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Essel group in housing venture
New Delhi: Subhash Chandra's Essel group is planning a foray into real
estate with an ambitious housing project in Gurgaon near Delhi. The Rs 350-crore project
is visualised as a multi-media city at a later stage. The group has set up Suncity Pvt Ltd
to manage the new venture.
Lakshmi Goyal, brother of
Mr Chandra, is heading the project. The company has acquired 130 acres from farmers
in the vicinity of Gurgaon at a cost of R 90 crore.
The project will have 760 plots for sale, covering 50
acres of land. Another 10 acres are being earmarked for group housing, and 20 acres will
be taken up by a shopping complex, community centre, high school and dispensary. In
addition to these, there will frills like multiplexes. ANZ Grindlays Bank, ICICI and
Housing Development Finance Corporation are financing the project.
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2 global companies eye BSES
Calcutta: Two international utility companies are understood to be eyeing
controlling stakes in the Indian power major BSES through an open offer route. Preliminary
talks are reportedly on with financial institutions.
These companies have indicated offer prices of Rs 400 to
Rs 450 per equity share of BSES, a report in The Economic Times said. The BSES
share is quoted on the Bombay Stock Exchange at Rs 238. The Rs 2,500-crore company has a
market cap of Rs 3,146 crore.
One of these two companies is from Europe and the other
from the US.
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Johnson International
dilutes stake in Indian venture
Mumbai: Johnson International UK has reduced its stake in H&R Johnson
(India), a joint venture with the Rajan Raheja group, from 40 per cent to 22 per cent. The
British company did not participate in the rights issue floated in 1998-99 for expansion
plans. That leaves the Indian group's stake at 78 per cent.
H&R Johnson dominates the Rs 1,000-crore domestic
ceramic tiles market with a 23 per cent market share.
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Alfa Laval to relocate
facility in India
New Delhi: Swedish engineering group Alfa Laval will relocate one of its
manufacturing divisions from Sweden to India. The Indian arm, Alfa Laval India, has been
given the responsibility to carry out fabrication activities from India as part of
the group's global restructuring plans.
Alfa Laval India has won three back-to-back orders worth
Rs 80 crore each from SmithKline Beecham for setting up spray dryers and evaporators at
its plant in Haryana.
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Herbiger acquires Indian
venture
Mumbai: Herbiger, the Australian speciality hardware manufacturer, is
buying a 49 per cent stake in its joint venture Herbiger (India) from partner RPG group to
make it a full-owned subsidiary. Herbiger has applied to the Foreign Investments Promotion
Board, and the case is likely to be decided at the next meeting.
RPG group has said its exit from the joint venture is in
line with the group's decision to focus on five core areas. It has sold its stake in at
least nine ventures.
Herbiger specialises in design and manufacture of
precision valves and compressors, and has a manufacturing facility near Pune. The company
is likely to make the Rs 4 crore plant its global sourcing base.
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SAIL may make Rs 2,500 crore
loss
New Delhi: The Steel Authority of India Ltd, which made a loss of Rs 610
crore in the first quarter of th eyear ending 31 March 2000, is likely end up with a loss
of nearly Rs 2,500 crore for the full financial year, a source close to the company said.
This may lead to the public sector company being referred
to the Board for Industrial and Financial Restructuring. In 1998-99, SAIL had made a loss
of Rs 1,573 crore.
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Microsoft plans Passport
for shoppers
Mumbai: Microsoft is planning a new Passport service for its HotMail
users. The service promises to make buying on the net a welcome experience.
Passport works by creating a Wallet, which contains the
profile, user's identity and password. Once the user logs on to a commerce website,
Passport fills up the form automatically. To make the transaction secure and reliable,
Microsoft will insist on websites getting themselves certified by third-party privacy
enforcement organisations.
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Stemcor to set up power
plant
Mumbai: Stemcor, the UK-based trading group, which has taken a 51 per
cent stake in Essar Minerals, is planning to set up 24 MW captive power plant at
Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh at a cost of Rs 75 crore.
The power plant will use low sulphur heavy stock as fuel.
Essar Steel holds 49 per cent stake in Essar Minerals.
