Non-executive directors spike Indian Oil plan to buy out Birla stake
Mumbai: Two key non executive directors on the board of Indian Oil have spiked the company’s plans to buy out the Aditya Birla group’s 37 per cent stake in Mangalore Refineries and Petrochemicals. These directors are SK Barua of IIM Ahmedabad and Vineet Nayar of HCL Technologies.

The board’s investment planning committee, which met last week, has concluded that there is no justification in buying into the loss-making refinery, in view of the fact that international refining margins are at a all-time low.

Despite this objection, it is understood that the Birla group and the third partner, Hindustan Petroleum, are preparing to make a presentation to the Indian Oil board on the merits of the latter buying the Birla stake in MRPL.

The Aditya Birla group has been wanting to exit the 9-million tonne refinery for the past two years and has communicated this to the ministry of petroleum and natural gas.

While the acquisition of the Birla stake may make strategic sense to Indian Oil, the oil major’s financial resources are likely to get stretched if the acquisition goes through in view of its proposed plans to buy Haldia Petrochemicals and part of IPCL.
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Balaji Telefilms calls off merger deal
Mumbai: Balaji Telefims, promoted by yesteryear’s film star Jeetendra, has decided to call off the high-profile merger with Nine Networks, the Vinay Maloo-Kerry Packer combine promoted company.

However Balaji will continue to be a content provider for the Nine Gold slot on DD Metro.

Nine Networks recently got an eighteen month extension for its 7-10 p.m slot on state-owned Doordarshan on the same terms and conditions as currently applicable. HFCL-Nine Broadcasting pays Rs 121 crore for the three-hour of airtime on DD Metro.

However it is understood that Nine Network executives are in parlays with DD officials for easier terms for the extended contract. Earlier, Nine Networks had pressed for a longer five-year contract and had even threatened to walk out of the deal.
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Talks about merger between Tata Infotech and TCS
New Delhi: According to Nirmal Jain, managing director of Tata Infotech, the company is likely to be merged with group company and software major, Tata Consultancy Services.

The proposed merger, as and when it happens, will create the largest infotech company in the country in terms of turnover, manpower and services.
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Tata Infotech launches new courses
New Delhi: Leading Tata group IT company, Tata Infotech, recently launched its range of professional courses for skill upgradation in the advanced and introductory value-added computer training segment under the brand name Ambition.

The new courses are expected to cater to the IT training needs of professionals, across the industry segments.

The company, along with its channel partners, is understood to have invested Rs 60 crore in the total courseware preparation, which also includes setting up of training centres.

The courses have been brought out in association with US-based Smartforce, and have been either co-developed or approved by 19 infotech vendors like Cisco, Microsoft, Oracle, Intel, Intel, Sap, Sun and IBM.

The company plans to have more than 100 centres for the Ambition course with the capacity to train 20,000 professionals by the end of the current fiscal.
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Morepen Laboratories files for 3 patents
New Delhi: Domestic pharma company, Morepen Laboratories, recently announced that it has filed for three patents, of which two are process patents. These patents cover products belonging to the dermatology and anti-biotic segments. Two of these are international patents.

According to Atul Gandotra, vice-president (marketing and sales), the company has filed these patents as part of its plans to meet competition head-on. Mr. Gandotra also stated that the company is scouting around for some brand take-overs, which will help in safeguarding its position in the post-patents era.
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AV Birla group to buy Rhone-Poulenc House
Mumbai: The AV Birla group is close to sealing an agreement to buy out the Worli, Mumbai-based, five-storey corporate headquarters of Ajay Piramal group company, Rhone-Poulenc India. The deal is said to be valued at an estimated Rs. 85 crore.

Rhone-Poulenc House, as the building is currently called, is slated to be the new corporate headquarters of the Aditya Birla group. The sale is expected to conclude by September this year.

Rhone-Poulenc House, located on prime real estate at S K Ahire Marg, Worli has been the RPI headquarters for nearly 25 years.
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Balco to return to normalcy in one month
New Delhi: After a debilitating 67-day strike, recently privatised Balco saw its workers come back to work. The company stated that it would take about a month for the plant to return to complete normalcy.

The 7,000 workers were protesting against the government's sale of a 51 per cent stake in Balco to metals firm Sterlite Industries.

Balco managing director S C Krishnan said production would resume in four to five days at the plant in Korba in Chhattisgarh. Balco supplies 15 per cent of India's aluminium output.

Experts were examining the smelter to assess whether there was any damage due to the shutdown. Balco runs a 200,000-tonne-a-year alumina plant and a 100,000-tonne aluminium smelter. It has also set up a 40,000-tonne hot and cold rolling mill at the plant.

