Bangalore, January 13
IT behemoth Infosys Technologies today reported a net profit after tax of Rs 1,780 crore for the quarter ending December 31, 2010.

The profit showed a sequential growth (QoQ or growth over previous quarter) of 2.5 per cent and year-on-year growth of 14.2 per cent.

Earning per share was Rs 31.15 for the quarter showing a QoQ growth of 2.4 per cent and YoY growth of 14 per cent.

In a statement issued here today, the company said 40 clients were added during the quarter by Infosys and its subsidiaries.

The company reported a net addition of 5,311 employees out of a “gross addition of 1,1067 employees” during the quarter. Mohandas Pai, company’s HR head, said only about 250, out of the 5,756 freshly recruited employees who quit the organisation during the quarter, left it “involuntarily”.

“Some of them failed during the training while others just left. They simply disappeared,” Pai said about those employees who have been categorised as having left the organisation involuntarily.

He added that the company intends to recruit 26,000 people during 2011 from various campuses and it has already made 18,000 offers. “We have visited more than 200 engineering colleges and have found that students want to work with the Infosys. This is very important”, Pai said.

The company revised its revenue guidance upwards for the fiscal 2010-11 and predicted an annual growth of “20.5 per cent to 20.8 per cent” in revenue generation. The outlook given for the quarter ending March 31, 2011, was “20.4 per cent to 21.6 per cent growth” on YoY basis.

Like it always has been, the company once again generated maximum revenue from North America. It accounted for 64.7 per cent of Rs 7,106 crore revenue earned by it during the quarter under review. Europe accounted for 21.8 per cent of its revenue while only 2.2 per cent of the revenue was earned from India. The remaining 11.3 per cent of the revenue was earned from the “rest of the world” that includes Brazil, Australia, Japan and one or more unspecified country in the Middle-East.

In the product front, the company reported developing a mobile phone-based solution for its banking software Finacle. The device-agnostic solution supports over 8,000 mobile handsets, including basic ones and smart devices.

The original software, Finacle, also grew its market by adding six clients consisting of two clients having operations in Europe, Middle-East and Africa, one from the Americas and three from the Asia Pacific region.

S Gopalakrishnan, CEO of Infosys, however, maintained a cautious approach and said, “the weaker economic recovery in developed markets coupled with high unemployment and risk of sovereign default in Europe could impact industry growth”.

New Delhi January 13
The world’s largest coffee retail chain, Starbucks, today announced a strategic alliance with Tata Coffee which could pave the way for its iconic coffee cafes to enter the Indian market.

Coffee chains have been growing in India as economic growth is leading to rise in incomes and subsequent spending. Barista, Café Coffee Day, Costa among are the leading names in the coffee chain segment in the Indian market.

Starbucks Coffee Company is the premier roaster and retailer of specialty coffee in the world, headquartered in the US, in Seattle, Washington. The company manages over 16,000 stores and operates in more than 50 countries. Starbucks sells a wide variety of coffee and tea products with a range of complementary food items, primarily through retail stores.

In a statement issued today, the companies said the MoU will create avenues of collaboration between the two companies for sourcing and roasting high-quality green coffee beans in Tata Coffee’s Coorg India facility. In addition, Tata and Starbucks will jointly explore the development of Starbucks retail stores in associated retail outlets and hotels.

Commenting on the announcement, R K Krishnakumar, Chairman of Tata Coffee, said, “We welcome Starbucks’ entry into India because of both its unique experience with the store format and for its commitment to society, values that we share.”

“India is one of the most dynamic markets in the world with a diverse culture and tremendous potential,” said Howard Schultz, Chairman, President and CEO, Starbucks Coffee Company. “This MoU is the first step in our entry to India. We are focused on exploring local sourcing and roasting opportunities with the thousands of coffee farmers within the Tata ecosystem. We believe India can be an important source for coffee in the domestic market, as well as across the many regions globally where Starbucks has operations.” In the areas of sourcing and roasting, Tata Coffee and Starbucks will explore procuring green coffee from Tata Coffee estates and roasting in Tata Coffee’s existing roasting facilities. At a later phase, both Tata Coffee and Starbucks will consider jointly investing in additional facilities and roasting green coffee for export to other markets.

New Delhi, January 13
The government today cleared 19 foreign direct investment (FDI) proposals amounting to Rs 4,340 crore including Tata Steel, Federal Express, L&T, Hindalco, Standard Chartered Bank and Future Ventures.

The Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) under the Finance Ministry in its meeting on December 31, however, deferred a decision on 16 FDI proposals, including Reliance Broadcast Network and Essar Capital Holdings. The Board also rejected two proposals, including that of B4U Television Network for induction of foreign equity to carry out business of up-linking a non-news and current affairs TV channel.

