Indium offers software solutions
Chennai: Indium Software has announced an integrated solution of software testing services and Compuware's testing tools. These tools aid in functionality and performance- testing.

According to a release from the company, its solution offers product companies the benefit of automated testing tools to create a test environment with a high degree of reusability for functional and performance testing. This will help in improving software product quality, reducing time to market and ensures test assets are reusable during the lifecycle of the product.
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Catholic Syrian net zooms
Kochi: Catholic Syrian Bank has announced a three-fold growth in its net profit for the year 2001-02.

The net profit of the bank grew by 330 per cent to touch Rs 37.12 crore (Rs 11.25 crore). This is the highest profit posted by the bank. The return on net assets has also grown beyond the one per cent level.

Total capital funds of the bank have grown to Rs 121.26 crore. The capital adequacy ratio had also grown to 9.57 per cent, as against the 9 per cent stipulated by the Reserve Bank of India.

The bond issue of the bank was over-subscribed. With the allocation of bonds worth Rs 12.45 crore, the capital base of the bank grew to Rs 133.71 crore, taking the capital adequacy further to 10.53 per cent.
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Sify beats VSNL with over 6 lakh subscribers
Mumbai: Videsh Sanchar Nigam has been overtaken by Satyam Infoway, which now rules at No. 1 with a 6 lakh-plus dial-up subscriber base.

Sify reported a subscriber base of 6.03 lakh as of 31 December 2001, while VSNL reported 5.5 lakh.

VSNLs subscriber base has actually come down to 5.5 lakh from 6.6 lakh.

Prior to the Tata takeover, BSNLs Internet subscribers were routed through the VSNL server and, therefore, the two ISPs reported their combined subscriber bases to the Trai under the VSNL brandname.

However, with the change in VSNLs ownership, the two ISPs now have independent servers for their subscribers. VSNLs subscriber base has, therefore, dropped by 1.1 lakh.
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M&M to set up overseas assembly units
New Delhi: Mahindra and Mahindra is in the process of establishing assembly units for its range of utility vehicles in Georgia, Indonesia, Russia and Turkey.

The firm is in talks with local manufacturers.

Talks for a production base in Indonesia and Georgia are in an advanced stage.
In addition, M&M is also planning to commence exports of its utility vehicles to South Africa to be sold as fully-built imported model.

For the venture in Russia, the firm has already joined hands with a Russia-based Indian company Sun group.
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Lamb Western to enter Indian market
New Delhi: The worlds biggest French fries company, Lamb Western plans to set up neighbourhood kiosks to rapidly expand the countrys 3,000-tonnes-per-annum market.

Lamb Western, a subsidiary of food giant Congara of USA, will be expanding its market share and product line in India by entering the retail sector through Congaras Indian arm, AgroTech Foods. Efforts are also being made to tie up with domestic airlines to ensure that Lamb Western fries come with every air meal.

Agro Tech Foods manufactures and retails atta and dried peas under its Healthy World brand.
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JK Udaipur to merge with Laxmi Cement
Mumbai: The JK group has finalised plans to merge the JK Udaipur Udyog with Laxmi Cement.

The recast exercise is a prelude to induction of a strategic partner, which could possibly be a cement transnational like Lafarge.

Laxmi Cement has a capacity of 2.2 million tonnes, while JK Udaipur can roll out around one million tonnes annually. Laxmi Cement sells under the `Laxmi' brand name, which is fairly strong in pockets of the northern region, while cement from JK Udaipur Udyog is sold under the `Shakti' brand name.
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Bharti set to raise Rs 1,000 crore debt
New Delhi: Bharti is planning to float bonds to raise a debt of about Rs 1,000 crore within the next few months to fund telecom service operations during the current fiscal.

The company is also considering whether to raise debt through Bharti Televentures or through some of its six subsidiaries.

The company has projected a total peak funding of about Rs 2,500 crore over the next three years, of which it has raised about Rs 500 crore and is expected to fill the gap of about Rs 1,000 crore this year itself.

