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India’s economic growth may slide down to 6.3 pc United Nations, April 15 The rate of world economic growth is expected to go up to 3.7 per cent up from last year’s 2.6 per cent but a slowdown is forecast in the second half of year leading to decrease in growth to 3.4 per cent next year.
Infosys plans $12 m for consultancy arm
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New Delhi, April 15 The Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) will soon launch unit linked products in the market that will enable the investors to get returns based on the market risks, said Mr S.B. Mathur, Chairman LIC here today. Chairman of National Hydroelectric Power Limited, Yogendera Prasad (left), shows the documents with Chairman of Life Insurance Corporation, S. B. Mathur, after a memorandum of understanding was signed between NHPC and LIC in New Delhi on Thursday. — PTI photo
Govt nod to two more firms for trial of BT cotton
Samtel approves preferential allotment to ICICI Ventures Samtel Color Ltd (SCL), the country’s largest colour picture tube manufacturer, has decided to make preferential allotment of compulsorily partly convertible debentures worth Rs 50 crore and issue 1.25 million warrants to ICICI Ventures.
Stop selling our drugs, Ranbaxy warns website
Zee Telefilms net Rs 310.17 cr
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India’s economic growth may slide down to 6.3 pc Dharam Shourie United Nations, April 15 The projections were given today by 100 leading economists from 60 countries now meeting at the United Nations. The growth for India is projected to come down from 6.5 per cent last year to 6.3 per cent this year and to 6.1 per cent next year. China too is expected see downward trend with its growth declining from 9.5 per cent last year to 8.5 per cent this year and 8.2 per cent next year. The economists are meeting under project LINK, a non-governmental international research group, that integrates independently developed national economic models into a global projection. It is jointly coordinated by the UN’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs and the Project LINK Research Centre at the University of Toronto. LINK anticipates annual growth of better than 4.5 per cent in 2004 in the US, moderating to a little over 3.5 per cent in 2005. The growth in Japan is projected to be a little over 3 per cent in 2004, and then easing off to 2 per cent in 2005. But the rate of growth in Europe is expected to rise to almost 2.5 per cent next year from this year’s figure of slightly below two per cent. “The key challenge for policymakers worldwide is to achieve, to the maximum extent possible, more balanced global growth and, at the same time, to control the downside risks so as to avoid a reversal”, LINK said. However, it said the conditions across regions and countries that favour a buoyant economy “are almost ubiquitous”: low interest rates, low inflation, rising equity markets and increased demand leading to increased trade and cross-border investment. The combination is providing a “welcome” opportunity for many developing economies in Africa, Asia and Latin America to pull out of the slowdown they experienced in the early part of the decade. Financial flows to
developing world, the report said, are picking up and net capital flows
to developing countries since mid-2003 have increased “significantly”,
thus finally reversing the downward trend that followed the Asian
financial crisis of 1997-98. — PTI |
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Infosys plans $12 m for consultancy arm
New Delhi, April 15 “We will bring the power of the global delivery model (GDM)
to high-value services such as consulting and system integration. With
this objective we formed Infosys Consulting Inc, which will see the
evolution of new consulting paradigm”, CEO, president and Managing
Director of Infosys Technologies Ltd, Mr Nandan Nilekani told
newspersons here. He said Infosys Consulting Inc has been set up to
offer a new consulting alternative to businesses using traditional
consulting firms. “For current Infosys clients, it presents an
additional way to use the global delivery model to their fullest
advantage”, Mr Nilekani said. “We cannot say when the Infosys
Consulting will get its first client but we expect to sign the
memorandum this year,” he said. Mr Nilekani said that Infosys will
invest $ 11 million to $ 12 million in its consultancy business this
year. Infosys Consulting Inc is being headed by CEO Stephen Pratt, who
has moved from Deloitte Consulting, where he was heading that customer
relationship management (CRM) practice. In addition, presently there
are three additional managing directors in Infosys Consulting Inc. The
are Romi Bahl, Raj Joshi and Paul Cole. While Mr Bahl is a former
vice-president of the consulting services at the Electronic Data Systems
Corp, Mr Joshi was formerly with the Deloitte Consulting group, where he
was the CEO of the Offshore Technology Group. Mr Cole was formerly
heading the CRM practice of Cap Gemini Ernst and Young. The company
plans to hire 75 professionals this year and plans to increase the head
count to 500 within a period of three years. “By making GDM (global
delivery management) mainstream we have shifted the battle to our
battlefield. It has become a global outsourcing standard and has helped
us create and perfect the science of global project management”, Mr
Nilekani said. By setting up Infosys Consulting, Infosys is aiming to
counter competition from consulting and technology services companies
like Accenture, EDS, IBM Global Services, which have set up services
delivery operations in India to take advantage of the country’s low-cost
technical manpower.
