$2-b cell giant created through BPL, Birla-AT&T-Tata merger
Mumbai—The merger of BPL Communications and Birla-AT&T-Tata on Thursday has created India’s largest cellular company valued at more than $2 billion by the partners.
Birla-AT&T-Tata is a joint venture between US telecom giant AT&T and two of India’s biggest conglomerates, the Tata and Birla groups.

This merger relegates Hong Kong’s Hutchison Telecom to the second place in terms of revenue and number of subscribers in the country’s Rs 3,000 crore ($638 million) cellular phone market.
The merged company will have around one million subscribers, a quarter of the current number of cellular phone users in India which is a rapidly growing and potentially immense mobile phone market.
BPL operates mobile networks in the states of Maharashtra, Kerala and Tamil Nadu through two operating companies — BPL Cellular and BPL Mobile Communications.
France Telecom holds a 26 per cent stake in BPL Mobile Communications, while MediaOne, a US company acquired by AT&T last year, holds a 49 per cent stake in BPL Cellular.
Bangalore-based BPL Communications will own 49.32 per cent of the new entity. AT&T, Birla and Tata will each hold 16.9 per cent stakes.
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Appeals court throws out Microsoft split up order
Washington—The bad times of Microsoft Corp almost seem to be over as a US appeals court has overturned a lower-court order that ordered the splitting up Microsoft Corp into two companies. However, the higher court upheld the lower-court finding that Microsoft held a monopoly in personal computer operating systems and some of its competitive practices amounted to illegal use of that monopoly.
The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia also ordered that a new lower court judge look at whether Microsoft illegally tied its Internet browser to the Windows operating system to maintain that monopoly.
In a ruling, that overturned a former judgment by lower court judge, Thomas Penfield Jackson that Microsoft had tried to monopolize the market for Internet browsers, the judges also rebuked Jackson for giving the "appearance of partiality" through his media interviews during the trial.
"Although we find no evidence of actual bias, we hold that the actions of the trial judge seriously tainted the proceedings before the district Court and called into question the integrity of the judicial process," the court said in its ruling.
"We are therefore constrained to vacate the (breakup order) on remedies, remand the case for reconsideration of the remedial order, and require that the case be assigned to a different trial judge on remand."
The US justice department welcomed the appeals court finding that Microsoft engaged in illegal conduct to maintain the PC operating system monopoly.
Microsoft spokesman Mark Murray said the company was reviewing the ruling and would comment later.
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Promoters stake in Bombay Dyeing to rise to 40.78 percent
Mumbai—The Wadia group has increased its stake in the flagship company by over 5 per cent from 36 to 40.78 per cent through the creeping acquisition route during the financial year ended March 31 2000.

Company sources said the Wadias have spent around Rs 10-15 crore to increase their stake largely through the open market route towards the end of February"01 enabling them to consolidate the holdings at 40.14 per cent. The stake has further gone up to 40.78 per cent following marginal purchases made in April 2001.

Among the Wadia group companies, Seawind Investments & Trading holds the largest chunk of 9.08 per cent stake in the company, while Nowrosjee Wadia & Sons has a stake of 6.08 per cent, The Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation Ltd controls around 4.32 per cent stake, according to the shareholding pattern as on March 31 2001.
Other promoter group companies, which hold stakes in Bombay Dyeing, are Ben Nevis Investments, Jehreen Investments and Lochness Investments.
At present in the list of top shareholders of Bombay Dyeing there is only one Bajoria company, Mega Stocks, which holds about 2.42 per cent stake in Bombay Dyeing.

Sources added that the promoters have no plans to increase their stake further in Bombay Dyeing. Moreover, the group’s stake will automatically rise further after completion of share buy-back programme.
While banks and financial institutions together hold a stake of 16.36 per cent stake, the public has a stake of 26.29 per cent. Non-resident Indians have 2.73 per cent stake in the company.
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Maruti Udyog privatization to go ahead
New Delhi—With Suzuki Motor Company (SMC) categorically stating that it was not interested in picking up the 50 per cent stake held by the government in Maruti Udyog, the stage is now set for divestment proceedings to begin.
However, the government’s is caught in a bind inspite of having interested parties in Maruti, which include Ford Motor Co and Bajaj Auto, the JV agreement makes it impossible for the government to force a new partner without Suzuki’s approval.
Therefore, the CoS is in favour of a public flotation which automatically means divestment of management control to SMC and at the same time the CoS recommends that the government charge a ‘control premium’ from Suzuki.
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HLL forced to close Kodaikanal plant on Greenpeace pressure
Geneva—You have to hand it to the greens. They have forced FMCG giant Hindustan Lever Ltd to close its thermometer mercury factory at Kodaikanal in Tamil Nadu following pressure and protests from the international environment NGO Greenpeace, citizens groups, and former Unilever employees, who claim that their health has been badly affected by the lax working conditions. The company has also agreed to clean up 5.3 tonnes of mercury that it illegally dumped, though it denies that the workers and local inhabitants may have been exposed to the highly toxic metal.
NGO Greenpeace says this is the culmination of protests and exposure of the waste dumping and "double standards" employed by the MNC, on March 7 when one of the firm’s illegal dumping sites in a crowded part of the city was cordoned off by protestors.
Former Hindustan Lever employees in Kodaikanal say the company is extremely casual in its attitude towards mercury exposure in the workplace, and its denials that any such exposure occurred.

