Godrej Soaps selling stake in Godrej Sara Lee
Mumbai: Godrej Soaps is selling 22.5 per cent of its 48 per cent stake in its joint venture Godrej Sara Lee to holding company Godrej & Boyce Mfg Co as part of its plan to retire debt and reduce its interest burden. Sara Lee has a 51 per cent holding in the joint venture. Godrej Sara lee, formerly known as Godrej Hi-care, is a leading insecticide manufacturer with brands like Good Knight and Jet mosquito repellants.

Earlier, another group company, Godrej Foods, had sold its 29 per cent stake in a joint venture, Godrej Pillsbury, to Godrej & Boyce Mfg Co. These divestments have been made on the basis of valuation advisory reports from a management consulting firm.

Godrej Soaps, in the meanwhile, has acquired  Ezee liquid detergent, Trilo and Key brands from Cussons India and will manufacture and distribute Imperial Leather soaps and talc.
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IBM India launched
Mumbai: IBM launched its full-fledged India operations on 23 September. The US company has bought out the Tata group's stake in the joint venture, Tata IBM.

Speaking at a function in Mumbai marking the launch of IBM India as a wholly-owned subsidiary of IBM, John Joyce, president, IBM Asia Pacific, said the company will set up a PC manufacturing facility near its existing facility in Pondicherry.

IBM India plans to add about 1,000 people to its team this year and will double its research personnel to 150 by 2001. Mr Ranjit Limaye, managing director and chief executive officer of IBM India, said the company is involved in research in voice recognition and in software and support services. For more details, click here.
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RBI interim order on corporate funds abroad
New Delhi: The Reserve Bank of India has rescinded its order to Reliance Industries, Sterlite Industries, Tata Engineering and Locomotive Company and Tata Electric Companies to bring back their funds lodged abroad.  The RBI has, however, clarified that the reprieve is only interim. The funds parked abroad amount to $1.5 billion.

The RBI has also said that the funds cannot be used for pre-payment of debt.
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Dabur permitted to try anti-cancer drug
New Delhi: The Drug Controller General of India has given permission to Dabur India to conduct phase 1 clinical trials of an anti-cancer molecule developed by the Dabur Research Foundation. This is the first chemical entity developed by the foundation to reach the clinical trial stage.

Dabur India sources said the drug, a derivative from natural sources, has been successfully tried on animals. It will now undergo a three-phase clinical trial to establish its safety, efficacy and toxicity levels on humans.
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Hindustan Lever to acquire Cococare
Mumbai: Hindustan Lever is planning to acquire Cococare, a well known coconut oil brand, from Recon Oil Industries. The acquisition will double Hindustan Lever's market share in the coconut hair oil segment. At present, it markets Nihar brand of coconut oil.

Cococare has a market share of 8.5 per cent in the 3,750-tonne coconut oil market. The market leader is Marico Industries, with its Parachute brand.
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Reliance paraxylene plant goes on stream
Mumbai: Reliance Industries has commissioned the first line of its paraxylene plant at Jamnagar in Gujarat. The second and third lines are expected to be commissioned in the next few weeks. The plant has a capacity to produce 1.4 million tonnes of paraxylene per annum.

Reliance has built the plant with United Oil Products technology, which yields paraxylene with a 99.9 per cent purity level. The entire output will be consumed over the next few months by the company's pure terephthalic acid plants. For more details, click here.
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Novo Nordisk splits into two companies
Bangalore: Novo Nordisk, the Danish bio-technology major, is splitting into two independent companies -- Novo Nordisk Health Care and Novo Nordisk Enzyme. The holding company of the group, Novo Nordisk Foundation, has decided to establish a wholly-owned company, Novo A/S, to manage the foundation's funds, handle its interests in the healthcare and enzymes business and invest in new business ventures, Novo Nordisk's corporate executive vice-president and chief of healthcare operations, Lars Rebien Sorensen, said.

In India, the company operates through Novo Nordisk Pharma India. It has tie-ups with Torrent Pharmaceuticals, Knoll Pharmaceuticals and Lifescan, a division of Johnson and Johnson.
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Sri Adhikari's software assets valued
Mumbai: KPMG India has valued the 1,500 hours of television software assets of Sri Adhikari Brothers Television Network at Rs 53 crore.

Disclosing this at the company's annual general meeting, joint managing director of the company Markand Adhikari, said the company has signed a joint venture pact with an Indonesian media company, PT Menara Media Sakti, to produce 300 hours of television software in the local language. The company will also launch a Hindi entertainment channel.
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Incubator for net start-ups
New Delhi: Exodus Communications is setting up an "incubator" with an initial investment of $2 million to help Indian internet start-ups to set up shop in the US.