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Seeks more freedom in hedging
H “We are in discussions with RBI to allow us
greater freedom in hedging. Currently, we are allowed to hedge up to 50
per cent of the previous year’s revenues but that is not enough. If
regulations allow we can hedge our net foreign exchange for the entire
year. But regulations in India do not,” Mr Nandan Nilekani told
newspersons. — PTI |
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LIC gives 6,500-cr loan to NHPC Tribune News Service New Delhi, April 15 He was speaking to the media persons, after signing an MoU with the NHPC Chairman-cum-Managing Director Yogendra Prasad for a Rs 6,500 crore line of credit. He said the LIC will launch shortly four new schemes. He admitted that after the fall in interest rates, the investors were looking for new products. Keeping in this view, the LIC will offer products to its investors in the next few months, where a part of their premium will be invested in the equity. The cut in interest rates have also hit the LIC by about one point on an average, to 8.5 to 9 per cent. But it had commitments to pay about 6 per cent interest rates to its customers. Regarding the closure of assured return schemes, Mr Mathur said,” In the changed scenario we are not in a position to offer high returns.Now the returns would be linked to the government securities and the customers will have to bear the risk of the market.” During last financial year, Mr Mathur said,” the corporation had invested about 9 per cent of its funds in the equity market, and 50-60 per cent in the government securities and about 15 per cent in the infrastructure projects.This year,the LIC has plans to increase its exposure to the equity market.” Cashing on the recent boom in the share market, he
said, the LIC had earned over Rs 300 crore. The LIC has plans to
increase its exposure in the equity market this year, besides
investments in the road,power and other infrastructure projects. |
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Govt nod to two more firms for trial of BT cotton
New Delhi, April 15 The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee, an apex
body under the Ministry of Environment and Forests, allowed Ankur Seeds
and Rasi Seeds to conduct large-scale trials for the four BT cotton
varieties each containing Cry 1 Ac gene. The varieties of Rasi seeds,
which intend to cover central, south and northern cotton producing areas
are RCH 118 BT, RCH 359 BT, RCH 368 BT and RCH 317 BT for Punab, Haryana
and Rajasthan. Similarly, the Ankur Seeds company’s four BT cotton
varieties got the permission for trials which area Ankur 651 BT and
Ankur 2534 BT for north zone, Ankur 651 BT and Ankur 09 BT for central
zone. |
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Samtel approves preferential allotment
New Delhi, Apr 15 The move would further strengthen the company’s financial structure, Samtel CMD Satish Kaura said today. “It would enable us to implement our growth strategies effectively and also help us leverage our equity partner’s strengths in such growth opportunities,” he added. The compulsorily partly convertible debentures aggregating Rs 50 crore will carry a coupon of 7 per cent till the date of conversion. They would be converted to 5.882 million shares on May 15, 2005, at a price computed on the audited results of FY05. The floor price for conversion would be computed as per SEBI guidelines while the cap would be restricted to Rs 85 per share. Following the complete conversion of the instruments into fresh shares, Mr Kaura said, the company’s equity capital will increase by 17 per cent to Rs 47.68 crore. ICICI Ventures will hold 14.96 per cent
equity stake in SCL, promoter’s shareholding will be 49.61 per cent and
35.43 per cent will be held by public shareholders. — UNI |
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Hyundai launches Elantra
New Delhi, April 15 Saying Elantra was an environmental-friendly car with low
emission, Mr Subbu urged the other Indian manufacturers to work towards
developing cleaner burning engines. With the launch of this car,
Hyundai has entered into the executive segment. Placed between Accent
and Sonata, Elantra has been dubbed as India’s first performance luxury
sedan. It has been launched in three variants, 2.0 litre CRDI (diesel),
1.8 litre GLS and 1.8 litre GT (both petrol). The three variants are
priced at Rs 10.49 lakh (CRDI), Rs 9.59 lakh (GLS), and Rs 8.69 lakh (GT). Elantra
has been competitively placed with Skoda (both diesel and petrol
versions), Corolla and Optra. Mr J.I. Kim, managing director, HMIL, who
was also present at the launch, said since world-class safety standards
had been gaining priority among the Indians, Elantra had
globally-accepted safety features, including brake assist system,
electronic brake force distribution, traction control system, anti–lock
braking system and above all dual air bags. Shah Rukh Khan, Hyundai
Santro’s brand ambassador in India, was also present at the launch.
