Chevron to pick up 5 pc stake in RPL for $300 m
Rel WebWorld during day, BPO at night
Simplified IT law in offing
JCT Group to invest Rs 300 cr in Punjab
Toyota recalls 57,000 Lexus cars
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Airtel signs pact with Bridge Mobile
Singapore courts Punjab tourists
India, Kabul ink pact to boost trade
Cyprus beckons Indian investors
Goldman Sachs’ picks up stake in HFCL
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Chevron to pick up 5 pc stake in RPL for $300 m
Mumbai, April 12 The purchase, subject to approvals from the regulatory authorities, would be made by Chevron India Holdings Pte Ltd, Singapore, a wholly owned subsidiary of Chevron Corporation, RIL said today. The announcement comes a day ahead of the opening of RPL’s IPO to raise nearly Rs 8,370 crore. RPL, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries, is building a Rs 27,000- crore refinery in Jamnagar in Gujarat. Announcing the agreement under which Chevron would pick a 5 per cent stake in RPL and signing of two other MoUs, RIL Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani said: “The agreement and the MoUs between Chevron and Reliance will be the first step in establishing a strong partnership with one of the world’s largest and most respected companies.” The agreement provides Chevron with the option to increase the stake to 29 per cent in RPL. Of the two MoUs, the first sets out the principles of partnership by which the company and Chevron plan to optimise the crude supply and product offtake and marketing of the RPL refinery. Besides, RIL and Chevron would jointly evaluate application of mutually selected refinery technology. The other MoU envisages cooperation between the two to set up a technology development centre in the country. “We are very pleased to have forged this relationship with Reliance... This underscores the importance of Asia to Chevron generally and India specifically,” Chevron Chairman and Chief Executive Office Dave O’Reilly said in a joint statement issued by RIL. The 27 million tonnes per annum refinery, located in the Jamnagar SEZ is being set up for exports. Reliance Petroleum plans to convert the bulk of gasoline from its proposed SEZ refinery into high octane gasoline and export it to the US. Petrol and diesel will make up for 80 per cent of the products produced by Reliance Petroleum. Typically, 70 per cent of the output will constitute auto fuels. Earlier in the day, company officials said RPL was likely to list on stock exchanges between May 5-10. The company has fixed a price band of Rs 57-62 for the public offer, which is hitting the market tomorrow to raise about Rs 8,370 crore. Mukesh Ambani has emerged as the second largest shareholder in RPL after Reliance Industries, according to the final prospectus filed by Reliance Petroleum. The shares are held by Mukesh Ambani-owned Fidelity Shares and Securities Pvt Ltd, which owns 2.38 per cent of RPL shares. — PTI, UNI
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Rel WebWorld during day, BPO at night
Chandigarh, April 12 After a successful pilot project in Hyderabad and Meerut, where BPOs are now operational, Reliance WebWorld has decided to offer its 22 WebWorlds (12 in Punjab, seven in Haryana and three in Chandigarh) for setting up small BPOs. The cyber cafe- cum- coffee shop chain will rent out its premises for 10 hours at night (10 am to 8 am) for running the call centre or BPO. Senior officials in the company said that any entrepreneur can hire a Reliance WebWorld’s ready infrastructure without bothering about capital expenditure. Since Reliance WebWorlds are registered with special approval to operate 24x7 as an IT-enabled service, the BPOs will be saved of the hassles in getting licences from Labour department for operation at night. “To operate from the WebWorld, one has to hire a minimum of 12 seats, and will have to pay Rs 9,000 per month for every seat (around Rs 1 lakh for the operation). The number of PCs in each WebWorld in the region vary from 15 to 42. Additionally entrepreneurs have the flexibility of not being bound by any contract for a specific time period. They can use it for a month or they can use it for three months and discontinue,” said a top official in the Punjab, Haryana and Himachal circle. At present, Reliance WebWorld’s are open between 10 am and 10 pm, catering to Internet surfers, e-mail users, travelling salespersons, gamers, video-conferencing, for e-learning classes and “uplinking” television journalists or for all-night gaming. Company officials say that they found a demand from small call centres and BPO operations that land temporary assignments but do not want to expand their facilities. They say that they are looking at BPOs who have spill- over work from peak hour traffic, for which they want temporary reinforcements and facilities.
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Simplified IT law in offing
Nagpur, April 12 Indicating this, Finance Minister P Chidamabaram today said four working groups set up to provide inputs for
drafting a new income tax legislation would submit their reports by this month-end. The Finance Minister had announced in last year’s budget that a new comprehensive Income Tax Bill would be drafted by 2005-end to replace the archaic law as part of tax reforms. However, this got delayed a bit and the working group was now in the process of giving finishing touches to their reports. Addressing a function of the National Academy of Direct Taxes (NADT) here, he also stressed up on the need for change in attitude while dealing with taxpayers. Later at a discussion, Mr Chidambaram also emphasised the government’s commitment to attract more foreign direct investment (FDI). “FDI is nothing but savings of other countries. In our country, savings is to the tune of 29 per cent (of GDP) and these savings can be invested in public and private sectors. Savings bring investments, (and) investments bring more jobs and prosperity,” he said. If the country has to push up its growth rate by 1 or 2 per cent to achieve 9-10 per cent economic growth, India’s savings rate of 29 per cent and investment rate of 31 per cent need to be pushed up by 3 to 4 per cent. This additional 3 to 4 per cent could come only by attracting FDI, which is nothing but savings of other countries.
