IPCL, GE marriage may break up
Baroda: GE Plastics India, the specialty engineering chemicals joint venture between Indian Petrochemicals Corporation and GE of the Netherlands, is said to have run into rough weather. IPCL and GE, who are equal partners in the venture, are expected to seek a divorce soon.

It is said that although the two companies have agreed to part ways, the Indian petrocheimical giant did not accept Arthur Andersen's valuation of equity for GE Plastics. It has now appointed well known chartered accountants CC Choksi & Co for a fresh valuation.

It is believed that IPCL has also disputed the cash flow statement of GE Plastics, on the grounds that the cash flow figures are in favour of GE Plastics and do not reflect the true picture of GE Plastic’s financial health. The formalities for the split will begin once both companies agree on a valuation.
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Parle Agro plans second innings in foods
Mumbai: Parle Agro Foods, better know for its Frooti and Bailley’s mineral water brands, is said to be planning an aggressive re-entry into the foods sector.

The company, which tried its hand in this sector some years ago with the launch of its product "Bisca" that miserably failed, is said to be considering reintroducing the brand as a "two-minute" noodle. This time round, the company is launching the noodles in a packet form as two-minute noodles. What the company has not yet decided is whether the noodles will be marketed under the same brand name or under a new brand name. The company is said to be studying issues such as costing, pricing and branding.

Parle’s noodles will compete with Nestle’s Maggi, which is the market leader today, followed by Top Ramen, in the approximately 15,000 ton per annum noodles market.

The company is also studying the possibilities of introducing milk as an addition to its product portfolio. The sweet milk market, earlier the preserve of Energee, is now getting hotter with competition from Britannia’s Zip Sip brand which is trying to make drinking milk hip as well as nutritious.
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Colgate introduces new Cibaca brand to counter HLL's Aim
Mumbai: In the continuing war for the share of mind in the tooth-paste sector, Colgate Palmolive India is launching an extension of Cibaca nationally -- the All New Colgate-Cibaca Top. The move marks Colgate's foray into a new price band, the only one untouched by it until now.

The new introduction is the company’s answer to arch-rival Hindustan Lever's Aim, which was introduced in May at around 40 per cent discount to its closest rivals. Colgate-Cibaca Top has been priced at parity with HLL's 'Aim' and is targeted at the same target audience, which currently uses local substitutes like ash, charcoal, salt, husk and tobacco. The brand is targeted at towns having a population of less than a lakh.
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Crompton to sell control gear unit to French company, Schneider
Mumbai: Engineering major Crompton Greaves, which is in the process of restructuring and exiting from low priority businesses, has struck a deal with the $8-billion French major Schneider Electric to sell off its low-tension control gear (LTCG) division at Satpur, near Nasik, for an undisclosed amount. The deal is conditional to Crompton Greaves fulfilling certain conditions that are part of the agreement.

Schneider is the world's largest company in the LTCG business.

The unit will be bought as a going concern together with its 400-plus employees. Schneider proposes to upgrade the 20-year old unit and introduce newer products. The company has informed the Bombay Stock Exchange yesterday it had sought approval from its directors to grant in-principle approval for the sale/disposal of the division and for the modification of the annual general meeting (AGM) notice to include a resolution concerning the sale.
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Dr Reddy's plans entry into the Chinese market
Mumbai: Indian pharmaceuticals major, Dr Reddy's Laboratories (DRL), is planning to enter the Chinese market through a joint venture in which it will hold 51 per cent. For this purpose, the company has entered into a joint venture with a Canadian and a Chinese company to set up a manufacturing unit near Shanghai in China.

Christened, Kunshan Rotam Reddy, Pharamceuticals, the joint venture will have Canada Rotam Enterprises holding about 47.41 per cent, while the balance 1.59 per cent will be held by Chinese company, Kunshan Double Crane Pharamceutical Company.

The joint venture will manufacture and repackage bulk formulations, tablets, capsules, ointments, gels and other products, and to sell self-made products. The joint venture has a formulation facility with a built-up area of 8,000 sq metre. The scale of production will be 180 million tablets,120 million capsules and 3.6 million tubes of ointment annually after operatins begin.

The tablets and capsules manufacturing lines have GMP approval and the facility is being validated for ointments. The company has finalised plans to manufacture bulk actives for in-house consumption. The intention is to complete the value chain and thus gain an edge in product development and manufacturing.

Rotam is a Canadian based privately owned group of more than 40 companies spread across the world. Rotam and its associates have revenues of $350 million in 1999. The Group is diversified and has interests in manufacturing and trading of pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals and packaging material.
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HFCL move to take over Arihant Optics to help its core business
New Delhi: Cash rich Himachal Futuristic Communications Ltd (HFCL) is all set to takeover management control of the Hyderabad-based fibre manufacturer, Arihant Optics Ltd, in an all-cash deal. This move is likely to give a major fillip to its core business of optic fibre cable manufacturing. The company currently imports fibre for its cable manufacturing operations. Once Arihant becomes an HFCL subsidiary, most of the fibre manufactured by it will be used internally, giving HFCL a distinct price advantage in the market.

The four-year-old Hyderabad-based company has an optic fibre manufacturing plant with a capacity of 600 metres per minute (mpm), which works out to approximately 1.5 lakh km per annum (kpa).
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Lower earnings force Honeywell to cut 6,000 jobs worldwide
Newark: Honeywell, which recently predicted lower than expected earnings, is planning to shed 6,000 jobs worldwide within the next year, in an attempt to cut costs. The company has 120,000 employees, including about 2,500 at its Morris Township headquarters and at an aerospace plant in Teterboro in the US.

The manufacturing giant also announced that it would also merge its polymers and specialty chemicals businesses and close a semiconductor chip packaging plant in California to streamline under-performing units. The polymers and specialty chemicals merger will create a unit with $3.3 billion in annual sales, about 10,000 employees and more than 50 facilities around the world.

The company has stated parts shortages in its aerospace unit, higher raw material prices and higher interest rates, as reasons for the lower earnings.

Honeywell sells aerospace products, home and industry technology, power-generation systems, automotive products, specialty chemicals, fibers and plastics.
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Canada’s cable company acquires rival in $41billion deal
London: Canada’s largest fibre-optic group, JDS Uniphase Corp., announced the acquisition of its rival SDL in an all stock deal that is reportedly valued at $41 billion. The deal, when it is finalised, will give JDS a leverage in the booming Internet network market.

The combination of the two companies, brings together world class technical and manufacturing teams that promise to deliver best-in-class products at increased volumes for today’s systems while developing solutions for tomorrow.

The combination will also enable the migration from today’s hybrid integration and module level products to tomorrow’s truly integrated system on a chip.

SDL, which makes equipment for fibre-optic networks to carry exploding volumes of Internet traffic, has a more advanced product than JDS that extends the reach of fibre optic networks even further. The group is a prime target partly because of its coveted optic amplifiers, a key technology that sends light signals over cables.

JDS is one of the biggest of a tier of so-called ``merchants’’ or independent component manufacturers that serve and compete against companies such as US-based Lucent Technologies and Nortel Networks Corp and France’s Alcatel, which in turn supply telecoms operators.
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