UTV, Indian entrepreneurs take stake in US net company
Mumbai: Two well known Silicon Valley-based Indian software entrepreneurs, Sabeer Bhatia and K.B. Chandrasekhar, and the Indian television software provider and broadcaster UTV are together set to acquire 30 per cent stake in US internet company Homeland Networks Corporation.

Mr Bhatia and Mr Chandrasekhar will each take 5 per cent equity in the company while UTV, promoted by Ronnie Screwvala, will have a 20 per cent stake. Mr Bhatia will guide the destiny of the company, as he will take a seat on its board, The Economic Times reported.

The deal also involves UTV leveraging its TV software library into equity, for which the valuation is in progress. However, part of the equity will be through cash, Mr Screwvala said.

Homeland, a start-up promoted by Ron Victor, targets customised internet programming and e-commerce activities to ethnic populations worldwide.
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Indian Oil objects to BPCL-Essar deal
Mumbai: Indian Oil Corporation has expressed its reservations over Bharat Petroleum Corporation's plan to take a 26 per cent stake in Essar Oil's Vadinar refinery in Gujarat.

Indian Oil is understood to have represented its objection to the petroleum and natural gas ministry saying since it has already signed a memorandum of understanding with Essar to market controlled and other products from the proposed refinery, there is no rationale for the Bharat Petroleum-Essar Oil agreement.

The proposed deal between Bharat Petroleum and Essar Oil envisages Indian Oil taking 50 per cent of the products of the refinery and the rest by Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum.
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Usha Beltron plan for UK company okayed
New Delhi: Usha Beltron has been given the nod by the Foreign Investments Promotion Board for setting up a holding company, Usha Communications Technology, in the UK. The company proposes to develop software.

The new company is being set up in collaboration with Entryline Holdings, a Pentire group company of the UK. The UK company will pick up a 57.87 per cent stake in the holding company, while Usha Beltron will have 42.13 per cent.
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SCO to have more presence in India
Mumbai: The world's largest provider of Unix server operating systems, SCO, plans to enhance its presence in India and work closely with e-business developer partners. This is part of SCO's global strategy.

SCO has recently set up a technology centre in New Delhi. This facility, backed by major computer manufacturers, will  enable SCO's business partners and customers to develop and train on the most advanced hardware and software technology, R.N. Raja, SCO's director of South-East Asia said.

SCO is a leading provider of network computing software that enables clients of all kinds -- PCs, graphics terminals, network computers and other devises -- to have webtop access to business critical applications running on servers of all kinds.
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ICICI Infotech acquires Rohan Software
Mumbai: ICICI Infotech Services, the wholly-owned subsidiary of ICICI, has acquired software development firm Rohan Software, a company focused on software consultancy and development for the banking industry.

The firm has assets of Rs 34 lakh and net income of Rs 18 lakh. ICICI Infotech, floated as ICICI Investor Services, has shifted its focus to software consultancy and development from its earlier activities as an in-house share registrar and transfer agent.
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Siemens to focus on systems solutions
Mumbai: Siemens India, subsidiary of the German electronic and engineering major, says it is focusing more on providing systems solutions and services than on its engineering product range. The company had earlier undertaken a restructuring exercise and the shift in focus is a result.

In  financial year 1999, products had accounted for 90 per cent of the company's turnover, while systems solutions had a 10 per cent share. For financial year 2000, the company is aiming at a 52 per cent contribution from systems solutions and 48 per cent from products to the turnover, managing director of Siemens India J. Schubert said.

The company had opened its new high voltage circuit breaker manufacturing facility at Aurangabad.
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Deepak Fertilisers ups ANP capacity
Pune: Deepak Fertilisers and Petrochemicals Corporation has acquired a second hand diluted nitric acid plant from Ireland. It is planning to increase its acrylonitrile phosphate capacity from 765 tonnes to 1,100 tonnes per annum. Ultimately the capacity will be doubled, C.K. Mehta, chairman and managing director of the company, said at the annual general meeting of the company.
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BPL brand value at Rs 1,182 crore
Bangalore: The BPL brand has been valued at Rs 1,182.3 crore for the year 1998-99, higher than its physical assets of Rs 469 crore and capital employed of Rs 513 crore. BPL claims that the Rs 82.7 crore profit reported by the company in 1998-99 could be directly attributed to the brand.

BPL uses a common logo across 232 of its products.
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New Sumo variant
Mumbai: Tata Engineering and Locomotive Company has introduced a stripped-down version of its Sumo, whose price will be lower by Rs 25,000 to Rs 30,000.

The new version takes on Mahindra & Mahindra's Marshal as Telco finds that it has been losing Sumo's market share to Marshal. Sumo will have three variants -- SE (the low priced model), standard and DX. The standard version is priced at Rs 4.43 lakh (ex-showroom, Mumbai), while the deluxe model costs Rs 5.32 lakh.