B.V. Jagdeesh, chief technology officer of Exodus Communications, said the founder of Exodus, K.B. Chandrasekhar, is also likely to team up with him in the venture.
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IDBI credit for Bhel project
Mumbai: The Industrial Development Bank of India has sanctioned an additional Rs 250-crore short-term credit to Bharat Heavy Electricals for its vendor development programme. With this, IDBI will have sanctioned a total of Rs 1,250 crore to Bhel for its vendor development programme. The programme involves small short-term loans to Bhel's suppliers against the security of firm orders from Bhel.
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BIFR rejects Dunlop plea for more time
New Delhi: The Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction has denied more time to Dunlop India to make its net worth positive on its own. The BIFR has asked the Industrial Development Bank of India to formulate a revival package for the sick company.

A two-member BIFR bench said there is no justification in allowing the company any further time as it had not gainfully utilised the time granted.
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Punj Lloyd JV given expressway contract
New Delhi: A joint venture of Punj Lloyd and Sanghamitra of Indonesia has been shortlisted for constructing the phase 1 of the  43-km Ahmedabad-Vadodara expressway project. The phase is estimated to cost Rs 430 crore, and is part of the Rs 900-crore, 92-km expressway to be built to connect the two cities in Gujarat.

The National Highway Authority of India is developing the first phase via a special purpose vehicle, which will have equity participation from the NHAI and the Gujarat government. The entire stretch will be developed on a build, operate and transfer basis.
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Tribunal orders verification of Essar Steel assets
Mumbai: The Debt Recovery Tribunal for Maharashtra and Goa has appointed Anant Bamne as commissioner of court to verify the assets belonging to Essar Steel at its registered office in Hazira in Gujarat. The tribunal's order has been given in a case filed by the State Bank of Travancore for recovery of Rs 3.3 crore loaned to the company.

Mr Bamne has been asked to file a detailed report on 29 September in regard to the goods hypothecated to the bank. The tribunal has also restrained Essar Steel from disposing of its assets until further orders.
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Ruling against Pentafour
New Delhi: The Debt Recovery Tribunal has passed an injunction against Pentaour Products vice chairman and managing director BV. Ramakrishnan, restraining him from transferring, dealing, pledging and alienating shares held by him in the company and other group companies.

The State Bank of Travancore had filed a case against Pentafour Products and Mr Ramakrishnan for recovery of over Rs 40 crore. The tribunal restrained Pentafour Products from alienating in any manner any of the property owned by the company at various places in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry.
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Mannesmann splits
Frankfurt: Mannesmann of Germany is splitting into two companies -- one covering its engineering and automotive operations, and the other telecom. The split was announced even as rumours spread about Vodafone AirTouch planning to acquire Mannesmann.

The company said there is no immediate plans to have a strategic partner for either of its new divisions. The two companies will have separate managements and will be listed in 2001.
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Trademark violation by Pfizer
Los Angeles: A Los Angeles jury decided that Pfizer has violated an existing trademark when it named its antibiotic Trovan.

British company Trovan and Electronic Identification Devices had claimed in a US district court that Pfizer wrongfully misappropriated their trademark name. The companies are seeking more than $100 million in damages.
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Xerox to buy Tektronix's printing unit
New York: Xerox Corporation said it will buy Tektronix's colour printing unit for $950 million in cash. The deal is expected to help Xerox to shift from dependence on copiers and take on office printer leader Hewlett-Packard.

This will be the biggest acquisition in Xerox's history.
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Du Pont plans for renewable energy sources
Boston: Du Pont chairman and chief executive Charles Holliday says the company expects to derive 25 per cent of its revenue in 2010 from non-depletable raw materials. He said in 1998 less than 5 per cent of the company's sales came from materials other than depletable raw materials.

Du Pont, the world's largest chemical company, has set a goal of sourcing 10 per cent of its energy needs from renewable sources, such as solar power, by the end of 2010.
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Mazda to sell stake in Kia
Tokyo: Mazda Motor, the Japanese car maker which is 33.4 per cent owned by Ford Motor of the US, is selling its entire stake in Kia Motors, the Korean car company, now owned by Hyundai, as part of its efforts to focus on core operations and clean up its balance sheet.

Mazda has already sold a quarter of its 8 per cent holding in Kia. The carmaker has recently reported its first profit in six years and has been trying to restructure under the Ford management. It has sold its equity stake in its finance company to Ford Credit and its holding in Jatco, a transmission joint venture, to Nissan Motors.
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