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April 25, 2001, Chandigarh, India   
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Hind Lever net leaps 20.7 pc
Govt open to JPC on scam
Slowdown not to rattle India: Unctad India slips in global competitiveness Plan to merge
IFCI, IDBI |
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Car sales fall in March ABB net
higher at Rs 4.7 cr CORPORATE
NEWS Ashok Leyland net
beats forecasts
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Mumbai, April 24 After including a one time exceptional income of Rs 22.59 crore on account of profit arising from the transfer of interest in the animal feeds business to the Godrej group, the net profit goes up by 29.3 per cent to Rs 339.53 crore, HLL said in a release after the Board meeting. The turnover (net of excise) grew by 1.1 per cent to Rs 2,642.51 crore while sales of domestic fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) products grew by 2.6 per cent. The Board has approved amalgamation of International Best Foods, which was a subsidiary with a 83.36 per cent stake, and Aviance Ltd, a 100 per cent subsidiary, with it effective from January 1, 2001. The Board proposes to obtain shareholdes approval to an employee stock option scheme for managerial employees, in accordance with Sebi (ESOP and employee stock purchase scheme) guidelines, 1999, the release said. An agreement has been entered into with the ICI group, for a joint venture for Quest division of flavours and fragrant business, which would be sold to one of its subsidiaries effective April 1, 2001. Thereafter, the company’s holding in the subsidiary would be diluted to 49 per cent with the ICI group holding 51 per cent equity, after shareholder and other statutory approvals. To synchronise the shareholder meetings to approve the amalgamation with the annual general meeting, the company will now hold the AGM on June 22. Other income grew from Rs 90.01 crore to Rs 102.20 crore. The results include an estimated business restructuring cost of Rs 6.25 crore charged in the quarter, compared to Rs 30 crore in the same period of last year. The company would review such costs each quarter on the basis of estimated annual spends and necessary adjustments would be suitably made and disclosed, the release added. Chairman M.S. Banga said HLL intends to reinvest a portion of the exceptional income from the divestments of joint venture with Godrej Avrovet in respect of animal feeds business and the other with the ICI group to fortify its competitive position in the FMCG sector specially in personal and fabric wash and oral care. Swap ratio
The HLL Board has proposed a swap ratio of 3:2 (for three equity shares of
IBL of Rs 10 each, two fully paid shares of Re 1 each of HLL), the company said. However, no share exchange ratio has been proposed for Aviance in view of its status as 100 per cent subsidiary of the company and the fact that consequent to the merger, the entire shareholding stand cancelled. Steps are now being taken to obtain the approval of shareholders and the Mumbai High Court. The Boards of
IBL, in which HLL has 83.36 per cent stake, and Aviance similarly approved the merger proposal and swap ratio. HLL
said the final dividend of Rs 2 per share for 2000, subject to approval by members at the annual general meeting, would be paid on June 23, a day after the
AGM. PTI
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Govt open to JPC on scam New Delhi, April 24 Replying to supplementary questions in the Rajya Sabha, Mr Yashwant Sinha said the government has no objection in holding a probe into the recent stock market crisis. As far as the JPC is concerned the government would have no objection, if Parliament so decided,” he said. “I think Parliament will have to decide as to how many JPCs we want,” he said referring to the Opposition demand for the JPC on several issues, including tehelka expose. Mr Sinha refuted charges that there was any delay by the Income Tax Department in conducting raids at the premises of Chairman of Central Board of Excise and Customs
B. P. Verma and senior Customs officials saying “the department has to do very solid preparation before conducting searches”. “There was no deriliction of duty, no delay and no loss of time,” he asserted. The Minister said the government has already decided to introduce rolling settlement in all stock exchanges from July 2 and providing more teeth to market regulator by amending the Sebi Act. The government would come out with an action taken report on Sebi’s findings in the preliminary investigations into the payorder scam in the stock market. The scam would, however, not affect foreign investments as the crisis was temporary.
Tax collection
Direct tax collections in the country have been adversely affected due to volatility in the capital market, huge VRS outgo from banks and lesser payment of advance tax by many top companies, Rajya Sabha was told. Yashwant Sinha said in a written reply that these factors had lead to decline in total revenues to Rs 1.55 lakh crore during the first 11 months of last fiscal year as against Rs 1.98 lakh crore target set in revised estimate for the entire 2000-01 fiscal year. Madhavpura: Investigations carried by the RBI have established that Madhavpura Mercantile Cooperative Bank, Ahmedabad, had granted unauthorised credit facilities to companies and firms connected with stock brokers to the tune of about Rs 1,030 crore. The funds were released by the cooperative bank disregarding RBI regulations and norms of not granting advances to stock brokers, Sinha said. The bank had also raised Rs 197 crore from various banks in the call money market to meet its payments.