Though HLL claims that none of the 140 current workers (or any of the 250 ex-workers, many of whom resigned due to health reasons) were affected by exposure to mercury, workers say that the firm did not conduct any investigations when 10 workers (all under 40 years) died while employed at the plant.
In its international PR campaign the environmental NGO is exposing India’s lax environmental standards, and the role played by Unilever and HLL in polluting the environment and endangering the health of people.
It says that mercury is highly poisonous and exposure to this metal can cause severe kidney problems, internal bleeding, damage to the nervous system (brain) result in gynaecological problems, and impact foetuses of unborn children.
Many ex-workers at the Kodaikanal plant have reported such symptoms.
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FIs put VK Modi in charge of MRL operations
New Delhi—The FIs in the form of Pandurang Rao, chaiman Modi Rubber and a UTI nominee have managed to stage a coup of sorts at Modi Rubber by handing over the day-to-day management charge to V K Modi and upstaging the BK Modi faction.
Until now the BK Modi faction was running operations while the sales and marketing operations were handled by VK Modi. A company spokesperson said the chaiman was irked at the way B K Modi’s men were defying board norms.
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NIIT now Microsoft’s exclusive certifier of computer skills
Chennai--NIIT has entered into an alliance with Microsoft to cerify computer skills of students and executives.
A senior NIIT official said that henceforth, NIIT would act as Microsoft's exclusive computer literacy skill certifier in India and the globally acknowledged certificate 'Microsoft office user specialist,’ was a valuable credential that demonstrated proven computer literacy skills.

He added that companies employing candidates with ‘Mous’ certification would reduce the amount of training to be provided by companies to new recruits.
The company is aiming for 30,000 certifications this year.
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Scope in tie-up with Sun Microsystems
New Delhi—US-based Sun Microsystems has appointed Scope, the state-of-the-art IT education and training institute of Score Information Technologies (a Kankaria Group enterprise), to be the first authorized Sun education centre in Eastern India providing Sun Solaris.
Apart from the technical backing, which Sun Microsystems will provide, this alliance would enable Scope to build up a vast pool of skilled manpower and help empower the students, a company statement said here.
"Scope's industry-leading training facility, combined with Sun's education consulting, courseware, e-learning programme and professional certifications, will help students to deploy new Net technologies in the IT organisations they will later on join," Swapan Dutta, country manager, Sun Educational Services - Sun Microsystems, said.
Yogesh Kankaria, CEO, Scope said, "we are committed to making high quality technical education available and this partnership with Sun Microsystems is a step in this direction. We will be providing Sun Solaris and Sun Java under the same roof for the first time in Eastern India."
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Oberoi reduces staff by 465
Mumbai—Through its voluntary retirement scheme introduced in 1998-99, East India Hotels, owner of Oberoi hotels, has been able to reduce its staff strength by 465 across its properties in Mumbai, Delhi and Calcutta. The VRS scheme is now complete.
With the reduction in employee cost, the company will be able to record a higher net of Rs 8 crore each year according to S S Mukherjee, deputy managing director, EIH.

