After Belgium and Thailand, this is the largest investment made by SingTel outside Singapore. In all, SingTel has invested $4.1 billion in strategic investments worldwide.

As part of this investment deal, Singtel is likely to pick up a 20 per cent stake in Bharti Telecom and 15 per cent stake in Bharti Televentures. The purchase of the stake will be through issue of additional capital and dilution of existing shareholders.

According to Mr. Sunil Mittal, chairman of the Bharti group, this money is to be used for retiring expensive debt and also for investment in the telecom infrastructure areas. In addition to this investment, Mr. Mittal stated that Singtel may invest the group’s plans for domestic long-distance telephony and its submarine cable venture.

As a result of its stake in holding company, Bharti Telecom, Singtel will automatically gain a stake in all Bharti telecom and internet projects and partner the group in its new projects under Bharti Telecom.
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Asian Paints seeks RBI permission for tenth overseas project
Mumbai: As part of its aggressive expansion plans, India’s largest paint company, Asian Paints, filed an application with the Reserve Bank of India, seeking permission to set up a green-field project in Bangladesh – its tenth overseas unit -- for the manufacture of decorative paints.

The company is said to be planning the commencement of the groundwork as soon as the mandatory permissions from the apex bank are received. The paint major, recently, acquired the second largest paint company in Sri Lanka, Delmerge Forsyth & Co (Paints) Ltd.

It has also has floated a company based in Mauritius which will act as a special purpose vehicle for takeover of paint companies abroad and also to invest in greenfield expansions.

The overseas subsidiaries of Asian Paints have been performing well despite adverse conditions. The company has overseas operations in Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu, Queensland, Mauritius, Oman, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

In the domestic market, Asian Paints has kicked off a fresh strategy which include new product launches, enhanced presence in rural market and improving market share in areas where it does not have a major presence.
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Modi Rubber to have fewer nominee directors
New Delhi: Following the loan repayment by the company, an agreement has been reached between the company and the financial institutions, whereby the institutions will withdraw two nominees from the company’s board. As a result of this, the board of Modi Rubber is being restructured and the financial institutions will see their strength on the board go down from six to four directors.

According to sources, this move could be a forerunner to the Modis making an open offer for acquiring the FI shareholding in the company. At present, the institutions hold a 44 per cent stake in the company.

At present, Modi Rubber has a ten-member board which comprises chairman Bodheshwar Rai, two managing directors — B K Modi and V K Modi, a nominee of its technical collaborator as well as nominees from IFCI, UTI, LIC, GIC, IDBI and ICICI.

Following the restructuring, the size of the board will come down to eight members with IFCI’s nominee remaining on the board by virtue of being principal debenture trustee. UTI, LIC and GIC will continue on the board as they hold substantial equity stake in the company.
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Aircel close to reaching financial closure
New Delhi: It is understood that, finally, the Essar-group controlled Aircel Digilink, which has the license to operate cellular services in Haryana, Rajasthan and UP East, is close to reaching financial closure for an investment of Rs 700 crore.

The investment figure also envisages an investment in Punjab, where group company, Evergrowth Telecom Ltd. This company, which has the license for cellular services in the Punjab circle, is currently engaged in a dispute with the department of telecommunications over the quantum of licence fee payable. As a result of this dispute, the license is currently cancelled. The company is hopeful of resolving the dispute and will then bring the operations of the Punjab circle under a unified management structure at Aircel.

Aircel Digilink currently has a switching capacity of handling 1.3 lakh subscribers in Haryana, Rajasthan and Eastern UP. It plans to increase this to 5 lakh in these three circles. It has 3 switches currently in Karnal, Lucknow and Jaipur.

The company is said to have an ambitious rollout plan, under which we will cover 139 towns in these four circles in a year’s time. Between the four circles we have capacity for handling 7.5 lakh subscribers.
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Indian Oil draws up comprehensive plan for LNG sector
New Delhi: India’s petroleum major, Indian Oil Corporation, is said to have drawn up an extensive and comprehensive plan to make a foray into the LNG sector.

It plans to achieve this through a string of alliances and strategic investments. On the west coast it has tied up with Enron to market LNG from the Dabhol terminal, apart from being a co-promoter in Petronet for a plant at Dahej. On the east coast, the company has managed to acquire a tender for an LNG terminal at Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh.

The company is currently involved in four LNG terminals, Dahej, Kochi, Kakinada and Dabhol. Its plans for this sector include, setting up terminals, pipelines and marketing of the product.

With the total demand supply gap in natural gas is in the order of about 80 million tons, energy experts are of the view that it would require several players to cater to this growing demand. Further, with most of the liquid fuel projects stranded on account of high costs, LNG has become the most preferred fuel of the power sector.
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Wipro Net aims high with target of 1.5 lakh subscribers
Bangalore: Despite its late entry into the crowded ISP space, Wipro Net is very upbeat about its early success. The company, which launched its Net services recently, under the brand name "net kracker", is hoping to sell on the plank of service quality, line stability, download speed and 24 hour customer care.