PTI
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Slowdown not to rattle India: Unctad New Delhi, April 24 The strong prospects of the country’s economy are underpinned by the huge agricultural sector, which stands to benefit from moves to reform price-control policies and stimulate domestic trade in agricultural products, the report said. Export-oriented manufacturing sectors are also expected to benefit from a relaxation of the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) regime in special economic zones and robust expansion of the Information, Communication and Technology sector will support service activities, the report observed. Rather than pulling up strongly together as many expected six months ago, the leading economies have all been heading
towards, following a sharp slowdown in the United States. With the emerging markets still vulnerable to economic shocks, the downside risks facing the world economy are mounting. Bolder policies among all the major economies will be needed to stop the global situation deteoriating further, the report cautioned. According to the Report European growth peaked about the same time as in the US, and some of the big European economies have been relying heavily on exports for their growth stimulus. The Report concludes that “without determined change in
economic policy, growth in the European Union is unlikely to reach 3 per cent in the current year, and it may be much lower.
India slips in global competitiveness New Delhi, April 24 In its latest ranking, Swiss-based management development organisation IMD has accorded 41st ranking to India for 2001 as against 39th in 2000, a National Productivity Council release said here. The USA continued to remain the most competitive nation followed by Singapore and China stood at 33 position, down by three points compared to 2000 ranking. However, India has secured first rank in criteria like availability of IT skills qualified engineers, personal income tax rate and social security contributions by both employers and employees. Interestingly, India occupied an enviable sixth rank in terms of its fiscal policy. In contrast, the country was placed almost at the bottom of the list vis-a-vis infrastructure maintenance and development, cellular mobile telephone subscribers, telephone lines, over productivity. India also figures poorly in terms of overall productivity, ranking sector assets, productivity in industry coustomer satisfactions. National Productivity Council (NPC) was the partner institution for Lausanne based IMD which ranks nations using 286 criteria based on hard data and executive opinion servey.
PTI
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Plan to merge
IFCI, IDBI New Delhi, April 24 Emerging out of a meeting with chiefs of IFCI and IDBI Banking Secretary Devi Dayal said the meeting reviewed the implementation of the D Basu Committee report which had suggested merger of the two institutions as one of options. The committee has recommended ways and
means for recasting IFCI. “ The merger issue was not discussed specifically as the meeting was not to discuss the merger issue”, Mr Dayal said. If the merger plan goes through, it would give birth to a mega institution with a combined equity base of Rs 1,299.05 crore. While IFCI’s equity stands at Rs 639.52 crore, that of IDBI stands at Rs 659.53 crore. The merger plan has emanated from the request of IFCI for a Rs 400 crore bail-out package by the government. Today’s meeting, convened by the Banking Secretary and attended by IFCI Chairman PN Narasimhan, IDBI Chairman SK Chakraborty and senior officials from the Finance Ministry, discussed the debt repayment obligations of IFCI and the measures required to shore up its
capital base.