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Kinetic group offers ESOP
Pune: The Kinetic group will offer stock options to 50 employees along
with 2 lakh shares, amounting to five per cent of its share capital. The companies
involved are Kinetic Engineering and Kinetic Motor Company.
The exercise option will be Rs 60 per share of Rs 10 each
for Kinetic Engineering and Rs 30 per share of Rs 10 each for Kinetic Motor Company. Those
eligible for the scheme will include employees in the category of managers and above and
directors.
Kinetic Engineering shares are quoted at Rs 119.50 to Rs
122 per share and Kinetic Motor Company shares at Rs 51.50.
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Escotel registers huge
losses
New Delhi: Escotel Mobile Communication, a joint venture between Escorts
and First Pacific of Hong Kong, has accumulated losses of nearly Rs 303 crore. In
1998-99, the company had incurred a staggering loss of Rs 187.83 crore on a total income
of Rs 73.78 crore. In the previous year, it had incurred loss of Rs 115 crore on an income
of Rs 44.16 crore.
Escotel provides cellular services in Haryana, Western UP
and Kerala with a total customer base of 70,000.
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Vesuvius to acquire plant
Calcutta: Vesuvius India is in an advanced stage of acquiring a plant in
India to make continuous casting refractory items. The company says the plant will be
acquired for Rs 7 crore.
Jean Pierre Malhebre, director of Vesuvius, said the
company will also invest Rs 5 crore through deferred payment credit in offering assistance
to steel manufactures, who wish to upgrade their refractory technology.
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Mitsubishi plan to buy
Hind Motor stake still on
New Delhi: Mitsubishi Motors Corporation has not shelved its plan to
acquire a 10 per cent equity stake in Hindustan Motors. The company has said it will
consider exercising the option at an appropriate time
Hindustan Motors produces Mitsubishi's Lancer car in
India.
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L&T refuses wage hikes
to non-performers
Mumbai: Larsen & Toubro has denied salary increases for its
non-performing employees. Nearly two per cent of its 27,000-strong workforce have been
affected by the decision. These staff in the supervisory and management cadre were not
given increments for the year ended June 1999 on account of poor performance.
L&T has launched a voluntary retirement scheme, and is
said to be planning to cut down its workforce to 25,000.
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Acer, Cisco in tie-up
Taipei: Acer of Taiwan has finalised an alliance with Cisco Systems to
expand its business to networking. Acer and Cisco will jointly develop and market products
operating with Cisco's data, voice and video integration technology. The technology brings
data, voice and communications systems into a single network.
In the first phase, Acer will develop products such as
videophones that use a Cisco environment. Later, there will be a set of products
that will accommodate existing Acer products.
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Disney sells Fairchild
Los Angeles: Walt Disney Company said it is selling its Fairchild
Publications unit, which includes magazines like W and Jane, to Advance
Publications. This is part of Walt Disney's plans to trim costs and shed non-core
businesses.
Disney had acquired Fairchild when it bought Capital
Cities/ABC in 1996. There are talks now to sell its California baseball teams, Anaheim
Angels and the Mighty Ducks National Hockey League franchises.
Meanwhile Walt Disney has bought 60 per cent in online
educational toy retailer Toysmart.com, The New York Times said.
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US, German defence firms
may merge
Washington: There are chances of mergers of European and American defence
firms, the Pentagon has indicated. American and German defence officials discussed the
likelihood of such mergers, and reiteration of the US position that sensitive technology
should be developed, produced, and maintained in American by Americans.
The Americans have already held a similar meeting with
British officials. The exercise is part of Pentagon policy.
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GM officials for talks with
Daewoo
Seoul: General Motors has sent a fact-finding team to Daewoo to assess
the Korean group's car business, and to forge an alliance. Some 20 officials from GM's
worldwide operations will examine various aspects of Daewoo's vehicle business in the next
two or three days, a GM spokesman in Seoul said.
This will be the first person-to-person contact between
Daewoo and GM since the two sides signed a memorandum of understanding on 6 August 1999.
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3 shareholders object to
Hoechst-Rhone merger
Frankfurt: Hoechst said it has received objections from three
shareholders on its merger with Rhone-Poulenc, scheduled for November 1999.
However, a company spokesman declined to comment on the
implications of the objections.
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