Italcementi takes 50% of Zuari Cement
Mumbai: European cement major Italcementi Group has agreed to buy 50 per cent of the equity in Zuari Cement, a unit of the KK Birla group’s Zuari Industries. The price: Rs 370 crore. The deal has valued Zuari Cement, which has a 1.7-million-tonne plant at Yerraguntala in Andhra Pradesh, at Rs 740 crore.

The price is perhaps the highest paid for a cement unit in India, the third largest cement market in the world. The price paid by Italcementi subsidiary Ciments Francais works out to Rs 4,353 (or about $100) a tonne of capacity, compared with Lafarge’s acquisition price of $80 per tonne for the Raymond cement unit and $75 per tonne for Tata Steel’s cement unit. India Cements acquired a Cement Corporation of India unit at Yerraguntala, close to the Zuari Cement plant, for around Rs 3,300 per tonne.

In 1998-99, Zuari had a clinker output of 3.86 lakh tonnes, and cement output of 4.84 lakh tonnes, and reported net sales of Rs 631.90 crore and net profit of Rs 12.94 crore.
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Reliance associate buying 45% of DCL Polyesters
Mumbai: A Reliance Industries associate, Synergy Synthetics Pvt Ltd, is buying a 45 per cent stake in Nagpur-based DCL Polyesters. This stake will give Synergy control of DCL Polyesters.

Synergy has agreed to purchase all the 16 million shares (25 per cent of DCL’s equity) held by promoters M B Raju and Associates at Rs 6.03 per 10-rupee share. The current market price is about 4.65. It will then make an open offer to buy a further 20 per cent of DCL’s equity from the public and other shareholders at the same price through an open tender.

DCL Polyester has a polyester filament yarn capacity of 40,000 tonnes per annum. Reliance already has a PFY capacity of 320,000 tpa. Other polyster capacities acquired by Reliance in recent years include those of ICI, near Mumbai (30,000 tpa), India Polyfibres, in Lucknow (24,000 tpa), JK Corp, in Orissa (43,000 tpa) and Raymond Synthetics, in Allahabad (66,000 tpa).
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Berger Paints buys J&N’s Nepalese unit
Calcutta: Berger Paints India Ltd, has acquired the Nepalese subsidiary of Jenson & Nicholson India. The deal includes J&N brands in Nepal. Berger is controlled by the New Delhi-based KS Dhingra family.

Berger has acquired Jenson & Nicholson Nepal, for around 4.75 crore Nepalese rupees. The deal has been cleared by the Reserve Bank of India. Jenson & Nicholson India has assigned to Berger the Nepalese rights to its brands J&N Brolac, Jenson & Nicholson Robbialac, Armour Quartz and Special Effects.
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Tisco net jumps 50% to Rs 423 cr
Mumbai: The Tata Iron and Steel Company’s net profit soared 50 per cent to Rs 422.59 crore in the year to March 2000, from Rs 282.23 crore in the previous year. According to Tisco managing director JJ Irani, the improvement has resulted from higher volume sales, better product mix and an overall increase in prices.

Tisco’s net sales rose 10 per cent to Rs 6,890.87 crore during the period from Rs 6,274.64 crore earlier. Volume sales expanded to 3.21 million tonnes from 2.94 million tonnes in the previous year. The interest cost increased 32 per cent to Rs 359.96 crore from the previous year’s Rs 301.56 crore.

The profit of Rs 125.26 crore that Tisco made from the sale of its cement division to Lafarge was more than neutralised by a Rs 157.99-crore charge on account of a voluntary retirement scheme. Tisco’s workforce by end-March 2000 was 52,167 compared to 78,669 in 1995.
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Bajaj expanding motorcycle production
Mumbai: Bajaj Auto Ltd, India’s second largest motorcycle manufacturer, plans to expand its production capacity to 50,000 motorcycles per month by September 2000, according to Rajiv Bajaj, the company’s president. In the year ended March 2000, Bajaj Auto recorded a 27.5 per cent growth in motorcycle sales to 2,55,176 units.

The motorcycle capacity expansion, currently under way, is managed by a team from Kawasaki Heavy Industries of Japan. The expansion will take Bajaj Auto’s total production capacity (including scooters) at its plants at Akurdi, Waluj and Chakan, to 2.5 million vehicles.

In the meanwhile, Bajaj Auto has offered to buy out the Maharashtra state government's 27 per cent stake in their scooter joint venture, Maharashtra Scooters Ltd. Bajaj Auto owns around 24 per cent of Maharashtra Scooters’ equity. The state government has yet to take a decision in the matter.
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Ashok Leyland raises Rs 750 crore
New Delhi: Trusk and bus maker Ashok Leyland has tied up Rs 750 crore of fresh funds, including a Rs 425-crore working capital loan from a consortium of banks led by the State Bank of India, a private placement of debentures worth Rs 180 crore, a bill discounting facility of Rs 100 crore from ICICI, and a term loan of Rs 50 crore from SBI.

