Bombay Dyeing calls off insurance JV with CGNU
Mumbai: In what is yet another case of broken partnership, even before it had begun, the Wadia Group company, Bombay Dyeing, has called off its proposed insurance joint venture with CGNU of the UK.

According to a statement issued by the Wadia group, both companies are understood to have followed a thorough review and then decided not to proceed with their proposed application for a licence to operate a general insurance business in India.

While officials of CGNU general insurance, which has a representative office in the Bombay Dyeing headquarters in Mumbai, were not available for comment, industry sources believe that there were strong differences between the two companies on the joint venture.
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RPG group seeks new partner in Chennai-based RPG Cellular
Mumbai: The RPG-group controlled RPG Cellular, which is one of the cellular service providers in Chennai, is seeking a new partner. The group is putting up a block of equity equal to 49 per cent for sale to a new partner. This block is to come from RPG and its two existing partners, CellNet and Air Touch Vodafone.

As per the plan, the sale of the stake to a new partner is to be done in two phases. In the first phase, the RPG Group, which holds 68 per cent in RPG Cellular, will offload a 17 per cent stake in the company in favour of the new partner. This, along with CellNet’s (an erstwhile Vodafone company) 11 per cent holding, will be offered to the new partner in the first phase of the sale.

In the second phase, Air Touch Vodafone, which holds 20 per cent of RPG Cellular’s equity, will sell its stake to the new investor. Minority investors including Itochu of Japan hold a 1 per cent stake in the company, and it is understood that they too will sell.

The Chennai circle has been valued at approximately $150 million and the new entrant will have to bring in $73.5 million (Rs 338 crore) for a 49 per cent stake.

It is understood that Hutchison Telecom, which now has a presence in three metros, is believed to be very keen on picking up the Chennai circle, to complete its footprint over the country. Other players reportedly interested in the stake are the BPL group and the Birla-Tata-AT&T combine.
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Essar drops plan to sell power co stake
New Delhi: Following a move to restructure the repayment of its FRNs in group company, Essar Steel, the group has decided to temporarily shelve plans to sell its stake in its power company Essar Power.

The Ruia family is said to have gone slow in the search for a buyer, after its earlier talks with the US-based Marathon for selling off majority stake in the 515 mw Hazira Power project fell through.

According to industry sources, the Essar group is unlikely to sell a majority stake in the company now and may instead rope in a strategic investor with minority equity stake to convert the company into a joint venture.

The power project is strategically very important to the Essar group for its steel project — Essar Steel — since they could source power for the project at concessional rate.
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Axles India teams up with Dana Corporation to make drive heads
Chennai: TVS group company, Axles India, has decided to manufacture axle drive heads for multi-axle vehicles in technical collaboration with its new partner — Dana Corporation of the US, which has replaced the earlier partner, Eaton of UK. Dana came in as a partner following a worldwide sale of Eaton’s heavy axles business to Dana.

According to the company, the manufacturing of drive heads will be a strategic step for your company to become a complete axle manufacturer for medium and heavy commercial vehicles.

Dana, the largest independent manufacturer of axles for medium, heavy, light commercial and sports utility vehicles, has shown keen interest in extending the manufacture to complete axles at AIL and plans are underway for investment for widening the product range.
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Bajaj Auto joins list of applicants for non-life insurance
New Delhi: Bajaj Auto joined a list of nine previous applicants by filing its application for the non-life insurance sector.

It is not yet clear whether the company has tied up with any foreign company for this purpose. So far, only the Reliance Group has decided to go solo in both life and non-life insurance ventures.

The other companies that have applied to IRDA for entry into insurance include Prudential-ICICI, Dabur-Allstate, HDFC-Standard Life, Max-New York Life, Kotak-Old Mutual, Iffco-Tokyo Marine and Sundaram-Royal SunAlliance.
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MBT plans public issue in Jan '01
Pune: Mahindra-British Telecom, a joint venture between Mahindra & Mahindra and British Telecom, is said to be contemplating coming out with a public issue in January 2001.

According to Mr Kiran Deshpande, managing director of the company, quoted in a newspaper report, the company is in the process of getting the documentation in place and after filing the papers with the Securities and Exchange Board of India in October, plans to come out with our IPO after two to three months time.

Since the company plans to off-load only 10 per cent of its equity in the IPO, the promoters will continue to hold a major portion of the equity capital. Another 5 per cent will go for employees stock option.

MBT plans to sell 90 per cent of its IPO proceeds through the book building process and the balance 10 per cent to through the retail route.

The company plans to utilize the proceeds of the IPO for acquisition of software companies both in the domestic and overseas market and some part will be utilised to expand MBT's overseas operations.

The company, which has decided to list on the Bombay and National Stock Exchanes, is looking at the listing as a means of gaining currency to its stock and providing employee stock option.

The company is also actively seeking to expand its customer base, which is currently dominated by BT. Revenues coming from the US market is increasing very rapidly for MBT with an annual growth of over 200 per cent mainly due to low base. But the US market for MBT is next only to BT in size.
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BSES plans Rs 20cr investment for optic fibre
Mumbai: BSES Ltd, through its telecom subsidiary, BSES TeleCom, plans to invest Rs 20 crore to lay 200 km each optic-fibre cables (OFC) in Haryana and Navi Mumbai.

BSES sources said that these projects were in line with the BSES TeleCom's plan to develop and manage cross-country optical fibre links with national infrastructure organisation to form a national information highway, alternate high-speed broadband national backbone.
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