Supreme Court clears Philips' plant sale
Calcutta: The Supreme Court has rejected a special leave petition filed by the employee-shareholders of Philips India and cleared the company's plan to sell its   colour television unit at Salt Lake, Calcutta, to Kitchen Appliances, a Videocon group company.

Philips India said the Supreme Court order enables the Dhoots of the Videocon group to take charge of the plant. The litigation between the Philips management and its employees had begun in December 1998. The division bench of the Calcutta High Court had earlier vacated an injunction passed by Justice S. Sinha of the court against the sale of the plant. The employees had contended that the price of Rs 9 crore for the plant is too low.

The Supreme Court said the valuation and the mode of sale are matters to be dealt with by the board of directors of the company and the consideration for the sale is a matter to be negotiated between the seller and the purchaser.
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Voltas to cut 2000 jobs in 2 years
Mumbai: Tata group company Voltas is planning to cut down 2,000 jobs in two years as part of the second phase of its restructuring programme. The Economic Times quoted managing director N.D. Khurody as saying that the cost cutting initiatives will give a 25 per cent internal rate of return. "We must cut our corporate overheads of Rs 50 crore by half in two years," he said.

The company's voluntary retirement scheme in the Thane and Chinchpokli units in Mumbai and the Sanat Nagar unit near Hyderabad is expected to bring the manning level to 5,900. The schemes are expected to cover 1,000 jobs in the  Thane and Chinchpokli units. The exercise also covers Voltas Switchgear, the wholly-owned subsidiary, where the present staff strength of 550 will be reduced to 107. The company is also looking for a buyer for the subsidiary.
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Voltas selling stake in granite arm
Mumbai: Voltas International is selling its stake in loss-making subsidiary Premium Granites to a private granite company for Rs 6.5 crore. Voltas had invested Rs 24 crore in the equity of the company.

Premium Granites had sales of Rs 3.16 crore in 1998-99, and its accumulated losses are at around Rs 25 crore.
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Gail, Gaz de France in talks
Calcutta: The Gas Authority of India Ltd and Gaz de France are in talks to set up a joint venture for gas distribution in India. The joint venture is expected to be the second largest project for the French gas major. It has already picked up a 26 per cent stake as a joint venture partner in Petronet LNG, a company jointly promoted by GAIL, Indian Oil Corporation, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and Bharat Petroleum.
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DuPont sale challenged
Chennai: The proposed sale of DuPont Fibres to Shriram group company SRF has been challenged in the Madras High Court. The Pathapalayam Village Welfare Association under Gumindipondi district, where the DuPont factory is located, has moved the court saying the sale will be unlawful and violative of the terms of a memorandum of understanding signed between the Tamil Nadu government and DuPont.

The division bench of the court ordered an issue of notice to the state government, DuPont and SRF. The association alleged that the transfer is likely to affect the rights of the residents of the area.
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Mahindras ropes in Mitsubishi
Chennai: Mitsubishi Corporation has been engaged by Mahindra Industrial Park, developer of a private sector industrial park near Chennai, for marketing the park.

Mahindra Industrial Park is a joint venture between Mahindra & Mahindra, Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services, and the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation. The park is coming up over 1,350 acres of land and is being developed in three phases.
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Novell to introduce new products
Bangalore: Novell is coming out with a range of personal software products. The company plans to introduce Instantme, a communications tool, which it has developed in association with America Online. It has already marketed Digitalme, which helps users in storage, maintenance and share data on the Internet. Instantme will allow Digitalme users to send instant messages to people listed in their Digitalme dynamic address book.

Two other products, Zen, a package for servers, and a new publishing product which will integrate with Windows 2000, are also being introduced.
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Stryker to set up 100% unit in India
New Delhi: US-based healthcare multinational Stryker Corporation is setting up a 100 per cent subsidiary in India, Stryker India. Stryker, which  has recently acquired a Pfizer subsidiary, Howmedica, a leading maker of orthopaedic implants and instruments, at a cost of $1.65 billion and has secured its business rights worldwide, will take over the latter's orthopaedic business in India.

Stryker, whose products include hospital beds, surgical equipment and power instruments, has received approval from the Foreign Investments Promotion Board for the Indian subsidiary. Nicholas Piramal India has the distribution rights for Stryker products in India.
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Kaashyap Radiant plans unit in Australia
Chennai: Kaashyap Radiant Systems, a joint venture between the Kaashyap group and the US-based Radiant Systems, is planning a subsidiary in Australia for enterprise resource planning training, consultancy and projects.

