Sony Entertainment has operations in India – where its programming and advertising revenue generating arms are situated – and Singapore – where its broadcasting arm is situated. Capital will be investing in both the arms through its subsidiary, Capital Japan.

The deal will see Capital Japan pick up the stake from the company’s original promoters -- Sony Pictures Entertainment and leading Indian businessmen who include, Rakesh Aggarwal, Balu Sule, Sudesh Iyer and film star Jackie Shroff.

The deal has been consummated on the understanding that the company will make an IPO at the earliest, but not later that two years from the date of the transaction. The valuation of the company has been done by management consultants KPMG and investment bankers Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs.
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IL&FS online retail subsidiary to go public
Mumbai: Investsmart India, the retail broking outfit controlled by Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services, is planning to go public with a 25 per cent equity float.

The company set up in September 1998, currently manages assets worth Rs 850 crore. The other major shareholders of the company are Orix Corporation of Japan and Mumbai-based real estate tycoons, the Rahejas.

The online broking services company has reportedly generating revenues to the tune of Rs. 15 crore in its first full year of operations. The company has also lined up an expansion plan which rides on working with IT-dominated companies or software technology parks, to tap the demand from highly-paid young engineers.

The company has set up an advisory cell in India’s largest software company, Infosys Technologies, and is targeting the employee base of the software giant for its services. The company is said to have added nearly 175 of Infosys employees, to the already existing base of 250 employees, as its customers.
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Wockhardt acquisition of US-based Sidmak is off
Mumbai: Reversing its earlier stand, the board of directors of New Jersey-based, Sidmak Laboratories, have decided against putting the company up for sale. This has resulted in the acquisition talks between the company and India’s Wokchardt Pharmaceuticals, which had bid to take over the US company, being called off.

According to reports, Wockhardt was the only Indian company in the race for acquiring Sidmak. While the acquisition would have added a ready $100 million of revenue to the Indian company, it is believed that Wockhardt found the asking price.

According to a release from the US company, the board of directors of the company have reconsidered the sale decision and have directed all company personnel to "redirect their energies at expanding and improving relationship with its customers and suppliers".

Sidmak has been in the generic pharmaceutical business for over 20 years, undergoing important changes since 1995. In 1997, the Sobel group of Holland acquired a majority ownership in the company and this allowed the number of products in the portfolio to be increased.
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General Motors India gets ISO 14001 certification
Chennai: The Indian subsidiary of the US auto giant, General Motors India, has been awarded ISO 14001 certification for establishing and applying an environmental management system for manufacturing of automobiles.

Mr. Richard C Swando, president and managing director of the company, stated that the award was an acknowledgement of the company’s commitment to protecting human health, natural resources and the local and global environment in accordance with the environmental principles of its parent company, General Motors Corporation. Apart from bringing in ecofriendly technology to India, GMI has been maintaining high environmental standards from the start of its operations.

Mr. Swando also thanked all the GMI employees, ISO consultants, suppliers and all other business associates for extending their support and cooperation in making the certification happen in a short span of six months.

GM India is continuously developing and incorporating best of the trade practices which have been duly recognised. GM India had received the prestigious ISO 9002 certification last year, for conformance to the Quality system standards of ISO 9002.
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Air-India revamps marketing structure in UK
New Delhi: In keeping with its plan of replacing general sales agents worldwide with consolidators, which is the prevalent practice in the airline industry, Air-India has appointed Somak Travel, Travel Pack and Welcome Travel as consolidators for the UK market.

The three consolidators for the UK region were selected out of 22 applicants, based on their marketing organisation and distribution infrastructure. The three consolidators have been asked to provide a bank guarantee of one million pounds for the ticket stock to be held by them.

The national carrier had set up two committees to scrutinise the tenders. First a regional committee looked at the eligibility criteria and shortlisted five companies. Then, an empowered committee comprising the commercial director and finance director of the airline selected three consolidators.

The national carrier is also in the process of replacing its GSAs for the Canada and North India regions.

Appointment of consolidators would lead to competition in marketing Air-India in the UK besides saving the three per cent overriding commission, which is paid to GSAs.
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ABB bags Rs. 18 crore order from Chettinad Cement
New Delhi: Swiss engineer major, ABB has bagged a Rs. 18.8-crore "process automation and optimisation" order from Chettinad Cements Ltd for its upcoming 0.9-million tonnes per annum project in Karaikal. The project, scheduled for commissioning in August 2001, was won against competition from Siemens, Alstom and L&T.

The order encompasses supply of complete electrics, automation and optimisation packages for the cement industry, besides the supply of the LINKman optimisation system, which will enable the plant to achieve continuous process optimisation.

According to the company, the built-in neuro-fuzzy logic enables true product optimisation as it learns the relationship between key process variables and production operational constraints.
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Thermax to market microwave disinfection system
Pune: Thermax Ltd recently signed a memorandum of understanding with the Society of Applied Microwave Electronics Engineering and Research (Sameer) for commercialisation of its indigenously developed microwave disinfection system.

This system, used for treating pathological biomedical waste generated by hospitals and research institutes, has been tested for performance at the Haffkine Institute, Mumbai, for 45 days.

The operations are totally controlled by programmable logic controller and the entire disinfection process is said to take 25 minutes cycle time.

Once the disinfection process is completed, the waste can be disposed off along with the normal municipal garbage.
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Reliance-CMC combine bids for citizen services network project
Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh’s prestigious integrated citizen services project being piloted in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad, which is slated to deliver one-stop access to at least 25 public utilities to the citizens of these two cities, has attracted several major parties in the bidding process.

These include India’s largest petrochemicals company, Reliance Industries, which has tied up with CMC Ltd, the US-based Intelligroup with HCL, United Telecom with ComVision and CMS Technologies with Ram Informatics and TCS, which has bid for the project alone.

The project, which is to be commissioned in six months, will deliver services to people through multiple channels like dedicated counters, networked electronic kiosks, the Internet and ultimately PDAs and cellphones. It will offer services like payment of utility bills, delivering birth and death certificates, registration certificates for vehicles among others.

The project envisages three distinct revenue streams are seen for the private operators. These are, a transaction-based service charge on the government-citizen transactions (G2C), as fixed through the financial bid, a transaction-based service charge on the citizen-business (B2C) transactions, to be fixed by the operator and revenues from advertisements on the Internet and on the receipts issued to citizens.

The project is to be initially implemented on a BOOT basis by the private entrepreneur who will operate it for a period of three years after which the government reserves the right to transfer the project to itself at five per cent of the cost of the assets installed.
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