New Delhi, January 21
Cars have become costlier with major automobile firms, including Maruti Suzuki India, Hyundai and General Motors, increasing prices this month in order to offset rising input costs.

Maruti Suzuki India (MSI), the country’s largest carmaker, had increased prices by up to Rs 8,000 across models, except its newly launched compact car Alto K10.

“Yes, we did increase the prices from January 17, ranging between 0.5 per cent and 2.2 per cent,” Maruti Suzuki India Managing Executive Officer (Marketing and Sales) Mayank Pareek told PTI.

Except the new hatchback Alto-K10, the hike will translate into an increase of prices between Rs 1,000 and Rs 8,000 across different models made by the company.

Similarly, an official of rival Hyundai Motor India Ltd (HMIL) said it has hiked prices 1.5 per cent from this month for its models, Santro, i10, i20 and sedan Verna.

General Motors India also said it has revised the prices upwards since the first week of this month ranging between 1 per cent and 1.5 per cent.

“This would translate to a price hike ranging between Rs 2,500 and Rs 15,000 across all models,” General Motors India Vice-President P Balendran said.

Comments from Toyota Kirloskar Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra could not be obtained on whether they have hiked prices as well.

On the New Year day, Tata Motors hiked the prices of some its passenger vehicles and all of its commercial vehicles by up to Rs 30,000. While the company increased prices of passenger cars between Rs 3,000 and Rs 15,000, for the commercial vehicles the hike ranged between Rs 1,500 and Rs 30,000.

Almost all the automobile companies had in December said that they would raise prices in January. They had cited rising input costs as reasons for such a move.

“The price of natural rubber, which used to be Rs 100 per kg, has gone up to Rs 200 per kg. Copper price has increased 12-15 per cent and steel has also seen a similar increase,” Pareek had said then. — PTI

New Delhi, January 21
Ruias-led Essar Group today launched a scathing attack on Vodafone saying that the British company is trying to gain 100 per cent control of the telecom joint venture Vodafone-Essar at an ‘artificially depressed value’.

A day after Vodafone complained to market regulator SEBI to probe allegations of insider trading in India Securities Ltd, a listed company of Essar group, Ruias said the British company’s allegations are baseless.

Essar has proposed to merge Essar Telecommications Holdings Private Ltd (ETHPL), which has 11 per cent stake in Vodafone-Essar, with India Securities Ltd in order to find out Fair Market Value of its stake in the joint venture.

Vodafone-Essar is the third largest telecom operator in India with over 124 million mobile subscribers. Vodafone had bought nearly 67 per cent stake from Hutchison in 2007 while Essar holds the remaining stake.

“The merger scheme between India Securities Ltd and ETHPL is fully compliant with all applicable Indian laws, capital and financial sector regulations,” Essar said.

Vodafone, which has sought to intervene in the proceedings governing the merger scheme in the Madras High Court, is neither a shareholder nor a creditor of any of these companies and has no legal capacity to challenge this merger, it said.

Vodafone had objected to the merger saying it would distort the valuation of the joint venture. “It’s (Vodafone’s) objections to the merger are motivated and factually incorrect. The purpose behind raising these objections is to prevent the discovery of the fair market value of Vodafone-Essar, as envisaged in the agreements between Vodafone and Essar,” Essar said.

Last year when the Essar group wanted to list Vodafone Essar by offering its shares through an IPO, Vodafone ensured that move did not go through and no market value could be established, Essar said.

Vodafone, Ruias said, is attempting to force Essar out of joint venture (JV) and own 100 per cent of the Vodafone-Essar at an artificially depressed value. — PTI

Mumbai, January 21
Corporate giant Reliance Industries today reported a 28.14 per cent rise in its third-quarter net profit at Rs 5,136 crore, helped by robust performance in its refining and petrochemicals businesses.

The turnover rose by about six per cent to Rs 62,399 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2010, from Rs 58,848 crore in the year-ago period.

Commenting on the results, RIL Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani said: "Reliance had another record quarter as both refining and petrochemical margins continued to improve and certain products recorded historic levels." "Robust demand growth in home markets and highly competitive assets enabled Reliance to have industry leading operating rates and margins," he added.

The company said its turnover for the nine-month period ended December 31, 2010 rose by 31 per cent to Rs 183,368 crore, with higher sales volumes and increased prices each accounting over 15 per cent of revenue growth.

Exports for the nine-month period rose by 29.2 per cent to Rs 100,995 crore.

RIL shares today ended the day with a gain of 1.73 per cent at Rs 986.50 a piece on the BSE.

While the results were announced after the market closed, analysts said that the shares appreciated in expectations of a good set of results.

Commenting on other businesses, RIL said its subsidiary Reliance Retail continued to expand presence of its specialty formats, as well as its various joint ventures, during the quarter.

Total expenditure rose to Rs 53,603 crore in the latest quarter, from Rs 51,807 crore in the quarter ended December 31, 2009. — PTI

Bangalore, January 21
IT major Wipro today reported 10 per cent increase in consolidated net profit at Rs 1,319 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, 2010, compared with the corresponding quarter in 2009, the company said in a statement. The profit grew 2.3 per cent sequentially.