The equity base of BTVL, is around Rs 5,000 crore. Total debt of the group, however, is about Rs 1,600 crore.
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Tatas may reduce up to 30% in Tata Tele
Mumbai: The Tata group may dilute up to 30 per cent stake in Tata Teleservices to raise around Rs 4,000 crore to fund its roll-out of fixed line network across five states over five years.

Tata group is considering three options to dilute its equity in the company through an initial public offering, inducting strategic investors or a combination of both in phases.

Tata Teleservices has a paid-up capital of Rs 602 crore.

The exercise is being undertaken to fund its equity part of the ambitious Rs 8,250 crore to roll out fixed line network across six states including Maharashtra.
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Nalco divestment on schedule
Mumbai:  The disinvestment ministry is determined to carry out Nalcos divestment as scheduled. Disinvestment minister Arun Shourie has categorically stated that the Nalco disinvestment will be carried out as scheduled.

Shourie upheld the governments decision to go forward with an ADR issue. He cited the example of Chinese companies, which have been able to realise better valuations through an international listing.

He said that merchant banking firms have been making presentations to the disinvestment ministry.

The government intends to disinvest out of its 87.15 per cent shareholding in Nalco, shares to the extent of 10 per cent through domestic issue in the first stage and 20 per cent through ADR in the second stage, followed the strategic sale of remaining around 29.15 per cent in the third stage, bringing down the equity to 26 per cent.
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Raj Travels plans overseas expansion
Mumbai: Raj Travels and Tours Ltd plans to establish its presence in United Kingdom, United States and Canada. The company already has an office in London and a representative office in Dubai.

These new offices will be established to promote India as an attractive tourist destination. While Raj Travels has been a leader in outbound travel in India, its inbound traffic contributes about ten per cent of the total revenue earned.

The company has introduced attractive packages for US and European tour this year. To bring in operational efficiency in hotel bookings, Raj Travels has decided to set up a portal called www.bookindiahotels.com, which will act as a separate profit centre for the company.

The company plans to tie-up with 300-400 hotels in the country. All their inventory levels will be on this portal which will enable any travel agent or a tourist to book any room of a hotel registered with the company from anywhere in the country.
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Godrej to introduce imported bakery food
Mumbai: The foods division of Godrej Industries is planning to introduce imported packaged food in the bakery category.

The company has already initiated talks with multinationals to forge a distribution alliance.

Currently, the company manufactures and markets bakery fats including, Himgiri, Zesta Puff and Margerine. The proposed distribution tie-up with a multinational would be an extension of its existing business.

Godrej Industries has recently taken up distribution of brands that are not its own, as part of its strategy to turnaround the foods division, which has been incurring losses for sometime.

The foods division consists of sunflower oil, vanaspati, groundnut oil under the Godrej brand. Besides these, it has Cooklite, Godrej tomato puree, and fruit beverages.
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Gujarat Ambuja plans Rs 40-crore investment
Mumbai: Gujarat Ambuja Cements Ltd is planning to pump in another Rs 40 crore for its new Chandrapur project in Maharashtra. The fresh investment is aimed at increasing the capacity of the plant from two million tonne to 2.5 million tonne.

The Chandrapur project, which has a thermal captive power plant of 40 MW, is also planning to generate some buffer stock.

The plant will have a project cost of around Rs 700 crore.

The Chandrapur project will cater to the Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh market.
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UTI faces Rs 11,000 crore liquidity gap
Mumbai: The Unit Trust of India (UTI) is likely to face an aggregated asset-liability mismatch of Rs 11,000 crore in the coming three years, while paying off its assured-return monthly income plans (MIPs).

Since UTI cannot liquidate all its assets held in particular schemes ahead of the redemption date, it either has to pledge securities and raise fresh loans from institutions or resort to a fire-sale of assets.
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Apollo Tyres to acquire Chinese firm
New Delhi: Apollo Tyres Group is close to acquiring a tyre company in China.

The company has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Chinese company under which Apollo has been offered a 76 per cent stake.

