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Tatas buying out Bell
Canada’s equity in JV
Mumbai: The Tatas are in the process of
acquiring collaborator Bell Canada's shareholding in Tata Cellular, the cellular
service arm of the group. While the Tatas own 51 per cent of the joint venture, Bell
Canada has 39 per cent, and AIG, a private equity fund, has 10 per cent. The company,
which provides cellular services in Andhra Pradesh, reportedly has some 50,000
subscribers.
Bell Canada has announced its exit from its ventures in
Asia. The Tata group may later induct a strategic partner in the venture.
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Varuna Investments to
merge with Tata Investment
Mumbai: Varuna Investments, an investment
company promoted by Tata Chemicals, is being merged with Tata Investment Corporation,
another investment company belonging to the group. The merger involves a share swap of
four equity shares of Tata Investment Corporation for every one share of Varuna. The
transaction is valued at around Rs 60 crore.
Varuna Investments is an unlisted investment company in
which Tata Chemicals has a 48 per cent holding, other Tata companies 35 per cent, and
individuals, including the late Darbari Seth's family, the balance.
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Sterlite plans
restructuring
Mumbai: Sterlite Industries has appointed
management consulting firm Arthur Andersen to do a review of its operations and suggest
ways to restructure its business divisions. The consulting firm is expected to submit its
report in a month’s time. The company says it wants to leverage its existing
strengths and enhance shareholder value. It wants to focus on its optic fibres.
Sterlite has licensed fibre optics technology from
Finland's Nokia, which is one of the top six fibre optic manufacturers in the world. The
company now has an estimated 60 per cent share of the 6.1-lakh km per annum fibre optic
market. Its other divisions are copper and aluminium.
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IDBI to decide on funds
for Essar FRN
Mumbai: The board of the Industrial
Development Bank of India is meeting on 31 January to decide on whether to release funds
to Essar Steel towards repayment of the $104 million cash portion of its defaulted $250
million floating rate notes. The funds have to be released by 31 January. Otherwise, the
entire resolution on repayment of FRN holders will become null and void, meaning the
company will have to renegotiate the deal once again.
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SCI in JV with Mitsui,
Enron
Mumbai: The public sector Shipping
Corporation of India has signed an agreement with Japanese Mitsui OSK Lines and AFCL, a
subsidiary of Enron, to float a shipping joint venture to transport liquefied natural gas
for Enron’s Dabhol power project on the Maharashtra coast. The joint venture
Greenfield Holding Company is registered in Cayman Islands. Teh SCI is investing $11
million for a 20 per cent equity in the company.
Meanwhile, the ministry of surface transport has asked the
SCI to introduce a voluntary retirement scheme at the earliest. The company has some
10,000 offshore staff and 1,550 shore staff. The VRS may not be available to the offshore
staff.
The government intends to divest 40 per cent of the
company’s equity to a strategic partner. At present, it holds 80 per cent of the
company's equity.
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Pacific Internet
enters India
Mumbai: Pacific Internet of Singapore has
launched its Internet services in India. The company is offering two broad access schemes
– pre-paid surf all and surf-by-night -- in Mumbai, New Delhi, and Bangalore.
Pacific Internet has formed a joint venture with the
Indian arm of the Singapore-based Thakral group, a trading company, to overcome the
statutory requirements under the ISP Act.
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Shonkh Tech attracts
investment
Mumbai: Ketan Parekh, a bull operator on the
Bombay Stock Exchange, is learnt to have acquired equity holding in the privately-held
Shonkh Technologies, a Bangalore-based IT company. The company has also attracted
investment from Unit Trust of India. The shares have been purchased at a high premium,
even as the company is set to come out with an initial public offering sometime later this
year.
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Blue Star plans infotech
company
New Delhi: Blue Star is planning an
information technology company, Blue Star Infotech, which is expected to come into being
by May 2000. At present, the company has an infotech division with business of about Rs 40
crore, and this is being hived off into the new company, says Blue Star’s chairman
and chief executive officer Ashok M. Advani. The new company will focus on software
solutions. Blue Star has business relations with Hewlett-Packard and Hitachi Medical
Corporation, whose products it markets.
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No Indian Oil shares for
companies
New Delhi: The government has decided not to
allow companies to bid for the 10 per cent equity it is disinvesting in Indian Oil
Corporation. However, investment companies floated by companies will be barred from
bidding for the stake. The government decision is in consideration of Indian Oil’s
request that its competitors should be prevented from entering its board after acquiring
the holding.
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ICICI-Compaq tie-up for
gateway
Mumbai: ICICI has entered into a partnership
with a Compaq consortium to establish India’s first payments gateway for B2B and B2C
e-com transactions. ICICI is setting up a wholly-owned subsidiary to manage the gateway
and related business, and this entire project will be implemented by Compaq India. Two
other IT companies, QSI Payment Technologies of Australia and Financial Software &
Systems, will also be involved in the project along with Compaq India.
ICICI said in a press release that it will be the first
financial intermediary in the country to implement an e-commerce payment gateway and will
provide its services to companies, consumers, merchants and banks that plan to make use of
the gateway.
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Zuari plans cement
company
Mumbai: K.K. Birla group company Zuari
Industries is hiving off its cement division into a separate company. The company has
informed the Bombay Stock Exchange that it is planning to incorporate a new company, which
will take over the entire business of the cement division.
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VSNL, Haryana body
promote project
New Delhi: Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd. and the
Haryana Electronics Development Corporation are setting up a high speed data
communications facility with associated marketing services for data links, Internet access
and other value-added services of VSNL. The two have signed a memorandum of understanding
for this purpose.
The project will be located at the electronics city in
Gurgaon near Delhi and will provide optical fibre and microwave connectivity between the
electronics city and VSNL’s gateway in Delhi. It is expected to offer critical
international communications infrastructure to a number of software exporters.
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Intel, GE Cap pick up
stake in United Teleshopping
New Delhi: Intel Pacific and GE Capital
Mauritius Equity Investment have picked up stakes of 12.86 per cent and 6.98 per cent
respectively in United Teleshopping and Marketing Company, a Unilazer group company. With
that, the foreign equity in the company has increased to 57.14 per cent from 45.45 per
cent earlier. United Teleshopping intends to issue fresh equity to Draper India
International Mauritius and Walden-Nikko Mauritius Company.
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6000 to lose jobs in
Coca-Cola
Atlanta: Coca-Cola is reducing some 6,000
jobs – nearly 20 per cent of its worldwide workforce – in a restructuring that
will result in a pre-tax charge of $800 million in year 2000 and a saving of $300 million
in annual costs. The company announced that it has taken a $813 million write-down on its
assets in Russia, the Baltic, and Japan, which resulted in losses in 1999's fourth
quarter. It lost $45 million on a net operating revenue of $19.8 billion after the
write-down for the three months ended 31 December.
About 2,500 of the the jobs that will be cut are based in
the Atlanta headquarters of the company; the others are located outside the US.
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France Telecom buys out
Global One
Paris: France Telecom is buying out Global
One, the joint venture global telecom company. It is purchasing the 71 per cent holding of
partners Deutsche Telekom and Sprint in the venture (Deutsche Telekom 29 per cent and
Sprint 42 per cent) at a total equity value of $3.9 billion and an enterprise value of
$4.3 billion. The French operator already holds 29 per cent equity in the company.
While Deutsche Telekom will receive $2.8 billion in cash
and $188.5 million in repaid debt, Sprint will get cash of $1.13 billion and repaid debt
of $276 million. Global One provides international voice and data services to large
companies in over 65 countries including the US.
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