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Car sales fall in March New Delhi, April 24 All the major car makers like Maruti, TELCO, Daewoo and Hindustan Motors recorded negative growth in sales during the month, Total sales stood at 65,107 units over 73,089 units sold in the year-ago month, figures released by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) showed today. During fiscal 2000, car sales declined by 7.4 per cent to 5.9 lakh units from 6.38 lakh units in the previous fiscal. Maruti’s car sales fell by 6.7 per cent to 38,961 units over 41,766 units sold in March 2000. Two-wheeler sales fell by 11.3 per cent at 3.46 lakh units in March 2001 over 3.91 lakh units in the same month last year. Scooter sales declined by 25.6 per cent month-on-month to 80,344 units from 10.7 lakh units with Bajaj Auto, LML and TV-Suzuki registering a 30 per cent, 39 per cent and 27.6 per cent drop in sales. However, motorcycles sales increased by 3.8 per cent at 2.12 lakh units in March 2001 over 2.05 lakh units on the back of a 35.1 per cent rise in sales by market leader Hero Honda. Total motorcycles sales during fiscal 2000 stood at 21.56 lakh units, up 20 per cent over 17.96 lakh units sold during 1999-2000. Sales of mopeds also went down by 31.4 per cent to 53,469 lakh units in March 2001 over 78,019 lakh units last year. In the car segment, sales of Daewoo Motors India Ltd fell by a massive 63.2 per cent to 2,287 cars in March 2001. Daewoo’s sales during fiscal 2000 however, went up by 6.8 per cent at 42,960 cars. Hyundai Motor India posted an 18.7 per cent rise at 10,008 cars due to an improved export performance during March this year. Hyundai’s sales year-on-year went up by 14.2 per cent at 86,719 units. Sales of Telco, fell 27.7 per cent to 5,298 cars in March this year. During fiscal 2000, it sold 44,545 cars (55,758 cars previous fiscal). General Motors India (GMI) and Ford India recorded a 39 per cent and 25 per cent rise in sales at 1,056 units and 2,655 cars during the reference month. Hindustan Motors (HM) and Honda Siel Cars’ India (HSCI) sales fell by 25 per cent and three per cent respectively at 2,853 units and 1,271 units during march 2001. Car sales of Fiat India fell by a whopping 60 per cent during march 2001 at 630 units. Its fiscal 2000 sales also dropped by 54.8 per cent to 9,370 cars. Mercedes Benz sold 88 cars, down 33 per cent over 117 cars sold in march last year. During fiscal 2000, its sales fell by 20 per cent to 716 cars. However, Mahindra and Mahindra and Telco recorded a 27.6 per cent and 2.1 per cent decline in sales respectively.
PTI |
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ABB net
higher at Rs 4.7 cr Mumbai, April 24 The total income for Q1 stood at Rs 204 crore as compared to Rs 151.8 crore in the corresponding period last fiscal, up by 34.39 per cent, ABB said in a release here today. The company’s provision for taxation for the reporting quarter was to the tune of Rs 1.3 crore as against nil in MQ 2000. ABB’s recent realignment along customer-centric lines to provide a single window approach for customers would now allow it to further leverage the customer base and increase market penetration.
UNI
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Ashok Leyland net beats forecasts Chennai, April 24 The net profit rose to Rs 916.81 million ($19.56 million) or Rs 7.71 per share, from 784.86 million or Rs 6.60 per share a year earlier. After adjusting a special inventory credit in the previous year, the profit showed a whopping growth of over 72 per cent. VISUALSOFT TECHNOLOGIES has posted a net profit of Rs 61.78 crore for the year ended March 31, 2001, registering a growth of 116.87 per cent over Rs. 28.38 crore in the previous year. The total income stood at Rs 135.60 crore, representing a 93 per cent increase compared to Rs 70.23 crore last year. FII’S INVESTMENT IN SATYAM: The RBI today notified that no further purchases of equity shares of Satyam Computer should be made on behalf of FIIs in the primary/secondary markets without obtaining a prior clearance of the RBI and FIIs aggregate net purchases of equity shares of the company had reached the limit of 38 per cent. WOCKHARDT has reported a 13.07 per cent rise in the net profit at Rs 17.3 crore for the first quarter ended March 31, 2001, compared to Rs 15.3 crore in same period of previous year. Income from operations in Q1 was up by 17.59 per cent at Rs 130.3 crore as against Rs 110.8 crore in the corresponding period of last year. HINDUSTAN PAPER CORPORATION has posted a net profit of Rs 12.87 crore last financial year. Hindustan Newsprint, a subsidiary of HPC, has achieved a surplus of Rs 27.95 crore before tax during the period provisional results reveal. TIPS INDUSTRIES has signed a three year exclusive licensing deal with global music conglomerate Warner Electra Atlantic International. The agreement gives Tips rights to manufacture and market Warner and its affiliate’s like Warner Brother Records, Atlantic Records, Elektra Entertainment group throughout India and its neighbouring countries. MARICO INDUSTRIES (MIL) has reported a 28 per cent rise in the net profit at Rs 45.63 crore for the year ended March 31, 2001, compared to Rs 35.73 crore in same period of previous fiscal. The Board has recommended a final dividend of 60 per cent taking the total for the year to 100 per cent. TVS SUZUKI today reported a 29.8 per cent decline in the net profit to Rs 61 crore in 2000-01 as against a net profit of Rs 87 crore in the previous year. The company attributed the fall in the net profit to increased marketing expenses. Company turnover rose 15 per cent to Rs 1,868 crore from the previous year’s turnover of Rs 1,626 crore.
Agencies |
cr
Microsoft, CNBC plan joint site Intel introduces fastest chip Mobiles to become a real wind-up |
bb
Druckgrafen CII energy meet Maruti helpline Whirlpool AC Insurance portal |
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