Shell seeks government permission to invest in Hazira LNG
New Delhi—After the government rejected its proposal to acquire 11 per cent stake in Gujarat State Petronet, Royal Dutch Shell has dropped its plans for the time being to invest $13 million in acquiring up to 11 per cent in GSPL. Instead, it proposes to focus on its investments of Rs 915 crore in Hazira LNG.
Apart from this, it is looking at setting up a wholly owned subsidiary for procuring LNG and natural gas, to arrange for the regasification of LNG and storage, purchase, transportation and sale of LNG. Shell plans to invest Rs 155 crore in this subsidiary.
Shell has thus put in a fresh proposal to FIPB seeking permission to invest Rs 915 crore in the paid-up capital of Hazira LNG and set up a 100 per cent subsidiary for procuring LNG and natural gas and investing Rs 155 crore in it.

Recently the FIPB rejected Shell’s proposal to acquire 11 per cent in GSPL on grounds that it violated the provisions of the Government of Gujarat Gas Act.
It also rejected Shell’s proposal to float subsidiaries of the Shell Group, for developing the gas pipeline from Hazira to Mora and for building necessary connecting pipelines to customers from existing or planned pipeline infrastructure.
The government also rejected its plans to pump in $32 million for the purpose of procuring LNG and natural gas, to import the same when necessary, and to arrange for other required services.
The government said the reasons for rejecting the proposals (total of three) was that they did not meet the specifications of the Gujarat Gas Act. The Gujarat government had framed a Gas Act last year to regulate transmission and distribution of high-pressure liquefied natural gas in the state by the newly-floated Gujarat State Petronet.
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Bharti plans to invest in call center
Delhi—The Bharti Group is planning an investment to the tune of Rs 55 crore for a foray into call centre operations in India. The call center is to begin operations by July this year.

Said Rakesh Bharti Mittal, vice-chairman and managing director of Bharti Teletech, confirmed the company’s plans and said that Bharti's 100-seat facility at Okhla would start operations in July this year.
The call centre operations would be run by Bharti Teletech's wholly-owned subsidiary - Bharti Infotrac, Mittal said, adding that the company was planning another 1,000-seat call centre facility expected to be fully operational by year-end.
He said the call center would be funded through internal accruals adding that most of the funds for the proposed venture are already in place.
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MTNL to offer new cellular tariffs
New Delhi—Mahanagar Telephone Nigam, (MTNL) which made a beginning with undercutting private cellular operators tariffs, it is now planning to come out with 'introductory' tariff packages to meet individual customer requirements.
According to top MTNL officials, a variety of introductory tariff packages are on the anvil to meet individual customer requirements in the cellular market. MTNL will approach the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India soon with the proposals.
Officials said MTNL was planning various combinations of rentals along with incentives but declined to give details saying MTNL would first seek TRAI's approval on the matter.
The corporation has fixed June 30 as the deadline to complete the optimisation of the cellular network to take the private operators head-on, especially in terms of quality of services.
The company is also in the process of finalising agreements with various national and international cellular players, and plans offer roaming facilities by month-end.
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BPLNet to offload part of equity in AFX
New Delhi—BPLNet.com, group company of electronics major BPL, is offloading part of its 51 per cent equity stake in AFX, the business arm of news agency agency France Presse.
Sources in the company said that BPL has reworked its business strategy as a result of which its stake in the joint venture will come down.
While clarifying that BPL was not exiting the JV sources said the JV was still valid BPL was examining options of lowering its stakes and negotiate with financial institutions instead. It was possible that BPL stakes could be sold to these institutions. However as yet no decision has been taken since negotiations are yet to begin.
The JV came into existence in July last year.
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Compaq to restructure equity stake in Indian subsidiary
Mumbai--US computer major Compaq Computer is restructuring its equity holding in its Indian subsidiary Compaq Computer India.