Launched initially in Bangalore, the Wipro service is currently available in Chennai, Pune, Ahmedabad, and Mumbai and will soon be offered in Delhi and Calcutta.

Despite stiff competition from established and well entrenched ISP's like VSNL, Satyam, Mantra, and Dishnet, net kracker hopes to get a subscriber base of 1.5 lakh, in its first year of operations.

The company’s objective is to get new subscribers for the service rather then try converting subscribers from their existing ISPs.
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Ashok Leyland realises benefits from cross-functional teams
Chennai: Despite having hit a rough patch soon after coming out of recession, heavy commercial manufacturer, Ashok Leyland, has achieved singular success in its labour and shop-floor management at its Hosur plant. It has been able to bring in excellent team work and spirit, thanks to the series of initiatives unleashed by it across all its plants.

The company’s initiatives like suggestion schemes, quality circles, cross functional teams and task force teams has helped it reap rich benefits. It has also instilled confidence in the minds of workmen and executives to face the future challenges.

With the market, again, turning tough, the entire workforce has realised the relevance of the programs. The external environment has called for increased focus on cost cutting, building product image, improving customer satisfaction and achieving overall efficiency.
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Reliance plans major biotech foray with R&D unit in Mumbai
Mumbai: Coming quietly on the heels of its mega plans for the infocom sector, India’s largest petrochem company in the private sector, Reliance Industries, has announced its plans to enter the biotechnology sector in a big way.

The company is now in the process of establishing a biotechnolgy research and development centre in Mumbai. It is believed that the new centre would focus on research in the areas of industrial, agricultural and medical biotechnology. In an ad released in a leading science magazine, the company has offered employment opportunities for young scientists, Ph.Ds and post-doctoral fellows with over three years of industrial or research experience.

According to industry experts, the low-key biotech industry in the country could well get a massive boost with the entry of the giant. The Reliance group had earlier reportedly initiated discussions with the Hyderabad-based Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) for a possible tie-up. These discussions apparently revolved around two key areas - molecular medicine and stem cell research -- though the latest position on this front could not be ascertained.

The global biotech sector boasts of a market capitalisation of over $60 billion in less than two decades and almost all the leading lifesciences multinationals have direct or indirect interest in this area.

Besides, experts add that major success in deciphering the human genome and other model organisms have opened up a huge business opportunity in the area of bioinformatics.

Bioinformatics essentially involves the application of information technology in genomics and gene sequencing. It addresses issues like data acquisition, data management and distribution gameplans for biologically useful information.
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LML restructures to hive off IT division
Mumbai: In its attempt to bring about a major organisational revamp, in order to "emerge as a flatter organisation" through manpower rationalisation, two-wheeler manufacturer, LML Limited, has decided to "transfer" its information technology division into a separate entity.

The company will transfer by way of sale, or lease/dispose or hive off its IT department, including computer-aided design (CAD) activities that the department looks after, to its subsidiary companies or to any other corporate body.

According to company sources, the new company will be able to concentrate on its core areas of IT-related activities including vendor/dealer networking requirements for clients. The company has already initiated the process of linking up its 120 dealers, regional warehouses and marketing offices through a virtual private network operating on V-sat.
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Hyundai zooms ahead of competition, likely to breakeven this fiscal
Chennai: Despite a stiff target of 78,000 cars, South Korean car company, Hyundai Motor India Ltd., is said to be cruising along the road to breakeven. The company has already achieved a sales of 53,251 cars in 2000, and is confident of meeting its target. The company has plans to get its third shift fully operational, to meet the increasing demand.

HMIL will have a dealership network of 100 across the country in another few months with the number of authorised work stations increasing to around 200.
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Toyota plans to keep new model rush in 2001, 2002
Tokyo: Known for its formidable new product flow, Japanese car giant, Toyota Motor, said that it had no intention of letting this flow slow down and plans to launch 10 or more new or full model change vehicles both in 2001 and 2002.

Toyota, the world’s third-largest automaker and by far the dominant automaker in Japan, has seen its dominance grow over the past year with a swathe of new products such as its popular sub-compact Vitz and derivative vehicles. It has also been helped by a total absence of new products from its competitor, the restructuring Nissan Motor Co.

With such a huge product offering in the coming years, Toyota should be well-placed to fend off challenges from Nissan and Honda Motor Co, both of which have announced aggressive product strategies.

Nissan, as part of its a drastic three-year reform plan, is said to be planning a launch of 22 new models over the next three years. Honda is targeting 20 new or full model change vehicles "in the near future", concentrating on the recreational vehicle and mini-vehicle segments.
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