Zydus forays into Japan 
Mumbai, September 4
Cadila Healthcare Ltd today announced the foray of Zydus group into the generic market of Japan and the establishment of a wholly owned subsidiary in the country. The subsidiary, Zydus Pharma Inc, would market formulation generics and active pharmaceutical ingredients in Japan, the company said.

Aditya Birla group to form JV for VSF unit in China
Mumbai, September 4
The Aditya Birla group has signed an agreement with China’s Hubei Jing Wei Chemical Fibre Company to set up a joint venture for manufacturing viscose staple fibre (VSF).

MRTPC notice  to Maruti
New Delhi, September 4
The Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission (MRTPC) today issued notice to car market leader Maruti Udyog Ltd after accepting a petition filed by its archrival Hyundai Motors on a sales advertisement.

Mr Neeraj Garg, Director (Marketing and Sales), Nissan Motors India, showcases “Nissan X-pecial”, a new SUV model launched by the automobile company in New Delhi on Monday. The premium segment SUV is priced at Rs 24.13 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi). — PTI

Hotel Leelaventure
Mumbai, September 4
Hotel Leelaventure said today it would invest in overseas corporate bodies and set up a subsidiary, as it seeks to expand its presence abroad. The Board of the company, which plans to set up a subsidiary, met on September 2 and approved investment in overseas corporate bodies, the Mumbai-based firm informed the BSE. The company has in principle entered into management contracts for maintaining hotels in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Jaipur. — PTI

Rupee gains 18 paise
Mumbai, September 4
The rupee today gained strength at 18 paise to close at Rs 46.34/35 per US dollar compared to the previous closing of Rs 46.52 due to the weakening of dollar against Asian currencies as also Fund flow coming into the Indian market and strong stock market performance, a money market trader said.

Spice to raise Rs 1400 cr
New Delhi, September 4
Spice Telecom, a regional cellular player in Punjab and Karnataka, will dilute 20 per cent equity through an initial public offer to raise $250 to 300 million (about Rs 1,400 crore) before year-end.

London, September 4
The ONGC and its British partner Cairn Energy Plc have shelved plans to build a Rs 8,000-crore refinery in Rajasthan and instead may sell the crude oil found in the state to Reliance Industries or Essar Oil.

“Building a refinery in a landlocked state is uneconomical. With IOC’s Mathura and the expanded Panipat refinery in the region and HPCL building a nine million tonne per annum refinery at Bathinda by 2010, there will be no market for the planned refinery at Barmer (Rajasthan),” an ONGC official said.

The ONGC planned to get its subsidiary Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) de-nominated as the official offtaker of crude oil found by Cairn Energy in Rajasthan and instead sell it to refiners.

“We would like to sell the crude oil to public sector refineries first. But due to the waxy nature of the Rajasthan crude, its best value can be realised only at the Jamnagar refinery (of Reliance) or the upcoming Vadinar refinery (of Essar Oil),” he said.

Earlier, the IOC had done economic analysis of Cairn’s Rajasthan crude and concluded that it possessed transport dilemma.

The official said ONGC-Cairn, the 30:70 owner of the Rajasthan oilfields, will build a crude oil transportation pipeline from Barmer to Jamnagar and build the cost in field development.

“Jamnagar has a port and we will have an option to ship the crude oil to MRPL,” he said. The official said the ONGC found it uneconomical to transport the waxy crude to MRPL in the initial period and later process at the proposed 7.5 million tonnes Barmer refinery.

“By the time the refinery comes up (in 2011), the peak oil production from the fields would be at its fag end,” he said.

Cairn’s Rajasthan crude had a high wax content and needed specialised pipelines with heating arrangements to transport it 400 km from Barmer district to Gujarat.

Besides turning semi-solid at normal conditions, the crude has no LPG potential and naphtha yield is also very low (less than 2 per cent).

The ONGC hold a 30 per cent stake in the Mangala, Aishwariya, Saraswati and Raageshwari fields in Block RJ-ON-90/1, which the British firm wants to put on production by end-2008.

As per Cairn’s projections, the production of crude will commence from the last quarter of 2008 with initial output of little over 100,000 barrels per day peaking to around 150,000 bpd from 2009 to 2012. The production declines from 2014, reaching a low of around 20,000 bpd by 2024.