Compaq US wants to transfer the holding of group companies Compaq Computer Corporation of the US and Compaq Computer International Corporation to its Mauritius subsidiary Compaq Computer (Mauritius) and Compaq Computer EMEA B.V.
According to company officials the change in holding is in line with a global restructuring plan and the company has applied to the Foreign Investment Promotion Board for the change in the equity holding pattern.
As a result of this Compaq’s Mauritius subsidiary will have more than a 99 per cent stake in the Indian company. Compaq has in the past year emerged as a major player in the branded PC market. It has an assembly operation in Bangalore.
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Cisco; outsourcing to compensate for lay-offs in India
Mumbai—According to US-based networking giant Cisco Systems’ its recent decision to reduce its workforce in India will be compensated by an increase in outsourcing requirement to systems integrators like Datacraft, Global Telesystems and HCL Comnet.
The company recently entered into outsourcing arrangements with two Indian companies—Global TeleSystems and Himachal Futuristics — to supply engineers at a cheaper rate for its Asia-Pacific and Indian projects.
A spokesperson of the company said 20 per cent of the company’s layoff of 8,500 people globally would take place outside the US. This includes Cisco’s operations in the Asia-Pacific, including India.
Cisco however refused to divulge details on the layoff target for India, which forms a crucial part of the Asia-Pacific market.
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Titan plans huge outlay for IT, plant upgradation
New Delhi—Titan Industries plans to invest Rs 14 crore in plant upgradation and IT-related activities this year.
While Rs 7 crore would be spent in networking dealers, showrooms and employing the latest Sap module, another Rs 7 crore would be put in for plant upgradation activities, said Bhaskar Bhat, chief operating officer, Titan Industries. The investment would be funded from internal accruals.
The company plans to sell seven million watches this fiscal against 6.5 million last fiscal. Of this half a million watches are expected to be sold in the overseas markets, he said.
The company has its main manufacturing plant in Hosur near Bangalore, an assembling unit in Dehradun and an electronic circuit board unit in Goa.
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A-I earnings skyrocket; losses down to Rs 29cr
New Delhi—Though AI has declared its strongest financial performance in the past six years however; it still continues to be in the red.
The airline has shown a loss of Rs 29 crore during '00-01 which is its lowest since '95-96.
This is against Rs 38 crore loss in '99-00, Rs 174 crore in '98-99, Rs 181 crore in '97-98, Rs 297 crore in '96-97 and Rs 272 crore in '95-96.
Significantly, the airline's turnover has crossed the $1-billion mark and it has set a number of new records by touching historic peaks in terms of revenues from passenger and cargo business as also operating revenue and non-operating revenue.
The improvement in financial performance makes the national carrier a bit more attractive for prospective bidders. The Tata-Singapore Airlines consortium and the Hindujas, the only two qualified bidders for the national carrier, are in the final stages of completing their due diligence.
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Mahindra Realty ropes in IFC
Mumbai—As Gesco Corporation and Mahindra Realty & Infrastructure Developers – get ready for formal merger, the latter has finalized plans to hive off its infrastructure division into a separate company.
For this Mahindra Realty is roping in US-based International Finance Corporation, the private sector funding arm of the World Bank, as a 20 per cent stakeholder.
IFC, which recently received the necessary approvals from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board, will invest $10 million in the infrastructure company named Mahindra Infrastructure Developers.
Mahindra Realty, after its merger with Gesco, will be a focused real estate development company and will hold an 80 per cent stake in Mahindra Infrastructure Developers, which will have a share capital of $50 million.
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Tisco net expected to rise by 42 percent to Rs 650cr
Kolkata-- Tata Steel, the country's largest private sector steel major may see a resurrection of fortunes this year. The market grapevine says that the company will register more than a 42 per cent growth in net profit at Rs 600-650 crore.
For the nine-month period ended December 31, '00, the company posted a net profit of Rs 344.4 crore. Leading market analysts said the estimate has been made after taking into account the negative factors including the currency volatility and the increase in input costs.
From a net profit of Rs 565 crore way back in '95-96 to a net profit of Rs 282 crore in '98-99, while income from sale of cement plant pushed the net up to Rs 422 crore in '99-00.
The company, cash flush at the moment, has just completed its modernisation programme, and is now looking at new avenues to propel its growth. The company has set a target of doubling revenue in every four years. Total revenue stood at Rs 6,900 crore at the end of the financial year '99-00.
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Honda, Scooters India to focus on scooters segment
New Delhi—The Honda and Scooter India JV (HMSI) has decided to focus on the scooters segment so as to prevent conflict of interest with sister JV Hero Honda a motorcycles manufacturer.
Thus HMSI will be content launching the 102 cc, four-stroke automatic medium-sized scooter Activa this year and is looking at volumes of around 50,000 from its first product. It plans to launch another scooter next year to take its sales volumes to 100,000.
HMSI will also start exporting this year and is looking to export 20-30 per cent of its total production.
So far Honda has invested Rs 200 crore in this subsidiary.
HMSI will also follow a phased, model-based strategy for its distribution network.
Since its first product is an automatic scooter with its own character, the company will target specific regions and does not plan dealerships all over India.
HMSI plans 60 dealers to start with mostly in the south and west with a few northern centres thrown in.
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SBI offers stake of one percent to primary dealers in Clearing Corp
Mumbai—The State Bank of India (SBI) has offered a one per cent equity stake to each of the primary dealers, in the proposed Clearing Corporation of India, which will undertake clearing and settlement for money and foreign exchange markets.
The corporation is expected to be in place by June 2001 and is modeled on the lines of Euroclear and Cedel —- the clearing houses in the European Union, where all participants have an equity stake in the venture.Most primary dealers -- including the ones promoted by foreign banks -- have agreed to pick up an equity stake in the venture. There are at present 15 PDs in the money market.