Saying he took his role as ambassador seriously, in a lighter vein he
claimed that Elantra was as good as him, which means it was the best car
till date on the Indian roads. |
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Stop selling our drugs, Ranbaxy warns website
New York, April 15 The operator of the
site, look4generics.com, already is the target of a lawsuit by Pfizer
Inc. asking the courts to halt its sale of a cheaper generic version of
its cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor, the world’s top-selling
prescription medicine. The generic, Storvas, is made by Ranbaxy and
sold legally in India, Ranbaxy said. But Lipitor, which last year became
the first prescription drug with annual sales above $10 billion, is
still under patent protection in the United States and has no approved
generic version in this country. Ranbaxy said it does not recognise or
endorse the Internet pharmacy look4generics
(http://www.look4generics.com). “We have no connection with this
look4generics,’’ Jay Deshmukh, Vice President intellectual property
worldwide for Ranbaxy, told Reuters in a telephone interview. “They
are not authorised to use our trade name, Storvas, that they are using
and we are going to write a very strong letter to them to cease and
desist from using our name and that trademark,’’ added Deshmukh, who
handles Ranbaxy’s global litigation. “We are not going to sell this
product until we have final approval to sell the product in the U.S.,’’
he said. Look4generics is also selling a Ranbaxy version of Pfizer’s
top-selling impotence treatment Viagra and a copycat version of Pfizer
pain medicine Celebrex made by another company. — Reuters |
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Hind Lever revamps top brass
Mumbai, April 15 This restructuring of HLL comes in the wake of its incumbent
chairman & wholetime director M S Banga being moved on to its parent
company, Unilever to head as business group president, home and personal
care (HPC) segment in Asia region, effective July 1 this year. However,
he would continue to be the non-executive director and chairman of HLL. The
restructuring envisaged for HLL now will be two divisions — home and
personal care (HPC) and foods — headed by two managing directors Arun
Adhikari and S Ravindranath, respectively. In the new set up, the two
divisions will operate with considerable autonomy, top company officials
said. — UNI |
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Samsung pips Nokia, Sony
Seoul, April 15 Samsung’s market capitalisation jumped to more than
$ 88 billion today thanks to recent rises in its share prices, Daishin
Securities said in a report. The company, the world’s largest memory
chip maker and builder of mobile phone handsets and other electronics
goods, also accounts for 25 per cent of the total market value of the
country’s main bourse, Daishin said. In terms of capitalisation,
Samsung exceeded Nokia, the world’s largest mobile phone producer at $80
billion, and Japanese electronics giant Sony on $39 billion, it said.
— AFP |
Zee Telefilms net Rs 310.17 cr
Mumbai, April 15 The consolidated total revenues for the reporting year grew by 13.38 per cent to Rs 1,369.55 crore as against Rs 1,207.92 crore in FY-03. The net profit and total revenues for the fourth quarter ended March 2004 stood at Rs 87.6 crore (Rs 45.35 crore in Q4 of 2002-03) and Rs 382.58 crore (Rs 351.45 crore) respectively, it added.
Indo Rama Indo Rama
Textile Ltd (IRTL) has posted net profit of Rs 9.25 crore for the year
2003-04, a growth of 17.68 per cent over the previous year. Indo Rama
has announced a dividend of 15 per cent.
Varun Shipping Varun
Shipping Company Ltd today announced a rights issue in the ratio of
1:2 with a price band of Rs 18-21 per share. The board decided to
offer 36,261,591 equity shares of the face value of Rs 10 each in the
ratio of one equity share for every two equity shares held.
Hexaware
Tech Global IT software company Hexaware Technologies Ltd has posted
a profit of Rs 11.52 crore for the first quarter ending March 31, 2004
as compared to Rs 1.75 crore in Q1 of 2003. — PTI |
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