|
|
|
|
|
Vodafone tax row
Biz talk
FM reviews performance of insurance firms
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
IT infrastructure spending to reach $1.9 bn this year
Cipla to buy 14.6%
stake in Chase Pharma
|
|
FinMin moves Cabinet for pulling out of talks on ‘deal’
Tribune News Service
It had further said that the only body capable of resolving the issue would be an arbitration panel constituted according to the Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (BIPA). In a clarification issued today, the Finance Ministry listed out a sequence of events and said it was then decided to approach the Cabinet again, bringing these facts to its notice and seeking approval for withdrawing from conciliation. “Meanwhile, without waiting for the outcome of the ITAT proceedings, Vodafone International Holdings BV (VIHBV) has served a ‘notice of arbitration’ dated April 17 seeking arbitration under the BIPA between India and the Netherlands,” the official statement said. Earlier in February, the Cabinet deferred considering the proposal to withdraw from conciliation talks with the UK-based firm, pending settlement of the Rs 3,700- crore Vodafone’s transfer-pricing case at the ITAT. Last year in June, the Cabinet approved conciliation with Vodafone to resolve the capital gains tax dispute related to its 2007 acquisition of Hutchison Whampoa's stake in Hutchison Essar. While the basic tax demand is Rs 7,990 crore, the total outstanding is Rs 20,000 crore after including penalty. The Supreme Court had ruled in Vodafone’s favour in 2012, saying it was not liable to pay any tax over the acquisition of assets in India from Hong Kong-based Hutchison. The government changed the rules later in 2012 to enable it to claim tax retrospectively on concluded deals.
|
|||||
|
Woodland’s sub-brand Woods to be repositioned in luxury segment
Harkirat Singh Managing director, Woodland talks to Girja Shankar Kaura Woodland has established itself as a renowned outdoor brand that started its operations in India in 1992. At present, it runs a network of 380 exclusive stores worldwide. To cater to niche customers, Woodland has brought in its sub-brand— Woods— as part of the luxury footwear segment. In an interview, Harkirat Singh, managing director, Woodland, shares his views on the company’s future plans. Q: How do you plan the repositioning of Woods in the luxury footwear segment? A: The brand “Woods” was launched over a decade ago as a good quality and hand-made formal-cum-fashion footwear brand from Aero Group and has been selling products across the nation through the retail chain of Woodland stores. After getting a good response, we have planned to re-position the brand with its unique identity — we intend to create a picture of Woods in terms of branding and standalone stores. The brand will play more with the fashion quotient in contrast to our home brand — Woodland that is typically a casual, outdoor, adventure brand. At present, the luxury segment is not large, but we observe that the market is growing with a slight bend towards the women segment than men. Q: Which category will Woods exclusively cater to? A: With Woods, we will be primarily targeting the women category. About 60% of Woods products will be women-oriented as we see a great demand from them. As of now, the main focus is on footwear and accessories. We are also in the process of introducing the apparel collection of Woods. Q: What are the expansion plans for Woods stores? A: As of now, we have two exclusive Woods stores in Delhi. However, we have plans to launch at least 50 stores. In the initial phase, the stores will be opened in Tier-I and Tier-II cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata, Chandigarh, Punjab, Pune, and Jaipur, etc. Q: What is the contribution of Woods to the overall turnover of the company? A: The total turnover of the company for this financial year was Rs 850 core. Of which, Woods contributed about 20% of the total revenues. We like to contribute 30% to the total revenue. We are also planning to invest Rs 100 crore to create a niche identity for the brand. Q: What are the products in the offing under Woods? A: Woods offers a wide range of formal and semi-formals collections of footwear both for women and men. In addition, we have stylish and cool accessories such as scarfs, belts, wallets and hand-crafted bags. Q: What is special about Woods’ products? A: Our products will be in line with latest fashion trends of Paris, Milan and London. The designs are handpicked by designers and are then customised for our customers based on their demands. The product range starts from Rs 4,000 onwards.