The boost to the net profit is useful specially when margins are constrained because of competition and over capacity of room supply, he added.
The Oberoi group does not have any immediate plans for another round of VRS. "We cannot have another round of VRS because an employee has to have at least 10 years of experience before being offered VRS.
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LIC Housing Fin to diversify into construction
Hyderabad—LIC Housing Finance is planning to diversify into construction and running of old age homes this year according to a top official of the organisation.
In the construction sector he said LIC would take up a Rs 20-crore project to build houses for middle and lower income groups and would also provide finance. In addition to this the organization with a Rs 10-crore capital was setting up "assistant living community centres" (retirement homes) for senior citizens with facilities like hospitals and medicare and others which the elderly people need, he said.
"For the present it has identified Pune and Noida for building such homes and would launch the scheme within three to five months from now.
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Titan profit up
Bangalore--Titan Industries has reported a rise of 21.8 percent in its profit in the year ending March March 2001. This reflects strong sales growth by its jewellery division.
Net profit rose to Rs 23,480 crore ($5.0 million) or Rs 4.41 per share, from Rs 192.80 or Rs 3.47 a share the previous year.
Sales rose 12.5 per cent to Rs 639 crore from Rs 568 crore.
According to a statement from the company, "The newly profitable jewellery business recorded an income growth of 32 per cent, up from Rs 154 crore to Rs 203.9 crore."
That fuelled a 10.6 per cent increase in operating income, despite merely a 4 per cent increase in sales by its main watch unit.
Operating income rose to Rs 697 crore from 6.3 billion the previous year. The watch division's income rose to Rs 487 crore from Rs 468 crore.
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J&K Bank defers plans for MF arm
Mumbai—The Jammu and Kashmir Bank has deferred its plans to set up a mutual fund subsidiary and will concentrate on insurance for the time being.
The Bank had earlier announced plans to set up an asset management subsidiary and had sought preliminary clearance from the RBI and the Securities and Exchange Board of India.
M Y Khan, chairman, Jammu and Kashmir Bank said that the Bank would obtain a corporate agency for distribution of insurance products once the Insurance Development and Regulatory Authority norms for corporate agency are diluted.
The present norms impose stringent requirements on the directors of a corporate agency firm making it difficult for banks and institutions to take on distribution of insurance products.
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LIC grows by 65 percent in competitive market
Vijaywada--The Life Insurance Corporation of India registered a growth rate of 65 per cent in 2001 according LIC chairman and managing director A Ramamurthy. He said that this was in an environment that has become extremely competitive with the insurance sector open to global insurance players.
While launching the metro area network-Vijayawada connecting 12 offices in Guntur, Vuyyuru, Tenali and Vijayawada and interactive voice response system here, Ramamurthy said even though four private companies were in the market, LIC could better its business even more.
He said the fully functional metro area network connecting 12 branches here would enable a policy holder to pay his premium in any of the 12 branches.
Any of these branches would also be able to handle enquiries of the policy-holder, he added.
In addition to the metro network LIC voice response system here, a policy-holder could get information about his policy over the telephone.
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Bajaj Auto to rationalize vendor network yet again
Mumbai--Bajaj Auto is planning to reduce its number of vendors by half to about 400 by December 2001.
This will increase Bajaj Auto's volume of business with a few leading suppliers and is intended to improve the efficiency of its supply-chain management.
It has already cut down the number of suppliers by 600 over the past three years.
In its annual report the company said, "The vendors will enjoy the benefits of larger orders, better capacity utilisation and have an incentive to invest in better technologies, systems and processes (due to the vendor rationalisation). It would also enable closer interaction between the company and its vendors, thus catalysing the product development and the response to quality and delivery needs.
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MFs, FIIs increase stake in L&T by 4.92 percent
Kolkata--The combined shareholding of domestic mutual funds (MFs) and foreign institutional investors (FIIs) has increased by a shade below 5 per cent in Larsen & Toubro Ltd during the year ending March 31, 2001.
The holdings of mutual funds rose by 2.19 per cent to 3.89 per cent in the Rs 8,035 crore company, while that of FIIs went up by 2.73 per cent to 13.15 per cent, thus raising their combined stake by 4.92 per cent.
The Rs 10 paid-up share was quoted in the range of Rs 322.90 to Rs 211.50 during April , 2000 to March, 2001 on BSE and NSE.
L&T's annual report for 2000-01, says the growth in MFs and FIIs stake was offset by a fall in the shareholding of public and GDR holders. While the former came down from 33.21 per cent to 29.70 per cent, the GDR stake fell from 11.46 per cent to 9.16 per cent. Domestic companies' stake in L&T grew marginally to 10.53 per cent from 9.77 per cent. Shareholding of financial institutions was almost at the same level of 32.39 per cent. Other non-residents holding stood unchanged at 1.18 per cent.
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HPCL-IOC moot plan to buy out Birlas in MRPL
Mumbai--Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) has mooted a proposal whereby AV Birla’s 37.5 percent stake in Mangalore Refinery Petrochemical Ltd (MRPL) would be transferred to a joint entity formed by HPCL and Indian Oil Corporation (IOC). HPCL and IOC would make equity investments in the newly formed entity.
The advantage of floating a separate entity is that the balance sheet of the two companies will not be affected since the losses suffered by MRPL will be passed on to the new joint venture, the sources said.
HPCL at present holds a 37 per cent stake in MRPL. The remaining 26 per cent was to be offered to a third partner who was to be inducted to facilitate investments. Both HPCL and AV Birla group had zeroed in on a new partner but by then the Birla group announced its decision to quit the joint venture.
Currently, HPCL markets the products of MRPL’s 9-million tonne refinery in Mangalore through its distribution network of 4,000 outlets.
Management consultants had recommended that MRPL should go in for immediate direct marketing of products to improve its profitability.
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