Satyam plans private placement of shares
Mumbai: Satyam Computer Services is planning private placement of shares worth Rs 350 crore with financial institutions.

The company wants funds to repay loans and become a debt-free organisation before launching its American depository receipts early next year. It is understood to have approached the Unit Trust of India, Life Insurance Corporation and General Insurance Corporation. While the financial institutions are responsive to the offer, they seem to have some reservations about the price of the share that Satyam is demanding -- which is market-related.

The placement will be cum-bonus shares. Each share is valued at Rs 1,900 as it is now trading at an ex-bonus price of Rs 942. The company has announced a 1:1 bonus.

This will be Satyam's second attempt to raise funds. Earlier it had attempted to secure funds through the foreign direct investment route. That idea was dropped.
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Deepak Fertilisers revives Tanzania plan
Pune: Deepak Fertilisers & Petrochemicals Corporation is reviving its plan to set up a gas-based ammonia plant in Tanzania. The company had made the proposal about a year and a half ago.

The revival will now depend on the proposed laying of a pipeline from the gas field to the coast at Dar-es-Salaam. The project is funded by World Bank.

Deepak Fertilisers says the plan will take at least three years even if the pipeline project is built immediately.
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Ashok Leyland fulfils corporate governance norms
Chennai: Ashok Leyland has joined the corporate governance bandwagon. It has become one of the few companies in the country to format its balance sheets in terms of good corporate governance principles.

The company has explained in its latest balance sheet the progress made by it in 17 areas relating to corporate governance suggested by the Confederation of Indian Industry. The company has held the minimum number of board and audit committee meetings required under the recommendations, 13 out of its 15 directors are non-executive directors, and they possess adequate knowledge of company law, and no commission has been paid to non-executive directors.
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Ford Ikon to be ready in November
Chennai: Ford has finally made a car for India. It is rolling out its Ikon, a car suited to Indian conditions, in November 1999. Ford India says the product is for the young, sporty car owner.

The Ikon, known during the trial stages as C195, will be priced around Rs 5 to 6 lakh. It will have petrol and diesel variants. It will be based on the popular Ford hatchback platform Fiesta, but will be a full mid-size version.

Ikon will have a local content of 70 per cent to start with. Ford has declared that Ikon will be its first attempt to introduce products in developing countries suitably tailored to the local markets.
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Tata Tea to raise $100 million for takeovers
Calcutta: Tata Tea is planning to raise up to $100 million for its acquisition plans, which include the takeover of British tea and coffee major Tetley.

The funds are proposed to be raised by issuing securities in either the Indian or international market,  the company says. A special enabling resolution will be placed before the shareholders at the annual general meeting on 17 September.
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Pidlite to be a marketing company
Mumbai: Pidilite Industries plans to be a brand-oriented marketing company and, as part of this plan, it is hiving off its manufacturing facilities into a joint venture. The Business Standard, quoting the company's chairman B.K. Parikh, said the company wants to become a speciality consumer products company and is separating branded products.

Pidilite has recently acquired a top fabric whitener brand, Ranipal, from the Mafatlal groups' Indian Dyestuff Industries for Rs 4 crore. The company has some 40 brands in its portfolio and is a leader in several consumer and industrial products.
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SKF plans to modernise Pune unit
Mumbai: SKF Bearings India is investing Rs 150 crore in modernising its factory in Pune so that it can become a global sourcing base for the bearings major. Its Pune-2000 project aims to improve productivity, quality, material flow and inventory levels.

Aktiebolaget SKF of Sweden has a 51 per cent sake in SKF India. The company is installing a new production channel to make wheel hubs for Telco's Indica vehicle.
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ETN barred from using logo
Mumbai: The Bombay high court has barred Entertainment Television Network, which operates the ETN music channel, from using ETN or ATN logo. The court has given ETN three days to change the logo and name of the channel.

The court has passed the order in a suit filed by ATN Ltd, another music channel, and its chairman and managing director Sidhartha Shrivastava.
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Birlasoft is being restructured
New Delhi: Birlasoft, the C.K. Birla group infotech company, will buy back 15 lakh shares from group company National Engineering Industries. Later, another C.K group company, Birlasoft Enterprise, will purchase these 15 lakh shares from Birlasoft.

Birlasoft Enterprise will also purchase the balance 15 lakh shares of Birlasoft, which are now held by three group companies, National Bearing Company, Central India Industries and Gwalior Finance Corporation.

