Tatas plan home finance company
Mumbai: The Tata group is planning a foray into the housing finance sector and is setting up a separate housing finance company with an initial capital investment of Rs 50 crore to Rs 100 crore. The company will be a subsidiary of Tata Finance, which will have a shareholding of 51 per cent.  The balance 49 per cent will be split among other group companies. The new venture will be named Tata HomeFinance.

The Economic Times, in a report, said the group eventually wants to offer equity in the new venture to multilateral agencies and strategic foreign firms or private equity funds. The paper quoted Dilip Pendse, managing director of Tata Finance, as saying that the housing finance sector in India offers tremendous opportunities as it is growing 30 per cent per annum.
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Hero Honda withdraws Street
Mumbai: Hero Honda is stopping production of its step-thru 100cc motorcycle, the Street, for the time being. The company wants to relaunch the model in March 2000 with some modifications.

The company has had to do this because the motorcycle was not received well in the market, mainly in view of its price -- Rs 35,000 (ex-showroom). The company sold some 6,600 units in the first half of the year. Compared with the Street, Bajaj Auto’s M80 and Kinetic’s K4 are cheaper at Rs 21,000 and Rs 32,000 respectively. Company sources indicated that the Street will be positioned in the scooter segment after the modifications.
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Kinetic motorcycle in December
New Delhi: Kinetic Engineering has started trial production of motorcycles. The 100cc and 150cc four-stroke motorcycles, developed in technical collaboration with Hyusung of Korea, will be launched in December 1999, Kinetic Engineering’s joint managing director Sulajja F. Motwani said.

The company is targeting sales of 50,000 units in the next financial year. The company will also introduce a 75cc scooter during the auto expo to be held in January 2000. A four-stroke scooter is also getting ready.
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Ministry okays Sail plan
New Delhi: The financial restructuring proposal of the Steel Authority of India Ltd has received in-principle approval from the ministry of steel. The ministry has sent the proposal to other ministries for their comments.

A senior official of the ministry confirmed the development and said the proposal will be placed before the cabinet after the comments from other ministries are received. He also said almost 99 per cent of the recommendations of SAIL's consultants have been accepted. SAIL had appointed McKinsey &Co to formulate a business restructuring plan and Industrial Development Bank of India to advise the company on financial restructuring.
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Crown Mart bids for Gujarat Airways
Mumbai: Crown Mart International, a Gulf-based company promoted by a non-resident Indian, is planning to take over the ailing Gujarat Airways. Details of the bid are not known. Crown Mart International wants to have a presence in the charter aviation business in India.

Gujarat Airways has stopped flying from Mumbai. It has only two aircraft -- Beachcraft 1900s -- and is operating on some routes from Baroda.
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Ruias bring in funds for Essar Oil
Mumbai: The Ruias have been able to raise Rs 400-crore to invest in Essar Oil's equity. The funds have been raised by way of personal loans from banks.

Asea Brown Boveri, the engineering contractor for the refinery project, will bring in Rs 185 crore. With this, the group has tied up the uncovered equity portion of Rs 585 crore, which the financial institutions have asked the Ruias to bring in. The project will now receive further financial assistance from the institutions. Essar Oil is building a 10.5 million tonnes per annum refinery at Jamnagar in Gujarat.
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Reliance Systems to be renamed EximSoft
Bangalore: Software company Reliance Systems will change its name to EximSoft Technologies and plans to set up operations in the US, Japan and Europe. The company will be headquartered in Bangalore and will have its development hub there. Development centres are proposed in the US and other countries.

V. Ramakrishna, managing director of the company's Indian operations, said investments of Rs 20 crore are planned.
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HDFC shelves share buyback
Mumbai: The Housing Development Finance Corporation has shelved its plans for a share buyback. HDFC chairman Deepak Parekh had earlier said the company would consider a buyback to enhance shareholder value.

The housing finance major has taken this decision as the holding of foreign institutional investors has already touched the maximum possible 30 per cent. In the event of a buyback, their holding would cross this mark.
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Ashima to set up second design studio
Ahmedabad: Ashima, the Rs 500-crore textile group, is setting up its second design studio. The new studio will engage European designers working online from home.

Ashima has already set up an online design studio in New York with its partner Cone Mills. Ashima’s chairman and managing director Chintan Parikh said the company will offer customers a range of services and help them in developing the fabrics that will go into next year’s fashions. The company has developed 'Ashima System', a customised software package that it offers as a model to other textile companies. The system is linked to that of Cone Mills, which has bought a stake of over 8 per cent in Ashima. The US textile major is sourcing a large portion of its design work from Ashima besides fabric.
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Conmix plans Indian venture
New Delhi: UAE-based German-Arab joint venture Conmix is setting up a wholy-owned subsidiary in India to manufacture dry plasters and related products. The first plant of the company will be set up in Pune. Later, plants will be built in northern, southern and eastern parts of the country.

The Indian venture will have an initial investment of Rs 7 crore. It will start making dry plaster, gypsum plaster, decorative plasters and adhesives in 2000.
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Lafarge plans to buy CCI units
Mumbai: Lafarge, the French construction materials manufacturing major, is considering acquiring two cement units of the Cement Corporation of India in Madhya Pradesh. The Cement Corporation of India has announced that it wants to sell three of its units.

Lafarge is understood to be interested in two units -- at Akaltara and Mandhar in Madhya Pradesh with a total capacity of less than one million tonne. The CCI is also looking for a buyer for a unit at Charki Dadri in Andhra Pradesh.
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Dow in race for Ciba unit
London: Dow Chemical has been shortlisted in the $1.3 billion auction of Ciba’s speciality chemicals business. Dow faces competition from Morgan Grenfell Private Equity, AEA and Clayton Dubilier & Rice, among others. Credit Suisse First Boston, which is handling the process, is expected to choose a preferred bidder soon.

The division, performance polymers, a world leader in several areas including epoxy resin, with sales of $1.2 billion in 1998, accounts for 21 per cent of Ciba’s revenues.
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Onex hikes offer for Air Canada
Toronto: Onex Corporation has once again raised its cash offer by Canadian $100 million to Canadian $1.2 billion for the control of Air Canada. The offer is intended to top the most recent bid by Air Canada’s management, which is proposing to buy back 36 per cent of the company’s shares at Canadian $16 each. Onex’s offer is worth Canadian $17.5 per share in cash and paper for each Air Canada share. Onex had earlier raised its offer twice.
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Telekom, Microsoft plan JV
Frankfurt: Deutsche Telekom is understood to be planning a multimedia venture with Microsoft. However, the company refused to comment on reports. Germany’s Focus magazine said that Telekom wants to become a global player for multimedia services through the joint venture with Microsoft and that the two firms planned to spend several billion marks on the project.

The magazine said the talks are in an advanced stage and that Time Warner may also take part in the project.
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Vodafone, France Telecom bid for Mannesmann
London: Vodafone Airtouch is talking to France Telecom for a $73.04 billion joint hostile bid for Germany’s Mannesmann. Mannesmann has agreed to being taken over by Britain’s Orange. The Sunday Telegraph said in a report that if the two companies succeed in their joint effort, Vodafone would acquire Mannesmann’s continental European mobile phone assets and France Telecom would take Orange.
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