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Tatas buy Thailand’s steel company
Redrafted Petroleum Regulatory Board
FM optimistic about 8 pc growth rate
Mankind Pharma to set up plant in
Two wineries to be set up in HP
Eicher launches LCV range
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Reliance MF launches card
Bids from FIs for Maruti shares next week
Gates most admired CEO, Murthy eighth
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Tatas buy Thailand’s steel company
Kolkata, December 15 Tata Steel Deputy Managing Director T. Mukherjee signed the agreement with Millenium Steel’s holding company Cementhai Holding Company (CHC) which, in turn, is the subsidiary of $ 400 million Siam Cement Company (SCC). CHC President R. Dhamari signed the agreement on behalf of the Thai company. Under the agreement, CHC, the largest shareholder of Millenium Steel with a 40 per cent equity stake prior to the agreement, has committed to setting its shares through a voluntary tender offer that Tata Steel would make for all equity and preference shares of Millenium Steel by March, 2006. Earlier, Tata Steel had taken over the majority shares of NatSteel in Singapore last year. Tata Steel Managing Director B. Muthuraman said: “Following the acquisition, we are determined to increase the production capacity of Millenium Steel from one million tonnes last year to 1.75 million tonnes by this year.” Mr Muthuraman said: “Tata Steel plans to infuse an additional $ 62 million as debt fund into the newly acquired company in addition to the present debt components of $ 229 million. The equity component of the deal was $ 175 million and the entire amount was generated through internal accruals.”
— UNI
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Redrafted Petroleum Regulatory Board Bill okayed
New Delhi, December 15 “The Bill has been cleared,” the sources said after the end of the meeting tonight. The Petroleum Ministry plans to introduce the Bill, which has been modified in consultation with the Law Ministry in the current session of Parliament. It will create a statutory Board — Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board — to ensure uninterrupted and adequate supply of petroleum, petroleum products and natural gas in the country, including remote areas at fair price, promote competition, common carrier access on non-discriminatory basis, protection of consumer interest and enforcing service obligations for marketing firms and retail sellers. The Board, which will have one chairperson, four members and one secretary, will regulate the petroleum operations post the crude oil and natural gas production phase. Meanwhile, in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha, Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar said public sector oil firms borrowed over Rs 9,300 crore in short-term loans during the first half of current fiscal to meet the cash crunch they faced due to freeze on raising fuel prices despite increasing costs. — PTI
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FM optimistic about 8 pc growth rate
New Delhi, December 15 However, he felt a higher agricultural growth was imperative in this regard. He also expressed concern over coal and electricity showing “sluggish growth” and said these key sectors needed to grow at much higher rate for achieving overall development. Replying to discussion on the Supplementary Demands for Grants (General) in the Lok Sabha, he assured the state governments that the Centre was a “help and a friend” in their efforts of attracting greater investments and they should seize the opportunity. The House passed the Supplementary Demands totalling Rs 9,080 crore, along with the relevant appropriation bills, by a voice vote. “I am very happy to note that the situation is extremely bullish about accelerating investment. Business confidence is highest in the last 10 years. There is buzz about India. Six delegations from abroad met me in the last three days and they were talking about investing in billions of dollars,” he said. Mr Chidambaram said that he hosted a breakfast for Microsoft Chief Bill Gates this week and a day later his company announced $1.7 billion investment. “I am ready to give lunch and dinner to him,” the Finance Minister said. Noting that more and more state governments were adopting a pragmatic approach to accelerate investments, he said that only eight proposals have been received from states for private-public partnership and hoped they would identify more infrastructure projects to receive funding from the special purpose vehicle. — PTI
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Mankind Pharma to set up plant in Himachal Pradesh
New Delhi, December 15 “We are investing Rs 30 crore to set up a plant in
Paonta Sahib, Himachal Pradesh, and Rs 35 crore to set up an R&D centre in Gurgaon to develop new drugs in India and Rs 5 crore to expand the marketing infrastructure, Mr R.C. Juneja, Managing Director, Mankind Pharma, said here today. The plant would have a production capacity of 30 million ampoules and 12 million vials.” For this, we are recruiting about 100 persons, and the plant will be fully operational by June,2006,” said Mr Juneja. The company would also set up an R&D centre at Gurgaon, and recruit 100 persons. This facility would have the capabilities in the areas of formulations development, new drug delivery systems, bioequivalence studies and contract research. The initial target markets for Mankind would be semi-regulated markets of South- East Asia, South Africa and former CIS countries. “We are looking at leveraging our current strengths to take the company to the next level of growth by entering into highly lucrative segments of export markets as well as sunrise areas like contract research. Our vision is to make Mankind a Rs 1,000-crore company in the next five
years, including Rs 100-crore exports,” said Mr Juneja. Started with a capital of Rs 50 lakh in 1995-96, he said, the company had posted an annual turnover of Rs 283 crore in 2004-05, and was expected to register Rs 350-crore business volume during the current fiscal. The company has strong presence in antibiotics, antifungals and gastrointestinals. It has two plants, one in
Gurgaon (Haryana) and the other in Paonta Sahib (Himachal Pradesh) and
employs about 2,000 persons. “The company plans to enter new therapeutic segments like asthma, ophthalmic, dermatology and anti-malaria as part of a domestic expansion strategy,” said Mr Rajiv Juneja,
Director (Marketing), adding that the fourth division would be launched by 2007.
