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Wockhardt plans new products, buyouts

Mumbai: Pharmaceuticals major Wockhardt has evolved a growth strategy for the millennium under which it intends to launch a slew of new products annually, scout for acquisitions, set up a chain of specialty hospitals and enter into licensing and marketing joint ventures.

Habil Khorakiwala, chairman and managing director of Wockhardt, says the company will set up a chain of speciality hospitals across the country. At present the group has two hospitals -- one for cardiac purposes in Bangalore and another for nephrological problems in Calcutta.

The company will introduce new products including vaccines, antio-bacterial combinations, analgesics and antipyretics and it hopes to have a major presence in the biologicals business.

It is also actively scouting for acquisitions of brands to add to and complement its present product portfolio. The company has earmarked Rs 100 crore for this purpose. It is eyeing to acquire companies following its successful acquisitions of Wallace in the UK and Merind in India. Strategic alliances for the US and European markets are also part of the plan..
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Tisco pact with Japanese bearings firm
Mumbai: Tata Iron and Steel Company has signed a technical collaboration agreement with Nachi-Fujikoshi Corporation, a Japanese bearings manufacturer. Tisco says the agreement will enable the company to meet the new and emerging requirements of the four-wheeler industry.

Tisco has also appointed McKinsey & Co and Booz-Allen Hamilton, international management consultants, to suggest ways to improve its operational practices and to cut costs. While McKinsey & Co will look at operational practices, Booz-Allen Hamilton will concentrate on rationalising procurement costs. Tisco also plans to reduce manpower by 5,000 in 2000-01. Currently, Tisco has a workforce of 56,000.
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VSNL, ICICI Bank in net pact
Mumbai: Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd will offer ICICI Bank's net-banking clients the facility of on-line registration and payment for Internet connections. VSNL is in talks with other banks like Citibank, State Bank of India HSBC and Standard Chartered Bank to extend this facility.

VSNL is also planning to launch a pre-paid card accompanied with a CD, which would enable a user to log-on to the Internet from any computer.

"The idea is to ensure that customers can get Internet connections easily. The new service that is proposed to be launched shortly will take care of the quality of service but this facility and the pre-paid card facility will enable customers to be able to get Internet connections with ease," said a VSNL source.
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ERP solution over the net
Calcutta: Eastern Software Systems (ESS), the first Indian company to market its own brand of enterprise resource planning (ERP) products -- Makess -- over the Internet, says it has received considerable response for the product from the market and its client list includes Uniworth, LG Electronics, Singer Tools, Container Corporation of India and others. It is now augmenting its Internet and support infrastructure to target small domestic organisations. The company charges Rs 9,000 for the product available over the Internet. It had spend Rs 12 crore to develop Makess.

Intel, Citibank and the Dutch banking organisation, FMO hold over 80 per cent stake in ESS.
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BIFR to file complaint against Deepak Woollens
New Delhi: The Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR) is lodging a complaint against Deepak Woollens before the concerned judicial authority for trying to mislead the board by hiding the fact that it is a small scale industry (SSI). The board has refused to declare it a sick company under the Sick Industrial Companies (Special Provisions) Act.

"The company, which had fudged its accounts without bona fides being proved, did not deserve to be covered under the beneficial provisions of the Act," the Board said while dismissing the company's reference as non-maintainable.

Deepak Woolens' managing director Virendra Goel has admitted to the board that the sentence relating to the company being a SSI had been deleted while submitting photocopies of the balance sheet.
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Farm products in capsules
New Delhi: Varanasi-based Jhoola Herbcare has introduced farm and herbal products, including karela, neem, amla, garlic, brahmi and tulsi, in capsule form. The company has acquired the technology from UK-based Oriental Commodities. The UK company has been given international marketing rights for these products.