Previously, the ONGC felt that considering the characteristics of the crude, best value addition to the crude could be obtained by a well head refinery to be located in the vicinity of the block, which would be specifically designed to handle this crude along with balancing crude which would be imported through a Mundra-Barmer pipeline. — PTI 

New Delhi, September 4
The Congress-led UPA Government’s roadmap for capital account convertibility faces opposition from both Left and Right.

The Left parties have already come out strongly against the full convertibility of rupee as suggested by the Tarapore Committee while the BJP has cautioned the government on its implementation in haste.

“The CPM is opposed to all other recommendations of the Tarapore Committee related to greater liberalisation of inflows and outflows of capital,” a press note issued by the politburo of the party said here today.

Pointing to the National Common Minimum Programme (NCMP), the CPM said “it is committed to reducing the vulnerability of the financial system to the flow of speculative capital”.

“The politbureau of the CPM calls upon the UPA Government to strictly adhere to that commitment and reject the Tarapore Committee recommendatiions for moving towards fuller capital account convertibility,” it said.

On the other hand, the BJP, though not completely opposed to rupee convertibility, has cautioned the government against implementing it in haste.

“Before this is implemented, the government should thoroughly examine various components of our forex inflow and outflow,” former convener of BJP’s Economic Cell Jagdish Shettigar said here. The BJP is expected to give a formal reaction tomorrow.

New Delhi, September 4
Struggling United Western Bank (UWB) has become a hot cake for private as well as public sector banking institutions seeking to penetrate into Maharashtra.

Five banks — ICICI Bank, Canara Bank, Allahabad Bank, Federal Bank, and Andhra Bank — have approached the RBI to acquire the troubled UWB, which was placed under moratorium till December 1 on Saturday.

In fact, more banking institutions, which either do not have adequate market access in Maharashtra or are planning to expand base in the state, are likely to jump in the fray.

UWB has a wide rural network in Maharashtra, with Rs 7,000 crore assets spread across nine states in the country and nearly 20 lakh depositors, which is enough for fulfilling the ambitions of interested parties.

It is learnt there will be no bidding process for the amalgamation and RBI’s discretion will be supreme, the public sector banks have an edge over their private counterparts.

“The public sector banks generally get preference over the private sector banks (in the merger of sick banks),” analysts say.

The minimum investment to acquire ailing UWB is seen at Rs 300 crore.

Incorporated in 1936, the bank, has its head office at Satara, Maharashtra, which oversees the operations through the five zonal offices at Mumbai, Pune, Kolhapur, Jalgaon and Nagpur.

ICICI Bank says it believes that UWB’s network can be leveraged to grow its rural and small and medium enterprise banking operations in particular and its overall distribution franchise in general.

While according to Canara Bank, the move comes in view of a number of positive synergies existing between the two banks especially in terms of the network of branches, geographical contiguity. The bank’s excellent tract record as the largest nationalised bank meets UWB’s need for a strong, effective and professional management, it equipped in a statement.

Keeping in view the depositors, sick banks are generally merged with the state-run banks.

A few years ago, the RBI had merged Global Trust Bank and Nedungadi Bank with the Oriental Bank of Commerce and Punjab National Bank -both state-run - respectively. However, ICICI had also acquired southern India’s Bank of Madura. 
— UNI

New Delhi, September 4
The Boards of the Centurion Bank of Punjab (CBoP) and Lord Krishna Bank (LKB) today approved the merger of the two banks to create a strong private sector banking entity with pan-India footprint. CBoP Chairman Rana Talwar said the share swap ratio had been fixed at 1.4:1, which worked out to seven physical shares of CBoP for every five shares of LKB. Mr Talwar will be the Chairman and Mr Shailendra Bhandari the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the merged entity. It is proposed that Mr Mohan Puri would join the Board of CBoP, subject to regulatory approvals. — TNS

New Delhi, September 4
If the increase in the FDI inflows is an indication, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh saw the best of the enhanced interest shown by foreign investors, followed by Gujarat and West Bengal.

An Assocham Eco Pulse (AEP) analysis released here today showed North as the favourite destination for foreign investment.

Surprisingly, Maharashtra, Delhi and its adjoining areas of UP and Haryana like Gurgaon, Noida and Greater Noida saw a negative annual compound growth of FDI inflows between April, 2001, to March, 2006, the AEP study said.

The analysis, done on the basis of RBI figures, pointed out that Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh witnessed net growth of 183 per cent in FDI inflows between April, 2001, and March, 2006.

