Indian Airlines to tap capital market
New Delhi: Indian Airlines has decided in-principle to tap the capital market through a public offering, subject to approval from the government, an IA spokesman said without giving further details.

Subject to government clearance, it will be for the first time that a national carrier would tap the capital market. Along with IA, Air India is also preparing for its IPO in fiscal 2005-06 to fund its fleet acquisition programme and enhance its debt-equity ratio.

Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel had earlier asked the two carriers to start working towards this end. He had said the two airlines could launch their IPOs in the latter part of 2005-06.

The IA Board also approved financial results for the last fiscal showing profits for the second year running. As per the revised estimates for 2004-05, the company has shown a net profit of Rs17.5 crore, after suffering loss for three consecutive years between 2000-01 and 2002-03. The Board also approved plans to lease ten additional A-320 aircraft by September-October this year, the spokesman said.
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BSNL mulls IPO
New Delhi: According to BSNL sources there are plans to offload about 5-10 per cent of BSNL's stake in the market, post the BSNL-MTNL merger.

According to company officials, the merger plan being discussed by the department of telecom right now will involve:

• BSNL buying out the entire 54 per cent government stake in MTNL
  
• MTNL becoming a subsidiary of BSNL
  
• Although the two companies will have separate boards there will be a single chain of command

This will ensure that MTNL remains listed on the Indian and New York stock exchanges and later when BSNL launches its IPO, MTNL shareholders will get BSNL shares through a share swap arrangement.

According to company officials, BSNL will go aggressive on broadband penetration to improve volumes, by way of compensating for the negative growth of landline connections.

It plans to increase its subscriber base from just 24,000 in 18 cities to about 10 lakhs in 200 cities in 2005-06, and hopes to achieve six million broadband connections by 2007-08.
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Gateway Distriparks makes strong debut
Mumbai: Gateway Distriparks Ltd (GDL) shares debuted strongly on Thursday, opening at Rs90 and closing at Rs112.50, after touching a high of Rs118.50 on the BSE. The IPO price was Rs72. The company had entered the capital market with an IPO of 21 million equity shares.

GDL is a multi-location CFS (Container Freight Station) operator, with one of the largest CFSs in the country at Jawaharlal Nehru port.

It has a capacity to handle 2.92 lakh TEUs per annum.
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GV Films to enter market with rights issue
Chennai: The board of GV Films Ltd will meet on April 11 to consider issuing shares on a rights basis towards raising Rs42 crore. The proceeds from the rights issue will be used to augment resources to implement its capital projects, the company has informed in a communication to the Bombay Stock Exchange.

The board, which met on Wednesday, also considered an agreement with Drushya Entertainment Broadcast Streams Ltd, Visakhapatnam, for Web-casting the Internet films rights of the company on a 60:40 revenue sharing basis. Drushya will pay a non-refundable amount of Rs90 lakh to GV Films as access fees for its content of about 6,000 Internet film rights, the communication said.
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Merven Drug approves conversion of preferential shares
Hyderabad: The board of directors of Merven Drug Products Ltd (MDPL) has approved the allotment of equity shares to the holders of cumulative convertible preference shares (CCPS), the company has informed the stock exchanges.

The board has also allotted fully paid-up 16-lakh equity shares of Rs10 each to Swiss Technology Venture Capital Funds Pvt Ltd on exercise of their option to convert 70.4-lakh CCPS at a conversion price of Rs44 per share.

The board has also decided to allot fully paid-up 16.9-lakh equity shares of the face value of Rs10 each at a premium of Rs80 per share against 1.52-crore optionally unsecured fully convertible debentures of Rs10 each to IL&FS Trust Company Ltd.
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Easy Bill plans public issue for 2007-08
Mumbai: Easy Bill, the Rs400-crore privately held division of the Hero group, plans to go public in 2007-08, after it reaches its target of appointing 10,000 franchisee outlets. Easy Bill allows customers to pay their power, phone and gas bills through the local convenience stores.

The company, owned by the Rs6,000-crore Hero Group, plans to reach its network to 50 cities across the country. It currently has networks in Delhi and Mumbai. The company plans to set up 3,000 outlets this year, it said.

Easy Bill has tied up with Mahanagar Gas Ltd to enable the gas utility's customers to pay bills at locations closer to their homes. The company said that the company is eyeing the vast network of petrol pumps set up by public and private sector oil companies for tying up more franchisee outlets.
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