The Australian venture, in which Kaashyap Radiant Systems will have a 60 per cent stake, will look after the New Zealand and South African markets for the Indian joint venture. Kaashyap Radiant has a subsidiary in the Middle East with a local partner. It plans to set up 100 per cent subsidiaries in Singapore and the UK.
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Infosys sets up new development centre
Pune: Infosys Technologies launched the Infosys West development centre in Pune. The centre will take up offshore development for Aetna Inc, a US financial and healthcare services company.  It has a capacity to house 600 IT professionals, which will go up to 1,000 by March 2000.

Speaking at the inauguration of the centre, Diane Wallace, chief information officer of the $220 billion Aetna US Healthcare, said Infosys will handle e-commerce solutions for Aetna's e-health services.
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NIIT paying 40% dividend
Mumbai: NIIT is paying a dividend of 40 per cent for the year ended September 1999. It had paid a dividend of 37.5 per cent last year.

The company has recorded a 36 per cent rise in its global revenues to touch Rs 880 core, Vijay Thadani, president and chief executive officer of the infotech company, said. It has also posted a 32 per cent increase in net profit to touch Rs 142.8 crore after providing for extra depreciation of Rs 15.9 crore.

The dividend will be paid on the enhanced equity of Rs 38.66 crore after the 1:2 bonus issue in 1998-99.
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Tata Elxsi, Basis tie up
Bangalore: Tata Elxsi and Basis Communications of California have signed a software services agreement covering embedded software, asynchronous transfer mode and real-time operating system. Basis Communications is a provider of service specific network processor platforms for the Internet.
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Gujarat Ambuja to increase capacity
Mumbai: Gujarat Ambuja Cements is doubling its capacity to 14 million tonnes per annum by 2002 at a cost of Rs 1,291 crore. The expansion will be implemented without any dilution in the existing equity of the company, and will be funded through internal accruals and fresh debt.

Managing director N.S. Sekhsaria says the commany is setting up greenfield expansions of 2 million tonnes each in Andhra Pradeseh and Maharashtra for Rs 1,000 crore. The capacities of the company's plants in Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat and Sri Lanka will also be expanded.
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Indian Rayon pegs buy-back price at Rs 85
Mumbai: Aditya Birla group company Indian Rayon and Industries has fixed the final cut-off price for its share buy-back offer at Rs 85. The company has received applications aggregating 11 per cent of the total paid-up capital against a target of 25 per cent.
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Export recognition for Wipro
Mumbai: Wipro has been assigned 'international super star service export house' by the directorate general of foreign trade. This is the highest recognition awarded by the DGFT for companies engaged in export services.

Wipro's foreign exchange earnings in 1998-99 have been Rs 632 crore, excluding foreign exchange earnings of Wipro GE Medical Systems.
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GM-Suzuki JV for Asian small car
Tokyo: General Motors has announced plans to produce and market a small sports car in Asia in 2001. The company has unveiled a prototype, which it said has been  developed in collaboration with Suzuki Motor of Japan.

General Motors sees Asia becoming the world's second largest auto market behind North America in the next 10 years. The site for the plant has not been decided, but Yoshio Saito, Suzuki chairman, who attended a news conference along with General Motors' Asia Pacific division head Rudy Schlais, said Suzuki's Kosai plant near Tokyo is a possible location.
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Microsoft, BT in collaboration
London: Microsoft and British Telecom have come together to develop hand-held communications equipment capable of retrieving information such as share prices or weather forecasts from the Internet while on the move. The devices will also be able to buy online. The move will bring in "smart phones" and other communicators combining the power and features of mobile phones and handheld computers. Earlier Nokia and 3 Com have announced a collaboration to offer a combination of handheld phones and Palm Computing devices.
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Nestle sells choco firm
Vevey, Switzerland: Nestle says it is selling its Italian industrial chocolate firm Intra to Barry Callebaut, a chocolate maker. Nestle's Italian operations and a number of Nestle companies in Europe will continue to rely on Intra to meet most of their supply needs. Nestle gave no price details of the transaction.

The sale is part of Nestle's strategy to focus on higher-margin branded confectionery products, while sourcing raw materials from industry specialists. The company had recently sold its minority stake in a Kuala Lumpur joint venture to the Malaysian Federal Land Development Agency and closed down cocoa processing operations in Colombia and Peru.
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Daewoo fined for unfair deal
Seoul: South Korea's Fair Trade Commission has fined Daewoo Corporation about $1.2 million for an unfair intra-group foreign currency transaction. The watchdog body said Daewoo Corporation had sold $192 million below market rates to Daewoo Heavy Industries through local branches of two foreign banks.
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