Arthur Andersen is doing a valuation of the company. Based on that, the Apollo Tyres Group will decide how much to pay the Chinese promoters of the company for the 76 per cent stake.

Apollo is planning to rope in Continental AG of Germany as the technology partner in the Chinese venture. Continental has a technical collaboration with Apollo Tyres Ltd in India.
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AV Birla group ties up with Wharton
Mumbai: AV Birla group has tied up with the US-based Wharton Business School to get faculty to conduct workshops and training initiatives on strategy and business dynamics.

The faculty from WBS in association with the human resource director of the company will conduct a slew of courses and learning modalities that will further equip the companys professionals with competitive and benchmarked concepts in strategy and implementation management.

In the course of the entire exercise, consistent feedback will be obtained from professionals to comprehend the extent to which the whole process of knowledge sharing and dissemination has finally been applied to create profitable advantage to the business.
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Hyundai raises ad budget
New Delhi: Hyundai Motor India has enhanced the advertising budget by 15 per cent to Rs 60 crore for fiscal 2002-03. The enhanced budget is aimed at supporting a slew of new launches, including the launch of sports utility brand Terracan, an upscale variant each of Accent and Sonata in the third quarter this year.

Hyundai has unveiled a new TV commercial for Santro, starring its brand ambassador Shah Rukh Khan. The commercial has Khan offering a lift to the bridegroom and the party, who have missed the train.

Hyundai has set a sales target of 1 lakh cars in calender 2002 up from 87,000 in 2001.
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Batata-BPL merger opposed
New Delhi: The merger between Batata and BPL for cellular services is heading for trouble, with the department of telecommunications and financial institutions likely to oppose the move.

Although the merger proposal between both the cellular companies had been announced in June last year, the department of telecommunications had not yet been approached for a `no-objection certificate'.

Financial institutions too have raised objections to the proposed merger. Both IDBI and ICICI, which are the biggest lenders to BPL for its cellular ventures, have expressed their displeasure at not being updated or consulted about the developments on the merger.
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HMD launches auto-disable syringes
New Delhi: Hindustan Syringes and Medical Devices has commercially launched the countrys first auto-disable syringes and needles under the brand name Kojak Selinge.

With an investment of Rs 100 crore spread over two-three years, HMD plans to manufacture approximately 60 million auto-disable syringes this year. The number is likely to touch 200 million units next year.

The company also plans to start exporting these auto-disable syringes within the next three-to-six months.

Priced between Rs 4 and Rs 6, these syringes will be available in three sizes 2 ml, 5 ml and 10 ml.
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Living Media to launch evening tabloid
New Delhi: Living Media India, the publishers of India Today, is launching an afternoon newspaper in the capital on 29 April.

Called Today, the 16-page tabloid will be priced at Rs 2. Todays publisher Kalli Puri said that the paper is looking at an initial print order of about 50,000 copies per day.

In Delhi, Today will compete with the Lalit Suri-promoted Delhi Mid-Day.
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Videocon plans to bid for HPCL, BPCL
Mumbai: The Videocon group is planning to bid for the governments stake in Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL) and Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL).

The government, which holds 51 per cent in HPCL and 66.3 per cent in BPCL, is planning to divest a further 25 per cent in both the companies this fiscal.

The bid will be submitted through Videocon Petroleum, the groups oil company.

Videocon Petroleum is wholly owned company of the Dhoot family and is into oil exploration.
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OCL plans to launch 2nd brand
New Delhi: OCL India Ltd is drawing up plans to launch a new brand after the monsoons. Currently it has only one brand, Konark.

The brand name and other specifications for the launch is yet to be decided. The company has earmarked Rs 60 crore to increase capacity and modernise its facilities. The company will increase its capacity by at least 4 lakh tonnes.

The company also exports its brand to neighbouring countries such as Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan.
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ACC plans Rs 300 cr investment
Mumbai: The Associated Cement Companies (ACC) has chalked out a Rs 300 crore investment plan for the current fiscal.