The company claimed that the process retains the colour, flavour and potency of the products. They are free from additives, chemicals and artificial colour.Each capsules is priced between Rs 3.00 and Rs 4.50.
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Cadbury India to sell through the net
Mumbai: Cadbury India will push chocolate sales through the Internet in the next few years. Cadbury India's managing director Rajeev Bakshi says business-to-customer transactions are possible for fast-moving consumer goods companies on the Internet. He believes that it is a challenge for companies like Cadbury to create a new buying behaviour through the Internet.
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SAIL loss in H1 at Rs 1,348 crore
Calcutta: Steel Authority of India has recorded a net loss of Rs 1,348 crore in the first half of financial year 1999-2000 against Rs 617 crore in the corresponding period last year.

SAIL's chairman Arvind Pande said the company's bottomline has been adversely affected due to drop in steel prices. He said the company has been able to neutralise the rise in capital charges as well as input costs through cost reduction and increased sales volume.

Mr Pande hoped that the developmental policies announced by the government would translate into revival of the industry.
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Hyundai to dilute stake in Indian unit
Calcutta: Hyundai Motor of Korea is to dilute its holding in Hyundai Motor India to fund the Indian subsidiary's expansion plans. Hyundai Motor holds 100 per cent equity in the Indian arm and has invested about $250 million.

Hyundai Motor India's executive director (marketing and sales) J.H. Kim said the company will increase the prices of its two car models, the Santro and the Accent, to help the company's bottomlines and to generate funds internally to part-finance the expansion plans. Mr Kim also announced that the company will introduce LPG versions of the Accent in the near future.
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LML's motorcycle in December
New Delhi: LML is planning to launch its first motorcycle in December 1999. The vehicle is being developed in technical collaboration with Daelim Motor Company of South Korea.

LML Officials said the company expects to introduce new vehicles, including a four-stroke Daelim motorcycle, and will progressively introduce four models over a 12-month period.

LML 's scooter sales in the first half of 1999-2000 has dropped to 143,257 units from 167,069 units in the same period last year.
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ICICI contract for O&M
Mumbai: ICICI has appointed Ogilvy & Mather to produce its second audio-visual commercial in the second half of November 1999. Contract Advertising had produced the advertising audio-visual that is being shown on television now. Vidhu Vinod Chopra, noted Hindi film maker, who made the first commercial, is not going to be involved in the second commercial.
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Carborundum plans subsidiary
Mumbai: Carborundum Universal is converting its electrocast refractories factory in Kerala into a subsidiary company. It will later be converted into a joint venture company. The company has informed the Bombay Stock Exchange about this plan.

The company is also selling its monolithic refractories unit to Vesuvis India.
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Onex ups price for Air Canada
Toronto: Onex Corporation of Canada has raised the takeover offer of Air Canada, the country's No 1 airline, to Canadian $13 a share in cash and stock from Canadian $8.25 a share. Onex is having the support of American Airlines in trying to buy Air Canada and its financially troubled rival Canadian Airlines Corporation and merge them. At one time Onex had said under no circumstances, it will increase the price.

Earlier, Air Canada had resisted the takeover offer and had in fact bid for Canadian Airlines with support from Star Alliance partners United Airlines and Lufthansa. It was then that Onex launched the new assault.
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IBM makes new flexible transistor
Washington: IBM's researchers have developed a thin and flexible transistor, which they claim, can one day be used to make a computer screen that can be rolled up.

The invention is cheap and can be sprayed onto plastic making it useful in a variety of areas, IBM sources claimed.

Transistors currently are made out of materials that must be processed at very high temperatures. That means they have to go onto hard unmeltable surfaces. The new material consists of organic and inorganic chemicals.
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America Online plans share split
Chantilly: America Online says its board has declared a two-for-one split of the company's shares, the seventh such split in seven years.

The company said the over two million individual holders of its more than 1.1 billion outstanding shares will receive one additional share for every share they own on 8 November 1999.
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Intel plans a new chip
San Francisco: Intel Corporation, the world's largest chipmaker, says it plans a new chip, code-named Timna, its first "system-on-a-chip". The chip can be used in low-end PCs or devices, which will integrate all computing functions onto a single chip.
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domain - B : Indian business : News Review : 30 October 1999 : companies