— PTI
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JCT Group to invest Rs 300 cr in Punjab
New Delhi, April 12 “We are raising Rs 300 crore for modernising and augmenting JCT businesses in Punjab, both cotton fabric and nylon yarn plants at Phagwara and Hoshiarpur. For this, we have issued $30 million (approximately Rs 134 crore) of unsecured five year FCCBs with a coupon of 2.5 per annum payable on a semi-annual basis,” said Mr Samir Thapar, Vice-President and Managing Director of the company. The FCCBs would be convertible at an initial conversion price of Rs 14.80 per share, and would be listed at the BSE. In addition, JCT was also raising approximately Rs 170 crore from Indian banks under the technology upgradation fund that entitled the company to an interest subsidy of 5 per cent per annum on all loans used to modernise its facilities. JCT Electronics Ltd, another company of the Thapar Group, which had a colour picture tube manufacturing plant at Mohali, has shifted its production to Gujarat. Its other operations include filament yarn, steel wires and wire ropes, and overseas operations include a textile mill in Malaysia and offices in Singapore and Dubai. Mr Thapar said the company’s
tie-up with Nike had driven the company to set up a manufacturing facility for 100 per cent synthetic fabrics in nylon and polyester. This project would be the first of its kind in India, he said, and help the group integrate its nylon yarn business. JCT was also planning to set up a grassroots nylon plant with a chips making capacity of 45 MT per day and yarn spinning capacity of 12 MT per day. This would increase its total capacity for chip making to 90 MT per day and yarn making to 57 MT per day. The annual capacity at the filament plant after the proposed expansion would be around 31,000 MT, and was expected to become operational by mid 2007-08. The company, which employs over 7000 employees at its plants in Phagwara and
Hoshiarpur, is also planning to add manpower for additional capacity. Once all these projects were commissioned, said Mr Thapar, JCT hoped to double its turnover and triple EBIDTA from the existing levels. To meet its growing demand for power and to bring down costs, he said, the company had recently commissioned a 5 MW rice-husk based captive power plant at its textile facility in Phagwara. The construction of a 6 MW rice husk-based captive power plant was under way at the nylon yarn plant in Hoshiarpur and was expected to become operational by September.
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Toyota recalls 57,000 Lexus cars
Tokyo, April 12 Toyota would replace seat belts in both front seats, which could become jammed inside the holding due to a faulty part, it said. No accidents had been reported due to the defect, it said. It did not disclose estimated recall costs.
— Reuters
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Airtel signs pact with Bridge Mobile
New Delhi, April 12 “Regional services of the alliance will be available to all Airtel customers when they are on roaming in the APAC region, as well as to international roamers from member operators of the BMA,’’ Airtel (Mobility) Joint President Sanjay Kapoor said here. The services include bridge Roaming, prepaid, enterprise and Bridge Conceirge. “We will increase the number of bridge prepaid top-up counters in India from three to 50 and also plan to extend the bridge conceirge services in India to 10 cities from the existing three,’’ Mr Kapoor said. Bridge Mobile CEO Patrick Sim said the BMA would invest up to $40 million over the next three years to build and establish a shared mobile infrastructure and to deliver a wider range of regional mobile services. The BMA is a current partnership of eight leading operators in APAC — Airtel (India), CSL (Hong Kong), Globe Telecom (Philippines), Maxis (Malaysia), SingTel Mobile (Singapore), SingTel Optus (Australia), Taiwan Mobile (Taiwan) and Telkomsel (Indonesia).
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Singapore courts Punjab tourists
Ludhiana, April 12 “In the first two months of this year, there was a 40 per cent growth in comparison to last year in the number of tourists who went from this part of India to Singapore. We are expecting a double-digit growth in visitor traffic this year,” Ms Siew Kheng, Director, International Relations, Singapore Tourism Board (STB) said. Ms Kheng said visitor arrivals from the state in 2005 were 6,000, which was 52 per cent higher compared to the previous year. “The growth is encouraging, particularly from cities of Ludhiana, Amritsar and Jalandhar. To further this growth, the STB has come out with attractive offers for travel agents and packages for visitors, and events to generate awareness among people.” While visits for leisure capture 60 per cent of the total, business visits are growing rapidly and hold a 30 per cent share in the number of tourists visiting Singapore. “Apart from promoting the country as a destination for leisure, we now aim to market it as a place that can be a destination for healthcare, good education and most importantly, business. The infrastructure to hold conferences, seminars and business events is quite strong and STB is keen on promoting the same.”
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India, Kabul ink pact to boost trade
New Delhi, April 12 Mr Karzai, on his state visit to India, is particularly interested in attracting more investments and companies into Afghanistan. With this latest MoU between CII and AISA, frequency of activities, seminars, courses, road shows for promotion of Indian investment in different centres of India and conferences are set to intensify.
— UNI
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Cyprus beckons Indian investors
New Delhi, April 12 Speaking at an interactive session organised by the CII, FICCI and Assocham here today, Mr Papadopoulos invited Indian investors to invest in his country. He said that despite deep wounds inflicted by the Turkish invasion in 1974 the people of Cyprus had “since then performed an economic miracle which had led to Cyprus getting a membership of the Europian Union since May, 2001.” He said that his country was mostly known for its services sector and it needed a lot of investment in technology, innovation and research. This was a business opportunity for India as Cyprus provided a gateway to the markets of Europe.
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