The FIPB cleared the Tata Steel’s Rs 1,100 crore proposal for issue of warrants as part of its fund mobilisation plan, a Finance Ministry statement said.

The board that offers a single window clearance for proposals on FDI, also approved Future Ventures proposal to allot shares worth Rs 300 crore to FIIs and NRIs under portfolio investment scheme.

It cleared a proposal in defence production for a joint venture between Larsen & Toubro (L&T) and EADS of Germany for 26 per cent foreign equity induction. A proposal by Karur Vysya Bank to issue partly paid-up shares for Rs 107 crore was also approved.

A Federal Express proposal to invest Rs 607 crore in a wholly owned subsdiairy to offer services in courier, express transporatation and warehousing was also approved.

The FIPB also cleared a proposal from Falcon Tyres to induct foreign equity to the tune of Rs 705 crore.

It decided to defer FDI proposals of ABG Shipyard, Verizon Communications, Jubilant Aeronautics, Maini Precision, Dhunseri Investments, Netmagic Solutions among others.

ABG Shipyard’s proposal related to entering into defence contracts while Jubilant Aeronautics proposal was for induction of foreign equity to manufacture unmanned aerial systems (UAS). Essar Capital Holdings had sought approval to acquire equity shares in an investing company engaged in the telecom sector.

New Delhi, January 13
Tata Group today rejigged the top management of some of its group firms with Tata Communications head N Srinath replacing Tata Teleservices Managing Director Anil Kumar Sardana, who will take charge of Tata Power.

Sardana succeeds Prasad R Menon, who retires on January 31 this year.

Tata Communications (formerly VSNL) gets a new MD and CEO in Vinod Kumar, who is a director on the company's Board, Tatas said in a statement.

Sardana, who has been with Tata Teleservices for over three years, had expressed desire to resign from the position to take up responsibility with another Tata company.

Meanwhile, Srinath would be taking over as the MD and CEO of Tata Teleservices. He would also be one of the additional directors at the company.

According to the statement, Srinath would continue to be a non-executive director on the board of Tata Communications and some of its subsidiary/associate companies such as Neotel. — PTI

New Delhi, January 13
Telecom operators looking to launch full third generation (3G) services in the country got a major relief from the government today as the Telecom Ministry set a deadline of July 31 for them to provide interception capabilities to the security agencies for the video calls.

The government had earlier asked operators to stop services such as video calls as security agencies were not able to intercept them.

The Department of Telecom (DoT) had issued notices to some of the telecom operators asking them to stop the rollout of the 3G services, which includes video calling facility. It also asked them to put on hold the new services till they adhered to security norms for legal interception.

3G mobile services mainly include voice call, video calls and data services. In the data services, operators are claiming to offer high-speed Internet service and required to offer monitoring facility.

The clearance from the government for allowing the video calls, which would herald a new era of mobile telephony in the country and also allow the full fledged services of 3G, comes within days of Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal saying that there would soon be new set of guidelines governing the 3G services.

The government has been under pressure from the telecom operators to allow full 3G services as the curtailing of the services would hit their revenues from the third generation services.

The telecom operators have been waiting to get a clearance from the security agencies to launch their full 3G services.

The statement from the Telecom Minister came after his meeting with Home Minister P. Chidambaram over the issue and after the latter sought to downplay problems in beginning the 3G mobile services saying the telecom operators can roll out 3G telephony while working on the modalities to provide monitoring facilities to the security agencies.

Chandigarh, January 13
Punjab and Haryana are now the new focus areas for Andhra Bank, as it looks forward to expand its footprint across the country. The bank will be opening 10 new branches in the two states, and is looking at garnering business worth over Rs 3,500 crore from this region by March this year.

Talking to TNS here today, AA Taj, Executive Director of the bank, said the bank already has 40 branches in this region (comprising Punjab, Haryana, Uttarakhand and Jammu and Kashmir). “Of these, 17 branches, mainly in Punjab and Haryana, were added in the last financial year. This year, we propose to add four new branches in Punjab and six in Haryana by March this year,” he said.

Taj said the bank was targeting to get business worth Rs 3,515 crore during this financial year from the region. “As on December 2010, we have managed to get a business of Rs 2,588 crore - Rs 1,340 crore in advances and Rs 1,248 crore in deposits. Last year, we had managed to get a total business of Rs 2,600 crore from this region. But with our initiatives, especially in retail lending, agriculture and MSME sectors, we will be able to realise a quantum jump in business this fiscal,” he added.

Other than Punjab and Haryana, we are also concentrating on opening branches in Gujarat and Maharashtra,” he said, adding that the bank was adding 110 new branches this year. Talking about the bank’s plans for future expansion, Taj said they were also planning an overseas expansion and would soon be opening at least two new branches outside the country.