The board of the Primary Dealers Association of India, (PDAI) the representative body for PDs, will meet on May 23 to finalise the total equity holding of all the PDs in the venture.
SBI, which is the promoter of the corporation, will have the highest equity holding of 26 per cent. The other promoters -— IDBI, ICICI, HDFC Bank, Life Insurance Corporation of India and Bank of Baroda -- will hold 5 per cent each. Therefore, the holding of all the promoters put together will be 51 per cent.
SBI has already appointed former National Stock Exchange managing director R H Patil as the chairman and former Discount & Finance House of India managing director M R Ramesh as CEO of the corporation.
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MSEB undeterred by the PTN to slap another penalty on DPC
Mumbai—Undaunted by the issuance of preliminary termination notice by the Dabhol Power Company,(DPC) the Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB) has decided to proceed with its decision to slap yet another Rs 400-crore penalty on the US energy major.
MSEB sources said here on Sunday, "PTN or no PTN in the first week of June, MSEB will slap one more Rs 400-crore penalty on DPC for misdeclaration and default on the availability of power, a review for which will be taken next month,"
The proposed penalty is in wake of DPC's inability to produce power on February 12 and March 13 as per MSEB's demand in stipulated time of three hours as per the power purchase agreement, they said.
Sources said MSEB would pay the Rs 139-crore April bill on May 23, which would be the last payment from MSEB. The rest of the due amount would be adjusted in the penalty.
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Reliance to restrict its shares to BSE and NSE
Mumbai—As part of as cost cutting drive, Reliance Industries (RIL) is planning to delist its shares from the Ahmedabad, Calcutta, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Pune, Chennai, Bangalore and Cochin stock exchanges.
The company is introducing a special resolution at the annual general meeting in Mumbai on June 15 to seek shareholders' approval for delisting of the company's shares from "any and all" of these stock exchanges at an "appropriate time in the future".
The notice to the shareholders says actual timing of the delisting will depend on the future developments, including the integration of stock exchanges across the country.

The move follows the increase in online trading due to the extension of the Bombay and National Stock Exchanges terminals to other cities. The notice says the company's shares are mainly traded on BSE and NSE and volumes in other exchanges are much lower.
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SBI Life targets LIC Bima Nivesh, introduces Sanjeevan
Mumbai--SBI Life Insurance — the joint venture between State Bank of India and Cardif SA of France) — is taking on the Life Insurance Corporation of India by introducing Sanjeevan, which is a single-premium policy much like Bima Nivesh — LIC’s fastest growing policy.
Sanjeevan, has already been sold to employees who availed of the voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) from the bank.
The one lakh-odd public sector bank employees who opted for VRS are the primary targets of SBI Life and Sanjeevan has been tailor-made to suit their requirements.
To begin with SBI Life is going in for a soft launch of the product and the full-fledged campaign is expected to take off a few weeks later. SBI Life hopes to make its product more attractive than LIC’s by offering a higher sum insured, which will compensate for a slightly lower assured return.
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Singapore FII picks up 5.72 per cent in UB
Kolkata--Two Singapore-based foreign institutional investors (FIIs) have picked up over five per cent stake in two leading Indian companies, Dr Reddy's Laboratories Ltd (DRL) and United Breweries Ltd (UBL).
While the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation Pte Ltd, has taken 6.58 per cent stake in DRL by acquiring the company's recently issued American Depository Shares (ADS), Singapore-based Arisaig Partners (Asia) Pte Ltd has taken 5.72 per cent stake in UBL through open market operations here.
DRL said the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation Pte Ltd has acquired 25.16 lakh shares of the company.
Alongside, Arisaig Partners have acquired in excess of 21.6 shares of the country's largest beer company UBL through two accounts: Arisaig India Fund Ltd and Arisaig Asian Small Companies Fund Ltd.
While the former holds 4.5 lakh shares or about 1.19 per cent stake, the FII has amassed 17.1 lakh shares or 4.53 per cent stake through the other account. The FII informed the company about its acquisition towards the beginning of April.
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Essar Steel bags $50 million export deal to China
Mumbai-- Essar Steel, the largest hot-rolled coil exporter, has secured a $50 million export deal with China. According to the terms of the contract, Essar will be exporting 2 lakh tonne of metal in a year.
Essar Steel managing director J Mehra said, that the Chinese order is around 30 per cent of the total exports.
Essar Steel has also booked its first export order for API X-70 grade steel to be exported to Spain. The quantum of export is around 30,000 tonne valued at $9.5 million.
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Star TV India to distribute National Geographic’s new channel in India
Mumbai--National Geographic Channel, (NGC) is all set to launch a new channel in India by the end of 2001. The channel — Adventure One, will be distributed locally by Star India. The new channel launch is part of Star India’s strategy to offer a wide variety of channels offering different genres of programming as and when it rolls its DTH television service here.
Media sources say, Adventure One is one of the most popular channels in places like Europe and showcases outdoor events and adventure sports. The line-up is likely to include outdoor sports like bunjee jumping, rock mountain climbing and white water rafting – programmes.
Industry sources said that Adventure One, globally part of the NGC stable, may have more localised content.
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Is Arvind Mills selling-off Arrow brand-licensing rights?
Mumbai--Arvind Mills is understood to be selling off the licensing rights of its upmarket Arrow brand in India on the block and is said to be in the process of appointing a merchant banker to look for a prospective buyer.
Though company officials denied it market sources say the authorised licensee company is in talks with some industry houses for the sale of its rights.