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Two wineries to be set up in HP
Shimla, December 15 It was earlier being implemented in the joint sector with the company as the principal promoter. However, the joint venture ran into rough weather as the government and the state-owned HPMC failed to contribute their equity share for the Rs 40 crore venture. As per the MoU, the company will return Rs 15 lakh paid as equity share by the government. It will also pay Rs 1.25 crore for 70 bighas of land provided by the government at Nagwain in Kulu and Pragatinagar in Shimla for setting up the wineries. The payment will be made in instalments and land will be transferred in the name of the company after receiving the full amount. The HPMC will have a tie-up with it for procurement of fruit and marketing of products. The state Horticulture Department will distribute planting material to the farmers. The company, which has already spent about Rs 1.25 crore, will also have the option to have agreements with farmers for contract farming. Mr J.P. Negi, Principal Secretary, Horticulture; and Mr Arun B Shah, President, Indage Group of Companies and Director of Himachal Indage, signed the document on behalf of the government and the company, respectively. The cost of the project has now escalated to about Rs 60 crore. The first phase alone during which an apple-based winery is to be set up at Pragatinagar will cost about Rs 40 crore. In the second phase, a grape-based winery is to be established at Nagwain in Kulu. The two units were to have a capacity to process about 15,000 tonnes of fruit annually.
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Eicher launches LCV range
New Delhi, December 15 The company claimed that the new ‘E2’ would reduce the total cost of ownership by offering greater benefits. “The E-2 series is our next step in setting new benchmarks in pioneering LCVs — which not only offer unparalleled fuel-efficiency, but also better drivability and sturdier performance,” Eicher group chief operating officer Siddharth Lal said, adding that new products come with ‘IPDT’ (Improved Power Drive Train). “Testing the vehicles under varying conditions and with vehicles parallel to the competitor vehicles under similar conditions helped us arrive at the best power train combination,” he said. The E2 series will be priced starting from Rs 6.59 lakh (ex-showroom) for BSII and Rs 6.96 lakh (ex-showroom) for BSIII.
— PTI
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Reliance MF launches card
Mumbai, December 15 The MF investment-linked ATM-cum-debit card, introduced in association with Visa International and HDFC Bank, is claimed to be world’s first initiative to address retail investors’ concern for liquidity in MF investments, AMFI (Association of Mutual Fund Industries) Chairman A. Kurian announced at a news conference here. The card enables an investor withdraw 50 per cent of his investment or his withdrawal limit from 16,000 Visa ATMs in India, he said, adding it will help increase penetration of MFs among retail investors by making available to them instant redemption facility. Mr Kurian said this instant payment mechanism would popularise the mutual fund investments in India, adding Reliance MF would shortly cross one million investors base from the current 9 lakh. —
UNI
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Bids from FIs for Maruti shares next week
New Delhi, December 15 “The expression of interest from public sector financial institutions for 8 per cent of the 18.28 per cent shares of government in Maruti will be invited next week,” sources told PTI. The government proposes to sell a part of its remaining equity in Maruti to financial institutions through a bidding process. It will offload 10.28 per cent shares in 2006. Based on today’s price of the Maruti scrip on the Bombay Stock Exchange, the government is expected to raise close to Rs 1,500 crore from the sale. If the sale of Maruti shares is completed without hiccups, the government may use this mode of disinvestment in other cases too, sources added. The government has already declared that it intends to offload small stake in non-navratna profitable PSUs and its residual stake in PSUs that have already been privatised. According to reports, a list of 14 PSUs has been drawn up in which the government will divest a part of its stake.
— PTI
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HDFC Bank may float NBFC
Chandigarh, December 15 “Almost one-third of our lending is to the middle market and small business. The small-scale business will grow and the bank will target agriculture, food processing and SME sector for future growth. The SME business of the bank is also witnessing a robust growth of 50 to 75 per cent,” he said. The bank has nearly 45 per cent of its branches in semi-urban or the under-banked areas, Mr Puri said while adding that the bank has applied to the RBI for more branches in the semi-rural and under banked locations. They have even applied to the RBI for floating a non-banking financial company
(NBFC) as it would help penetrate the smaller markets. Talking about overseas expansion, he said, they had applied to the Reserve Bank of India for opening branches in Hong Kong, London and Singapore.
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Gates most admired CEO, Murthy eighth
New York, December 15 Murthy is ranked 8th on the 15-strong list while Mittal ranks 15th. The list, the result of a new global study conducted by global public relations company Burson-Marsteller with the Economist Intelligence Unit, has Apple CEO Steve Jobs at number 2 and another computer man Michael Dell at 4. There are no women CEOs on the list dominated by company founders. Under the study, more than 600 global business influential in 65 countries were asked to name whom they admired most in the business world today. American investor Warren Buffett is placed 3rd and flamboyant British businessman Richard Branson of Virgin Group takes the 5th place. Media magnate Rupert Murdoch is placed below India’s Narayana Murthy at 10th position. Nokia CEO Jorma Ollila is ranked 13th. The others on the list are British Petroleum CEO John Browne (No.6), Nissan Motor and Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn (No.7), General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt (No.9), HSBC Holdings CEO John Chambers (No.12) and Tesco CEO Terry Leahy (No.14).
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Bhumika Trading to buy RIL equity
Mumbai, December 15
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AAI to raise up to Rs 5,000 crore Stake bought ADB lending PNB dividend Nectar Lifesciences |
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