For the fourth quarter ending March 31, 2011, Wipro expects revenues from IT services business to be in the range of $ 1,384-1,411 million, an increase of 3-5 per cent.

Wipro chairman Azim Premji Friday admitted that his company under performed during the third quarter (Oct-Dec) of this fiscal (2010-11) and grew slower than its peers like Infosys Technologies and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).

“I don’t think we should be making excuses. We have under performed in quarter three relative to competition and relative to our potential as a company. What we are trying to do is to improve performance in quarter four and further going forward,” Premji told reporters here.

Premji said while TCS and Infosys were growing faster than Wipro, the performance of even Cognizant for the quarter stood out for its faster growth pace.

Amritsar, January 21
Punjab’s textile business is facing a severe shortage of technically-skilled hands as technical educational institutes in the state are churning out students taught obsolete courses.

A large number of units in the small and medium category have shifted to computerised rapier shuttle-less looms over the last decade. These units now grapple with shortage of technicals hands and engineers to operate and mend these looms. These computer-operated looms can weave yarn like Cotton, Polyester, Silk, Span, Nylon and produce international standard clothes. Large industries in the state have turned to state-of-the-art dobby and shuttle-less looms.

PL Seth, president, Shawl Club of India, said the industry badly needed skilled technicians. He rued that the textile institute was churning out students guided by obsolete curriculum and courses. He said it created a demand and supply gap and put future of students in jeopardy.

The shawl and stole exports of India is Rs 600 crore. Of this, Amritsar’s contribution alone is estimated at Rs 150 crore. Majority of these items are exported to the UK, USA, Canada and West Asia.

Seth observed that post 2001, local manufacturers have upgraded technology regularly. However, the state government had failed in upgrading the curriculum and introducing new courses in the ITIs.

He felt that outdated courses were being taught in these institutions, while private institutes have not evinced interest in these fields.

There were about 300 computerised shuttle looms for shawls, 500 looms for suitings, shirtings, blankets and tweeds, besides 5,000 embroidery machines in Amritsar only.

VK Sharma, Director, Technical Education, said keeping this in view the state government was setting up the Punjab Institute of Textile Technology and Research at Ludhiana, which would start courses from the next academic session. He informed that the industry has been involved in the institute, while the Punjab Technical University would run it. He added there was no plan to upgrade the curricula of Textile and Technology institute in Amritsar.

Bangalore, January 21
The Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIM-B), the Robert H Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland (Smith) and the School of Management, Zhejiang University (Zhejiang, China), have jointly announced the launch of a global senior management program that will have business leaders travelling to each country to learn successful innovation in each market.

The program titled ‘Technology and Innovation Leadership Beyond Borders’ consists of a series of three international business education and professional development training at each of the three institutions, networking and group activities for participating executives, and the granting of a certificate to each successful participant. The three institutions will jointly deliver high-quality training of international standard and will share in the effort, expenses, and revenues for the planning and delivery of the programme.

Pankaj Chandra, director, IIMB, said, the programme will feature three areas with each of the partner schools focusing on one area. IIMB will focus on services, Smith on innovation and creativity, and Zhejiang on manufacturing.

“For the participant this will translate into a comprehensive exposure to managing in a global business environment in a more effective manner,” he said.

G Anand Anandalingam, dean of the Robert H. Smith School of Business, said, “as strong partner institutions, we want to offer business leaders in the US, China and India the opportunity to experience the unique strengths of each market and the best way to do that is to give managers an on-the-ground look at the way businesses operates and why they succeed.”

“The joint program has integrated the world’s top teaching resources, which will spare no effort in cultivating senior managers with a global strategic vision and a comprehensive decision-making ability. The managers here can master the core concepts in management, improve the quality of self-management, interpret the management issues with a global vision and become outstanding leaders in business arena”, executive dean, School of Management, Zhejiang University, Xiaobo Wu said

The programme, which is designed as three one-week segments, will kick-off in Maryland in June 2011, with a week focusing on managerial and creative innovation. The second phase - manufacturing innovation - will take place in Zhejiang, China in September 2011. The programme will culminate with a service innovation module in Bangalore in January 2012.

BRIEFLY

New South Wales woos investors
Chandigarh: New South Wales in Australia is now wooing businessmen from the region for investing in their state. Rohit Manchanda, director, trade and investment, said in 2010, they had attracted investment worth Australian $615 million, from all over India. The state is looking at pharmaceutical and information communication technology industry in Chandigarh, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh for setting up projects there. — TNS

IFFCO chairman
Chandigarh: NP Patel has been unanimously elected new chairman of Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Ltd. (IFFCO). — TNS

Tata Steel FPO
Mumbai: The follow-on public offer (FPO) of Tata Steel garnered a smart response from the investors, with the issue getting over-subscribed 5.97 times on the final day. — PTI