Arvind Mills has been going through a rough patch following a recession in the denim market, which led to the company defaulting on payments to its lenders. The company had also defaulted on institutional payments whereby the institutions had in-principle agreed for a rescheduling of payments.
The move to sell the brand rights might have been prompted by its poor financial position, which has left it with very few options, analysts said.
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Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank appointed by Reliance Petroleum for its GDR float
Mumbai--Reliance Petroleum Ltd has appointed Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and Deutsche Bank as its lead managers for the global depository receipt (GDR) issue it has lined up against the company’s existing equity. The two investment banks will manage the entire float, expected to be completed, in tranches, probably by the end of fiscal 2001-02.
RPL has already asked its shareholders, who wish to offload their shares through the GDR offering, to transfer their shares in demat form to an escrow account between May 21 and June 2, and the shares would be kept in the account till March 31, 2002, or till the completion of the offering, whichever is earlier. This has been done to enable the offering, even in tranches, to be completed without having to approach shareholders every time for the divestment.
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Pantaloon announces shifting manufacturing base to Bangladesh
Mumbai-- The 16 per cent excise duty levied by the government on the garment industry has prompted the the Rs 200-crore Pantaloon group to shift its manufacturing base to Bangladesh.
Pantaloon’s managing director Kishore Biyani said that while the company would initially source readymade garments from Bangladesh in the long run would shift its manufacturing units to Bangladesh. He added that production in the Indian units would be gradually stopped in a year’s time. He said that Bangladesh was considered as it is the largest manufacturer of ready-made garments, especially shirts, in the world. Also, with removal of import restrictions in Saarc countries, the company can also move to one of the Saarc countries.

Pantaloon is more of a retailing outfit and had about 72 stores in 1995 most of them franchised. Now the company has around 40 outlets of which 14 are company-owned.
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Madura Coats seeks shareholders’ nod to buy back shares
Kolkata--Madura Coats will seek shareholders’ approval to buy-back 18.05 lakh shares at a price of Rs 30 per share. This will be during the next 12 months.
The proposed buy-back is estimated to cost the company around Rs 55 crore. The company had thought that after completing the sale of Madura Garments division for Rs 189.23 crore it would be in a position to return the cash to its shareholders, company officials said here.
After the board of directors approved a proposal to buy-back shares the company intends to put the proposal before its shareholders at its Annual General Meeting to be held on June 13.

Officials said the buy-back would be undertaken from the existing shareholders either on a proportionate basis through tender offer or from the open market either through the book building process or through purchases in stock exchanges or any other method as may be prescribed.

Promoters J&P Coats Ltd held 51.52 per cent stake in the company, while only 18.65 per cent of shares were with individual public.

Madura Coats had incurred a net loss of Rs 127.72 crore during the year ended December, 2000 against a net profit of Rs 20.91 crore in the previous fiscal. Turnover had also come down to Rs 848.24 crore from Rs 995.37 crore.
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WagonR ahead of Matiz says survey
New Delhi— According to a recent survey by BBC’s Top Gear and JD Power for the UK market, Suzuki’s Wagon R, is considered by auto admirers and consumers to be hotter than Daewoo’s Matiz in the International market.
The survey said that the Wagon R has a comfortable cabin, is practical, the built quality is superb, cheap to run, reliable and easy going.
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