Sterlite, which bought the controlling stake for Rs 551 crore, has said it aimed to turn the plant into the largest in the world.
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Godrej group to set up young executive board
Mumbai: The Godrej group announced the setting up of a Young Executive Board, which will advise the executive committee of the group. The objective of the Young Executive Board, to be comprised of members from across the group, is to engage bright young talent in the group to use their knowledge and enthusiasm to further the progress of the group.

The total number of members on the Young Executive Board is expected to be around 12.

The group has also set up a think tank which will advise the group executive committee on futuristic developments in areas like information technology, science, R&D, human resource trends, among others.

The think tank consists of senior personnel like vice-presidents and general managers, who are not on the executive committee or on the boards of the group companies.
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Crossroads opens new outlet in Pune
Pune: Piramal group’s Crossroads megastore venture opened its shopping mall in Pune, marking the venture’s first attempt outside Mumbai.

The Pune megastore is a compact version of Crossroads in Mumbai and will lay emphasis on shopping and will not focus on entertainment. The group is also said to be scouting for space for opening the first Crossroads shoppertainment mall in Pune in the next few months.

According to Crossroads managing director, Jaydev Mody, the company plans to open similar ventures in the western and souther regions, mainly in the cities of Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad.

The Pune outlet has been opened after a significant amount of market research which indicated that the Puneite was evolving a very distinct lifestyle for himself. The city was among the region’s fastest growing customer markets. The Pune outlet is expected to attract 3,000 customers per day. The Pune store is spread over 51,000 square feet.
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Zensar Technologies aims at tripling turnover
Pune: According to Ganesh Natarajan, who recently took over as chief executive, Zensar Technologies is implementing the ‘Triple Plus’ agenda aimed at tripling turnover to US $150 million by March 2004.

Zensar is a joint venture between ICL (UK), a Fujitsu company, and RPG Enterprises (India).

Zensar plans to accelerate its growth through expanding the geographical focus and exploring new markets. The company has created six territories out of its global business with each of them yielding profitable revenues.

With nearly 55 per cent of the business coming from the US, the company is opening three new offices in Boston, Washington and Los Angeles and plans to set up a new office in the Middle East.

The company’s delivery model will be focussed on Mission Plus and BlueChilli. The former is its brand for offshore dedicated centre with customers such as Cisco, Fujitsu, Sprint, P&ONL, Transco and a few more companies from Europe and Japan. BlueChilli is the second brand that addresses e-business transformation needs of a company for which it has a strategic technology alliance with Microsoft as their e-commerce solution partners.

Under its new plans the company plans to focus on three major verticals — BFI (banking, finance and insurance), MRD (manufacturing, retail and distribution) and TWE (telecom, wireless and embedded systems).
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Bajaj Auto not to spin off bike business
Mumbai: Leading two-wheeler manufacturer, Bajaj Auto has decided to drop its plan to hive off the motorcycles business into a separate joint venture with Kawasaki Heavy Industries of Japan.

For the last two years the company had been considering spinning off the business into a 80:20 venture with Kawasaki.

This move was confirmed by Sanjiv Bajaj, general manager (corporate finance). He also confirmed that the company’s existing relationship with Kawasaki will stay.

It is understood that the company’s change in plans is due to declining geared scooter sales, its mainstay, and the sudden spurt in demand for motorcycles.

The Maharashtra government's decision to withdraw tax sops to Bajaj Auto in case the joint venture was set up to manufacture motorcycles is another factor that has influenced the decision.

Currently, all the motorcycles sold in the country under the Bajaj banner are Kawasaki-designed products. However, Bajaj Auto is now also looking at developing its own range of motorcycles.
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ACC drops plan to sell units to Tata Power
Mumbai: The Associated Cement Companies (ACC) has dropped its plan to sell the two captive power plants at its Jamul and Kymore units to Tata Power. The sale would have helped ACC raise around Rs. 300 crore.

The sale, for which shareholder approval had already been obtained, had met with a roadblock with the Madhya Pradesh government, whose approval was critical, sitting on the clearance for months.

According to analysts given ACC's improved price realisations in recent months, it would not be under much pressure to sell the power units to raise cash.
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Kotak Mahindra to renew holiday finance contract with SOTC Kuoni
Mumbai: After a successful first phase of 36 months, Kotak Mahindra has renewed its contract with SOTC Kuoni India for financing holiday travel. The renewed contract is also likely to run for a further 36 months.

Holiday finance has emerged a major retail finance business of KMFL, accounting for 30 per cent of its total retail finance business. The holiday finance business of the NBFC is in the form of providing loans to the upper middle-class, with income levels more than Rs 1.2 lakh per annum, for their foreign tours. Financing for domestic tours is on the anvil.

The KMFL-SOTC tie-up, however, is likely to face stiff competition from recently formed alliances -- Cox & Kings with HSBC and Thomas Cook with Citibank.
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