Audit firm Billimoria & Co ties up with Deloitte
Mumbai: S.B. Billimoria & Co is the latest Indian audit firm to forge a strategic alliance with Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, one of the biggest international accounting and consulting companies. An agreement has been signed between the two firms, which provides for pooling of resources of both the firms with common programmes for staff training, quality assurance, and research and support services.

Three other Indian accounting and audit firms – C.C. Chokshi & Co, Fraser & Ross and P.C. Hansotia & Co -- are already member-firms of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu. The four Indian firms will now operate jointly under the name of Deloitte Haskins and Sells in India when working with the international firm’s Indian clients.
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SCI appoints PwC for restructuring
Mumbai: The public sector Shipping Corporation of India has appointed PricewaterhouseCoopers to carry out a total organisational re-engineering. The recommendations of the consulting company and their implementation are expected to pave the way for commercialisation of the Rs 2,000-crore joint sector unit, which is planning to divest 40 per cent of its stake in favour of a strategic partner.

At present, the government holds around 80 per cent of the company's equity.
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Parametric upgrades India
Mumbai: Parametric Technology Corporation, the world’s largest supplier of CAD/CAM/CAE software, has upgraded its India market to area status, meaning India is on par organisationally with some of the company’s key markets like Korea, China and Taiwan. The company, which has five offices and 275 employees in India, has a research and development centre in Pune, which, it says, is second in size only to its headquarters in Massachusetts in the US.

The company has some 400 clients in India. Parametric will now split the India area into five territories, each headed by a regional director.
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Lever in talks to acquire Rossell
Mumbai: Hindustan Lever Ltd is in discussions with Rossell Industries, the Y.K. Modi-owned tea company, to acquire a majority holding in the company. The company has written to the National Stock Exchange, confirming the talks, but said there is no certainty of the discussions leading to an agreement. Rossell has several tea gardens in Assam.

In 1998, Rossell produced 10 million kg of tea. Formerly known as Jokai India, and owned by the Gordon Fox family of the UK, it was acquired by controversial Rajendra Sethia, then Punjab National Bank, a group of NRIs, and finally by the Y.K. Modi group.
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FIs to help Essar Steel
Mumbai: Financial institutions have decided to help Essar Steel in redeeming its outstanding floating rate notes. The institutions have in principle agreed to part-fund the repayment. The support will be in the form of a long-tenor term loan. The boards of these institutions will take a formal decision in this regard shortly.

Indian banks, which hold some $40 million of the total $250 million FRNs, have also agreed to roll over the exposure to 12 years subject to the final clearance from the financial institutions and the Reserve Bank of India. Essar Steel defaulted on its repayment obligations on 20 July 1999.
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Ceat eyes units in Saarc region
New Delhi: RPG group company Ceat is eyeing acquisitions of tyre companies in the Saarc region. The company feels that this will be a more economical route to expansion than setting up new plants. It is interested in cross-ply tyre units. Facilities acquired will enable it to cater to the Indian as well as overseas markets. The company has a joint venture in Sri Lanka, i nwhich it owns a controlling stake

Ceat is also exploring plans to exploit the Internet to expand its business by using the medium as a distribution channel.
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Telco contests move to ban diesel vehicles
New Delhi: The Tata Engineering and Locomotive Company has challenged the recommendation of the Environment Pollution Prevention Control Authority to the Supreme Court that non-commercial diesel vehicles should be banned. The authority had submitted a report to the Supreme Court suggesting a complete ban on the plying of diesel-powered non-commercial  vehicles.

Telco contends that the authority has wrongly concluded that the suspended particulate matter levels in the national capital region of Delhi have reached high levels, saying the area from where the samples were collected is not representative of the 30,000 sq. km. area of the national capital region. It also said the authority has not conducted any comparative study of the effects of diesel exhaust versus petrol exhaust.
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Nicco group to make high-tech cables
Calcutta: The Rs 500-crore Nicco group will take up manufacture of high technology electric cables. It will produce electron beam irradiated cables with technology developed by the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre and the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. The group is making an investment of Rs 50 crore for this purpose and a plant is being set up at the flagship company Nicco Corporation’s Shyamnagar complex.

The electron beam irradiation technology is at present available only in the US and Japan. The cables are used in aircraft, defence equipment and railways.
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Pfizer plans to oust Warner board
New York: Pfizer says it will formally notify US regulators about its plans to oust the present Warner-Lambert board. The drug major is panning to file a consent solicitation with the Securities and Exchange Commission before Christmas. Pfizer, which as made an unsolicited conditional $77-billion offer to buy Warner-Lambert, has met with resistance. Warner-Lambert has refused to negotiate with Pfizer.

Pfizer officials said the company is committed to pursuing legal remedies to clear the way for it to make a takeover bid.
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Airtours to challenge court ruling
London: Airtours is challenging the European Commission decision to block its $1.5-billion bid for British holiday company First Choice. Airtours said it regarded the ruling of European Competition Commissioner as "bad judgement and bad for Europe Plc". The appeal will go to the European Court of Justice.
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