Godrej Soaps to focus on detergents, soaps
Mumbai: Godrej Soaps will focus on its core business -- soaps and liquid detergents and haircare. Adi Godrej, managing director of Godrej Soaps, is quoted in The Economic Times as saying that the company is on the look-out for acquisitions in toilet soaps and plans to introduce a number of new products on its own by December 1999, including liquid detergents meant for superior garments. The company will stay away from the detergent market for cotton and synthetic garments, now dominated by Hindustan Lever, Procter & Gamble and Nirma.

The company has also taken a conscious decision not to have edible oil as one of its thrust areas as there is little margin in this segment.

The Godrej group as a whole is restructuring. Godrej   Soaps had recently divested part of its stake in Godrej Sara Lee to holding company Godrej & Boyce Mfg Co, while another group company Godrej Foods divested is stake in Godrej Pillsbury to the holding company. The Godrej-GE alliance is also coming to an end as the US major is exiting the joint venture, Godrej-GE Appliances.
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DCM restructuring, plans sale of assets
New Delhi: DCM is restructuring and plans to focus on information technology and branded textile in future. The company will retire its debts of Rs 420 crore over a five-year period with funds to be raised through sale of real estate, foundry facilities, and investments in group companies and through a divestment of its holdings in DCM Data Systems' software business.

The company has finalised a scheme, which is being presented to its board. The scheme will later come up before the Delhi High Court. ICICI and UTI, the financial institutions with exposure in DCM, are understood to have approved the proposal.
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Reliance Systems plans co-units
Bangalore: Reliance Systems, the Bangalore-based software products and services company, is setting up subsidiary companies to focus on business activities in the US and Europe. The company will change its name to create a common corporate identity.

Reliance Systems has been founded by a team that had earlier worked with Verifone India, comprising V. Ramakrishna, P.N. Karanth, M.G. Balakrishna Rao and Vandana Malaiya. The company focuses on electronic payment systems and smart card-related areas.
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Sail VRS to close on 31 October
Calcutta: The Steel Authority of India Ltd has decided to close its voluntary retirement scheme on 31 October. Sail had recently told its employees in the age group of 58-60 to put in their VRS applications by 31 October so that they can hedge a possible rollback in the retirement age to 58 years.

The VRS is expected to remove nearly 10,000 people from the ailing public sector steel company. Sources claim the company has already reached its target - hence the early closure of the scheme.
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Ruias acquire full stake in Sterling Cellular
New Delhi: The Essar group is acquiring the equity holding of C. Sivasankaran and Swisscom in Sterling Cellular, the cellular service provider in New Delhi. While Mr Sivasankaran has 16.4 per cent of the company, Swisscom holds 32.6 per cent.

The stake will be sold in one block to Essar, which already has 51 per cent of Sterling Cellular equity. The transfer of 49 per cent from Mr Sivasankaran and Swisscom will give Essar full control of Sterling Cellular.

The price at which the transfer is taking place is estimated to be over $100 million.
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Essar Steel told to rework plan
Mumbai: Financial institutions are understood to have told Essar Steel to rework its financing plan and resolve the floating rate notes issue before they can take any decision on a financial revival package for the company. The institutions have, therefore, deferred a decision on the company's proposal to float a Rs 300-crore rights issue and to extend the maturity of its domestic loans from the current seven years to 10 to 12 years.

The institutions are learnt to have agreed that they can share the charge over the assets of the company with the FRN holders.
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Indian Rayon bids for carbon black unit
Mumbai: The AV Birla group company Indian Rayon and Industries is planning to acquire a carbon black plant of the Korean Steel Company. Indian Rayon is among 20 bidders shortlisted for the unit.

Indian Rayon has two overseas carbon black units, the Thai Carbon Black Public Company in Thailand and Alexandria Carbon Black Company in Egypt.
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Transmile Air to ply to Indian cities
Bangalore: Transmile Air, the Malaysian flag carrier, is planning flights to  India. It will have flights to New Delhi, Chennai and Bangalore. The airline, the second largest in Malaysia, expects to tap the India-Far East route, and focus on cargo movement.

It will also tie up with Indian Airlines for ground handling of its flights. To start with, bi-weekly flights to Chennai and once-a-week flights to Bangalore will be introduced. The cargo flights will be routed through Kuala Lumpur to destinations like Taipei, Shenzen, Manila, Jakarta and Penang.
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Hyundai Accent launch next week
Chennai: Hyundai Motor India will launch its Accent in India next week. The company has said Accent's price will be below that of Mitsubishi Lancer.

The 1,500-cc, 12-valve, 4-cylinder engine vehicle, which is Euro II compliant, will be available in six colours. The company also claims Accent gives a mileage of 26 km per litre of petrol. Initially, there will be a petrol version with manual transmission and other facilities. Later, the company will introduce a deluxe model, and diesel versions.
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Honda plea on exports rejected
New Delhi: The government has rejected Honda Motor Company's plea against an export obligation commitment of its proposed wholly-owned subsidiary for making scooters and motorcycles. The company has been directed to sign a legal undertaking with the director general of foreign trade to meet the required level of exports.

Honda had said that such a commitment was not required, and argued that under the export-import policy, it is not required to execute any legal undertaking. The Foreign Investments Promotion Board had cleared Honda's proposal to set up the subsidiary on condition that it executes a legal undertaking to fulfil the export obligation with the DGFT prior to commencement of production .
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Phelps Dodge succeeds with Asarco too
New York: Asarco said it has accepted the $1.12 billion cash and stock offer from Phelps Dodge. Having already annexed another rival, Cyprus Amaz Minerals, Phelps Dodge will be the largest copper company in the world.

The Phoenix, Arizona-based Phelps Dodge will pay $28.21 per share in cash and stock for the New York-headquartered Asarco.

Earlier, Asarco and Cyprus Amaz Minerals had talked of a possible merger. Phelps Dodge thwarted their plans through hostile bids for both companies. It then reached a friendly $1.8 billion agreement with Cyprus.

The acquisition of Asarco and Cyprus will make Phelps Dodge the top player in copper, toppling Chile's Codelco from the first place.
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CBS investing in internet portal
New York: CBS Corporation has said it is investing $100 million in iWon.com, a new internet portal that has give-away schemes under which it offers $10,000 daily as part of its plan to popularise internet usage. The site, which is like Yahoo.com or Excite.com, also promises to award $1 million per month and $10 million on "tax day" on 17 April 2000.

The winners will be announced on CBS's television network.
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New iMacs introduced
Cupertino, California: Apple Computer has introduced a new line of its Mac computers, pricing the systems $999 upwards. The top-end models will have DVD players and software for making home movies.

The company hopes the pricing will make the base model a favourite with first-time purchasers.
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Shell Canada sells assets to Apache
Calgary: Shell Canada has sold its assets in its Canadian oil and gas fields to the Houston-based Apache Corporation for $524 million.

Apache said the deal will boost its Canadian oil and gas operations by 47 per cent. The company intends to fund the purchase by drawing down its credit line. This will be Apache's second purchase of assets from the Royal Dutch/Shell group. It had in April 1999 purchased Shell properties in the Gulf of Mexico.
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Cigarette firms to merge
Paris: Spanish tobacco firm Tabacalera and Seita of France will merge to create the world's fourth largest tobacco group. Sources involved in the merger talks said post-merger the group will be headquartered in Paris with stock listing in Paris and Madrid.

The two companies will have a 50:50 shareholding in the new entity. Seita has the famous Gitanes and Gauloises brands of cigarettes and Tabacalera has Fortuna and Ducados.
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