|
|||||
|
FM reviews performance of insurance firms
New Delhi, May 12 Chidambaram stressed the need to enhance insurance penetration and density to attain global levels in a reasonable time frame, through greater outreach and access Insurance companies made presentations to the Finance Minister and informed him about the progress made in the 2013-14 fiscal. Chidambaram is scheduled to meet chiefs of public sector banks (PSBs) on Tuesday to impress upon them the need to focus on the recovery of bad loans. The review will cover overall credit growth, with particular reference to agricultural credit, MSME credit, housing loan, education loan and lending to minority communities among others, an official statement said. Chidambaram will also review the performances of the PSBs with regard to the steps taken by them to reduce their non performing assets (NPAs) and increase their recovery. Besides, Chidambaram will discuss the issue of capital adequacy for the banks, the statement said, adding that he will also discuss the progress made with regard to the stalled projects especially in those cases where PSBs have extended credit facilities. India, others sign pact
on sharing tax info
P Chidambaram said 46 countries, including India and Switzerland, had adopted a global declaration for automatic exchange of tax information. The adoption of the Declaration on Automatic Exchange of Information in Tax Matters last week comes in the backdrop of India stepping up pressure on Switzerland to share information on the alleged black money stashed away by its citizens in Swiss banks. “The declaration recognises that investments kept offshore by taxpayers should not go untaxed. It stresses that a key aspect of cooperation among tax administrations is effective exchange of information on an automatic basis subject to appropriate safeguards,” Chidambaram said. On May 6, 46 countries, including India, besides the European Union, meeting under the umbrella of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, adopted the declaration, Chidambaram said. He said, “I believe that the day is not far off when all major financial centres will be parties to an effective exchange of information on an automatic basis.” |
|||||
|
IT infrastructure spending to reach $1.9 bn this year
New Delhi, May 12 “The global IT infrastructure investment is expected to be almost flat in 2014 and will be primarily driven by hyper scale and data centre modernisation initiatives,” said Mike Harris, research group vice-president at
Gartner. “In the global landscape, India is a promising IT infrastructure market through 2017,” Harris said. “Indian IT infrastructure is poised to be a $2.35 billion market by 2017,” said Naveen
Mishra, research director at Gartner. “After sluggish market conditions in 2013, the Indian infrastructure market will witness investments primarily fuelled by key IT initiatives that include mobility, cloud and big data.” Indian enterprises will be focusing on building intelligent data centres that focus on optimising existing hardware assets by using additional software capabilities. This will drive attention on trends such as public cloud, and integrated systems. Within the Indian IT infrastructure market, server revenue is forecast to reach $663 million in 2014, a 1% decline from 2013. The server market is expected to return to positive growth in 2015 when revenue is forecast to total $697 million. The enterprise networking is the biggest segment with revenue expected to touch $887 million in 2014. Data centre consolidation and virtualisation along with cloud and mobility are the key trends influencing network purchases. The storage market is on pace to reach $384 million this year, an 11% increase from the last year. Storage modernisation and consolidation, backup and recovery, and disaster recovery are some of the key drivers to this market, and they are likely to remain relevant drivers over the forecast period through 2017. |
|||||
|
Cipla to buy 14.6%
stake in Chase Pharma
New Delhi, May 12 The investment, done through Cipla’s wholly owned subsidiary Cipla (EU) Ltd, UK, will be part of the $21 million syndicate to finance Phase 2a and Phase 2b clinical trials for Chase's lead drug CPC 201 for treating the disease. Other investors in the syndicate are Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners and New Rhein Healthcare LLC. “The $21 million two-phase financing will support Phase 2a and Phase 2b clinical trials for Chase’s lead drug CPC 201,” Cipla said. Cipla MD and Global CEO Subhanu Saxena said: “This investment is consistent with Cipla New Ventures' mission to build more innovation-led business streams for Cipla in the future.”
— PTI |
|||||
SEBI keeping close ‘watch’ after share surge Airtel facing demands worth ~5,817 cr from DoT Ministry tells DEA, DIPP to decide on HDFC's FDI plan Microsoft launches
first dual-SIM Lumia Thiess India CEO arrested NASSCOM delegation to attend Casual Connect 2014
|
|||||
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Letters | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | E-mail | |
Drug firm Cipla Ltd today said it would invest $1.5 million to acquire a 14.6% stake in US-based Chase Pharmaceuticals engaged in developing novel approaches to improve treatments for Alzheimer's disease.
"..Company has signed a definitive agreement to invest $1.5 million in Chase Pharmaceuticals Corporation Inc, US, to acquire a 14.6% stake in Chase on a fully diluted basis," Cipla said.
New Delhi, May 12