The region saw a huge pick-up in FDI flows from a mere Rs 5.93 crore in 2001 to Rs 843.89 crore in 2002-03. But the inflows plunged in the following two years at Rs 76.71 crore and 13.49 crore, before rising again sharply to Rs 378.16 crore. The compounded growth worked out at 183 per cent.

On the reverse side of FDI chart, Maharashtra and Delhi saw a compound drop of 4per cent each for the five-year period under the AEP study review. From a high of Rs 5137.34 crore in 2001-02, the investments in the Maharashtra region dropped sharply to Rs 2366.4 crore in 2002-03 and again fell to Rs 1355.31 crore in the following year. However, there was a smart pick-up to Rs 3183.13 crore in 2004-05 and to Rs 4290.17 crore in 2005-06.

“A sharp rise in FDI inflows to the Chandigarh, Punjab, Haryana and HP has been a pleasant surprise. In fact, the region has been the centre of attraction for new investment not only from the foreign companies, but also domestic business houses. For instance, Reliance Industries has announced mega investments in both Haryana and Punjab,’’ Assocham President Anil K. Agarwal said.

Gujarat has shown a consistent growth year after year between 2001-06 and has seen a compounded increase of 57 per cent in FDI in the five-year period. With an inflow of Rs 108.66 crore in 2001-02, it reached to a figure of Rs 666.36 crore in 2005-06.

The top 10 investing countries in India were Mauritius, US, Japan, Netherlands, UK, Germany, Singapore, France, South Korea and Switzerland. — UNI

London, September 4
It is a boom time for Asian entrepreneurs, particularly NRIs, in Britain who are creating wealth at three times the pace of the country’s economic growth while dramatically shifting to hi-tech sectors, according to a new study.

The real wealth of Asian business people jumped by 69 per cent between 1998 and 2005, according to Barclays’ survey analysing the fortunes of the UK’s 200 richest Asians in the eight years.

Over the same period the UK economy grew by 22.8 per cent.

Besides dramatically increasing its total wealth, the group made a significant shift towards high-tech sectors, such as pharmaceuticals, information technology and the media, the study, published in The Daily Telegraph today, said.

Number one in the survey was Mike Jatania who, with his family, sits atop a branded cosmetics business, Lornamead, valued at £650 million followed by Patel brothers, Vijay and Bikhu, worth £455 million who have been on a 30-year mission to create an “Asian Glaxo”.

Pharmacy was the single biggest sector in the survey.

Third on the list is Lord Swraj Paul, Ambassador for Overseas British Business, whose Caparo group has sales of £650 million.

“Asian wealth is now built on a much broader base of entrepreneurs who are challenging traditional stereotypes and making serious money in high-tech industries,” Satish Kanabar, Corporate Director of Barclays business banking, said.

“Asian wealth creation is more important than its headline contribution to overall economic growth would indicate as Asian entrepreneurs are actually in the vanguard of the UK’s emerging high-tech, service economy,” Mr Kanabar said. — PTI

Mumbai, September 4
Cadila Healthcare Ltd today announced the foray of Zydus group into the generic market of Japan and the establishment of a wholly owned subsidiary in the country. The subsidiary, Zydus Pharma Inc, would market formulation generics and active pharmaceutical ingredients in Japan, the company said.

Zydus Pharma Inc would initiate the process for registration of products in 2007, besides marketing generics. The company would also explore collaborations and alliances with Japanese pharmaceutical companies in areas such as joint research and development, co-marketing, contract manufacturing for active pharmaceutical ingredients, intermediates and formulations, it said. — PTI

New Delhi, September 4
The Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission (MRTPC) today issued notice to car market leader Maruti Udyog Ltd after accepting a petition filed by its archrival Hyundai Motors on a sales advertisement.

The commission directed Maruti to file its reply within two weeks, though declining to grant stay on further publication of the advertisement by Maruti.

The country’s top two carmakers have come face-to-face after Hyundai challenged the sales pitch of Maruti in its latest advertisement campaign, saying it was “misleading and disparaging”.

During the proceedings, Hyundai’s counsel alleged that the advertisement was a fit case of “unfair trade practices” and was intended only to mislead the consumers.

In the advertisement, published last month in some English dailies, Maruti had compared its own cars with other carmakers, including Hyundai, and claimed that resale value, mileage and maintenance costs was higher than its models of its rivals.

Hyundai also submitted a letter of the rating agency - on whose findings Maruti based its campaign - before the MRTPC. It said the agency had said the findings were restricted for the consumption of auto companies only. — PTI