The stripped-down version will have no air-conditioner, side step and wheel covers.
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Maruti plans JVs with dealers
New Delhi: Maruti Udyog plans to have joint ventures with its dealers and vendors by acquiring stakes in their ventures. The company will also have new products in the Rs 3-lakh segment, will increase localisation levels in its new products and undertake a cost-cutting drive.

These are some of the new action initiatives proposed by new managing director Jagdish Khattar, which were revealed in an interview to The Economic Times. These initiatives are aimed at expanding the company's market penetration, Mr Khattar said.
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Reliance Capital ups investments in group companies
Mumbai: Reliance Capital has made investments of over Rs 400 crore in various closely held group subsidiaries, which will in turn spearhead the group's foray into new businesses. The company's current investments stand at Rs 2,926.51, up from Rs 2,111.11 in 1997-98. These include investments in quoted securities.

The company has investments in deep discount bonds of Reliance Alkali and in Reliance Industrial Enterprises. It has also hiked its share of investments in Reliance Chemicals, Reliance Petrosynth and Reliance Elastomers.
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Internet on cable TV from IndusInd
Mumbai: IndusInd Distribution of the Hindujas has drawn up plans for a Rs 200-crore internet-on-cable television project. The Business Standard, in a report, said the company will start operations in the year 2000. The company is targeting 50,000 subscribers by April 2001.

Another Hinduja group company, IndusInd Media Commuinications, with more than 10 lakh subscribers, is Mumbai’s largest cable TV company. The current price of cable modems is around Rs.20,000, which restrains the entry of net-on-cable TV companies.
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Parker pen exports planned from India
New Delhi: Gillette, owner of Parker pens, is planning to make its Indian joint venture, Luxor Writing Instruments, an export base for writing products, including Parker pens. The company finds that the cost of manufacturing Parker and Paper Mate pens is the lowest in India and it is lucrative to make India an export hub.

The Boston-based $11 billion multinational company is planning to introduce its Waterman brand in the premium range segment in India. The Luxor Paper Mate pens will be sold in the country for Rs 18 to Rs 20.
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Apple unveils desktop supercomputer
San Francisco: Apple has introduced a powerful new desktop computer, which has supercomputing abilities. Steve Jobs, Apple's interim chief executive, said the company is bringing in its Power Mac G4 even as it has 1,40,000 orders for its iBook, the brightly coloured laptop computer that looks like a condensed version of its iMac. Apple had unveiled iBook a month ago following its success of iMac.

Mr Jobs said Power Mac G4 offers a performance of more than one billion operations per second. The new machine is two to four times faster than "anything the industry has seen before". The US government has classified the system as a supercomputer and restricted its exports to certain "sensitive countries".

The 400 megahertz Power Mac G4 is available at a price of $1,599.
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Intel's new processor ready for testing
Palm Springs, California: Intel Corporation says it has successfully developed its next generation processor, which it calls Merced. The company plans to ship the processor to computer makers for test-use.

Merced is the first in a family designed around a new 64-bit architecture, which Intel has been developing in collaboration with Hewlett Packard. The 64-bit chip processes data in chunks of 64 bits, compared with the current standard 32-bit architecture.
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Fastest GSM phone service planned
Helsinki: Sonera, the Finnish telecom operator, said it will introduce the world's fastest high-speed switched data digital global satellite mobile telephone service on 6 September,.

The speed of the system will be up to 38.4 kilobits per second compared with 9.6 kilobits per second for regular GSM networks.
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Daewoo may default on interest payments
Seoul: Daewoo group fears that some of its affiliates may not be able to pay the interest dues on loans from foreign creditors.

The group, heavily into debt and undergoing financial restructuring under the South Korean regulator and creditors, said it has sent letters to its foreign creditors explaining the difficult position and seeking their understanding.
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Viag, Veba format merger plan
Munich: Viag and Veba of Germany have finalised a format for merger to create Europe's largest private energy group. The two utilities companies said some issues remained unresolved. Their chief executives are, however, hopeful that the proposal will go through.

"I have strong hopes but everything remains open on both sides," Veba chief executive Ulrich Hartmann said. "We have dealt with the key points, Viag chief executive Wilhelm Simson said in an interview.
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Rhone to sell chemical unit
Paris: Rhone Poulenc said it will sell its stake in chemicals unit Rhodia by year-end and hoped to meet its target of 15 per cent growth. The French group and German drugs firm Hoechst, with whom it has finalised a merger, have said they want to sell their chemical holdings by year 2000 and redirect profits to the combined group, Aventis.

The merger will create one of the world's largest drug and agri-business groups with nearly $20 billion in sales.
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Cadbury, Carlyle to buy Dr Pepper bottling unit
London: Cadbury Schweppes and investment form Carlyle group of Washington said they had agreed to acquire Dr Pepper Bottling Company of Texas for $691 million. The deal comprises $283 million in cash for the bottler and assumption of bank debt of around $408 million.
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