The restructuring is intended to make Birlasoft a 100 per cent subsidiary of Birlasoft Enterprises.
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Shivaji Works to merge with Kirloskar Oil
Pune: Shivaji Works, a Kirloskar group company, will merge with Kirloskar Oil Engines. A scheme for amalgamation and rehabilitation of the ailing subsidiary has been approved by Kirloskar Oil Engines shareholders at an extraordinary general meeting.

The scheme will be submitted to the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction.
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Jindal Steel seeks FIs' help
Mumbai: Jindal Vijaynagar Steel is planning to seek the help of financial institutions to restructure the company's debt-equity ratio.

The company has sought permission from the institutions to defer the term loan interest of Rs 400 crore. The steel maker has commissioned its steel plant in Bellary in Karnataka, but lack of operational revenue during the commissioning stage has forced it to make the request to the institutions.

The proposal includes issue of quasi-equity instruments such as preference shares or optionally fully convertible debentures linked to steel prices, instead of term loans.
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Jindals to exit Shalimar Paints
Bellary: The O.P. Jindal group is exiting from its paints business by selling its equity in Shalimar Paints. The group has decided to focus on its core competency area of of manufacturing and selling steel.

Shalimar Paints has a small market share in the organised paints industry. It is currently managed by Ratan Jindal. The Jindals have a 44 per cent holding in the company, with foreign institutional investors holding 20 per cent and government institutions 19.7 per cent.
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CLB allows Philips unit's sale
Calcutta: The Company Law Board has cleared Philips India's proposal to sell its passive components business at Loni near Pune to B.C. Components. The board disallowed a petition put forward by some employee shareholders to withhold the proposed sale.

Philips said in a statement that it will now go ahead with the sale process.
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Suez Lyonnaise bids for United Water
Paris: Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux of France has said it has made an agreed $1 billion bid for United Water Resources, the second largest water distributor in the US. This will be Suez Lyonnaise's third major deal in the summer following two European acquisitions in the energy and waste treatment sectors.

Suez Lyonnaise already owns 32.91 per cent of United Water Resources.
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Microsoft has a reprieve
Seattle: Microsoft has got a reprieve on its Windows 98 front. A federal appeals court overturned an order that forced the software giant to make changes in its popular Windows 98 operating system and other software on the basis of a lawsuit by Sun Microsystems.

The three-judge panel of the US appeals court for the Ninth Circuit, however, found sufficient evidence to conclude that Sun was likely to prevail on the merits of its suit over licensing of the Java programming language.

The panel said the lower court erred in presuming Microsoft's contested implementation of Java in its Windows 98 operating system and other software could have caused irreparable harm to Sun.
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AlliedSignal contracts telecom work to AT&T
New York: AlliedSignal has handed over its voice and data network operations around the world to AT&T Solutions, a division of AT&T.

The agreement will make AT&T richer by $400 million. Allied Signal said it has handed over the operations to AT&T as part of the worldwide trend for telecom companies to outsource their requirements in view of the complexities of networks that combine both voice and a variety of data technologies. It also said it wants to promote the plan for standardising communications technology used in various businesses.
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GE Capital not to disrupt Piaggio-TPG talks
Rome: GE Capital, which has made an offer to take a stake in Italian scooter maker Piaggio, has said it will not disrupt the current talks between the world scooter major and US fund Texas Pacific Group.

However, the Italians are peeved at Piaggio going the US way. An Italian deputy has tabled a question in Parliament to know if the legendary Vespa is ultimately going to emigrate to the US. The Vespa has been a cherished Italian national symbol, and Piaggio, founded in 1884, is know for its mini-truck, the Ape. After the death of its two main shareholders, Giovanni Alberto Agnelli and his mother Antonella Bechi Piaggio, the group has been seeking new partners to keep the business going.
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Siemens, Fujitsu plan PC venture
Frankfurt: Siemens of Germany and Fujitsu of Japan have finalised a joint venture to make personal computers. The venture, Fujitsu Siemens, aims to become Europe's largest PC maker by 2001, the companies have said.

The proposed company will be headed by Siemens' management board member Rudi Lamprecht, while Fujitsu's Tet Suo Urano will be vice chairman. The venture will have shareholding from the promoters in a 50:50 ratio.
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Volvo ups stake in Scania
Stockholm: Sweden's Volvo says it holds 77.8 per cent votes and 70.9 per cent share capital in Scania. These include purchases from Ivestor.
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Phelps Dodge briefs shareholders on acquisition plans
New York: Copper company Phelps Dodge started educating its shareholders on the merits of its proposed takeover of rivals Asarco and Cyprus Amax Minerals for $2.7 billion in stock.

Top executives of the company have met major shareholders to explain the proposed hostile acquisition.
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