The company plans to increase capacity at its Tikaria unit in Uttar Pradesh from 0.75 million tonne to 2 million tonne per annum for Rs 120 crore.

After the proposed expansion, ACCs total capacity will stand at 17.32 million tonne per annum from the current 16.07 million tonne.
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ITC to roll out biscuits, confectionery
New Delhi: ITC has firmed up plans to roll out biscuits, confectionery and atta products in the next six months.

The company has recently acquired the Minto confectionery brand from the New Delhi-based Candico for an undisclosed amount.

The company has appointed Grey Worldwide to firm up an aggressive advertising campaign for its Kitchens of India brand.

ITC plans to expand the portfolio of ready-to-eat foods by adding 10-12 new products by the year-end.
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IPCL bids today
Mumbai: IndianOil, Nirma and Reliance Industries are set to submit the financial bids for buying the governments 26 per cent stake in Indian Petrochemicals Corporation on 29 April.

Though IPCL was put on the block four years ago, the divestment process did not proceed smoothly. The government changed the divestment strategy many times during the last four years.

A plan to sell the Vadodara unit of IPCL to IOC last year was scrapped due to differences over valuation.
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Srei picks up 9% in Feedback Ventures
Kolkata: Srei International has picked up nearly 9 per cent equity in Feedback Ventures for an undisclosed sum.

The shares have been purchased by Srei Capital Markets, the wholly-owned subsidiary of the group's flagship Srei International Finance.

This is the third time in the last few months that Feedback Ventures has placed equity with an investor. In January last, the Thapars of Ballarpur Industries Ltd had picked up 15 per cent stake in Feedback Ventures. Earlier, in November 2001, Westport of Malaysia picked up 10 per cent stake in the company.

Feedback Ventures Private has as its partners HSS Integrated, Malaysia's leading integrated engineering design company. The two Malaysian firm together hold nearly 20 per cent of the company's equity.
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Lisle plans stake in 2 software cos
Bangalore: The US-based Lisle Technology Partners is planning to pick up a small stake in two small Indian software companies under its affiliates programme.

The acquisition of small stakes, up to five per cent, is mainly from the technology point of view and not from the investor point of view.

The company is also planning to pick up stakes in about three to four start-ups in the US by the year-end.

The company is already having a partner network consisting of some six companies in India.
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Hero Honda brass to face the axe
New Delhi: Hero Honda has started a major manpower rationalisation drive of senior management staff.

The company has evaluated the current and future roles of 50 senior managers, some of whom will be relocated and some eased out with a goodwill package.

The entire exercise is being carried out by the newly-formed enterprise management committee which will also draw up strategies for future growth.
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Eli Lilly develops drug to treat sepsis
New Delhi: Eli Lilly & Company has discovered and developed Xigris, a breakthrough biotech therapy to treat sepsis, commonly referred to as blood poisoning.

While the US FDA approved Xigris in end 2001, the drug would be made available in India from November 2002.

The company claims Xigris is the first approved drug for sepsis anywhere in the world.
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4,300 AVB employees opt for VRS
Mumbai: Around 4300 employees have left the Aditya Birla Group group during the financial year ended 31 March 2002, mainly through voluntary retirement schemes (VRS).

The Group is also in the process of initiating a fresh round of man-power rationalisation across group companies during the current fiscal and is negotiating with labour unions.

Post reduction, the Group has a total strength of 75,000 employees.
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Adaptec signs pact with IBM
Hyderabad: Adaptec Inc, the Nasdaq-listed major in data storage access solutions with a wholly-owned subsidiary based at Hyderabad, has signed a purchase agreement with International Business Machines (IBM).

The agreement will help Adaptec become a global supplier of 1Gbit and 10Gbit iSCSI host bus adapter cards and related chips.

Adaptec's iSCSI technology was designed to provide high-performance data transfer rates up to 2Gbits per second. The company provides intelligent, highly available storage access solutions that reliably move, manage and protect critical data and digital content.
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