The funds will be used for capital expenditure for expansion and modernisation, and for the development of engines that meet future emission norms, it is reported.

On the product front, Ashok Leyland has developed a low-floor bus for intra-city use, which has an environment friendly, rear-mounted engine. It has also developed a 44-tonne GVW three-axled tractor, which can be coupled to both two and three axled trailers, and which uses a Bharat Stage-2 emission standard compliant engine, and a military vehicle powered by a Bharat Stage-2 emissions standard compliant engine and with an automatic transmission.
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Cadila Pharmaceuticals in bio-technology tie-up
Ahmedabad: Cadila Pharmaceuticals Ltd has tied up with the Union government’s department of biotechnology for bio-technology in the area of plant tissue culture, bio-fertilisers and animal feed supplements. It will deal with the National Chemical Laboratory, Pune, National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow, and Tata Energy Research Institute, New Delhi.
Cadila says it has obtained exclusive commercial rights for the technologies from these institutes and hopes to commercialise the tissue culture and bio-fertiliser technologies within one year and the feed supplements project in two years.
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CMS Energy-L&T may be third partner in VPP
Visakhapatnam: CMS Energy and Larsen & Toubro have been short-listed as possible third partner for the proposed joint venture Vizag Power Project. The promoters of this project are Hindustan Petroleum Corporation and the Andhra Pradesh Power Generation Corporation. The 585MW project partner is estimated to cost Rs. 2,430 crore.

Hindustan Petroleum has a 26 per cent stake in the project, and APGenco 24 per cent. The third partner will be offered a 24 per cent stake, and the balance 26 per cent will be offered to large, high-tension consumers.
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New Tata Cummins diesel engines in October
New Delhi: Tata Cummins Ltd will commence production of its costlier but more eco-friendly Euro II-compliant diesel engines for commercial vehicles by October 2000. The company is also working on Euro-III and Euro-IV diesel engines, which it will introduce in the market later.

The Tata Cummins Euro-II diesel engines have been certified by the Automotive Research Association of India, Pune, according to a company spokesperson. The company is talking to various commercial vehicle manufacturers for sale of these engines. These include Ashok Leyland and Eicher Motors, rivals of Tata Engineering & Locomotive Company, or Telco, which is a partner in the joint venture Tata Cummins.
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Tata Keltron is off BIFR list
New Delhi: Tata Keltron Ltd has been taken out of the purview of the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction after the effective implementation of its rehabilitation and merger with with Tata Telecom Ltd. Tata Keltron was jointly promoted by Tata Industries and the Kerala State Electronic Development Corporation, or Keltron, to make electronic push button telephones.

The company was hit by poor pricing imposed by the single purchaser, the department of telecommunications, from whom subscribers had to compulsorily obtain telephone instruments earlier. Its diversification, aimed at getting out of this bind, into answering machines and cordless telephones, did not solve its problems.
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JK Cotton must deposit Rs 5 crore with IFCI
New Delhi: The Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction has asked the JK Singhania group, promoters of JK Cotton Spinning and Weaving Mills Co Ltd, to deposit Rs 5 crore with the Industrial Finance Corporation of India as proof of its seriousness to revive the sick JK Cotton. A two-member BIFR bench comprising NP Singh and NP Bagchee said, "the company had not come to BIFR with clean hands and had been enjoying protection of Sick Industrial Companies Act, 1985 for ten long years." The bench also ruled that the promoters deposit the full amount of insurance charges paid by its operating agency, IFCI, and secured creditors amounting to Rs 75.21 lakh in an escrow account.

Failure to make these payments could result in a winding up.
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Terra acquiring Lycos for $12.5 billion
New York: Spain-based Internet group Terra Networks, a subsidiary of Telefonica de Espana SA, will pay $12.5 billion in stock to buy Lycos, the US internet search company. This acquisition will make the Terra-Lycos combined entity one of the world's largest Internet companies with a wide geographical reach.
Lycos has recognised strengths in online programming and its customer base of youth, Terra has a wide following in Latin America and Europe. The Lycos takeover will help Terra build a strong presence among the 30 million Spanish-speaking people in the US.

The main rivals of the merged entity, to be called Terra Lycos, will be America Online and Yahoo. Terra Lycos is expected to have 2000 revenues of about $500 million, an estimated 50 million unique users and 175 million page views per day. The company will have operations in 37 countries.
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Hyundai Motor will spin off from parent, form own group
Seoul: Hyundai Motor Co of South Korea has announced its intention to spin off from its parent Hyundai Group and form its own group in June. The other companies that will join it will be Kia Motors Corp., Hyundai Precision Industries Co and Hyundai Capital Co. More Hyundai Group units could join later. Two companies that were expected to join the new group, but have not, for the present, are Inchon Iron & Steel Co and Hyundai Pipe Co.

These moves are part of the restructuring plans at Hyundai Group, which is being split into five industry-specific areas. In 1998, the Hyundai Group had managed to grab rival Kia Motors Corp in the face of competition from Ford Motor Co, to become the world's ninth-largest auto maker.
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