Vijay Mallya picks up 26 pc stake in Deccan Aviation
Bangalore: After downing global spirits company Whyte & Mackay, the Vijay Mallya led UB group, which owns Kingfisher Airlines, has bought a strategic 26 per cent stake in budget airline operator Air Deccan Aviation Rs550 crore or Rs155 per share. Deccan Aviation approved the stake sale at its board meeting on Thursday. The approval is for preferential allotment and issue of 3,52,22231 equity shares at Rs155 per share to UB Holdings. The deal will strengthen the networth of Deccan Aviation, while the funding will help it to meet capital expenditure for further expansion.

The UB Holdings board also approved the deal today.

UB Holdings will make an open offer on Monday to purchase an additional 20 per cent from existing shareholders of Deccan Aviation as per SEBI guidelines.

The non-promoter holding in Deccan Aviation is 77.43 per cent and the rest is with the promoters including Capt Gopinath and S.N. Ladhani.

Kingfisher Airlines and Air Deccan will together have a market share of about 32 per cent, putting them among the top two airlines in the industry. Together, they will have a fleet size of 71 aircraft flying to over 70 destinations.

The acquisition of 26 per cent stake in Deccan Aviation will make Mr Vijay Mallya's company the single largest shareholder in the entity. There will be equal number of directors from both the companies on the board.

Capt Gopinath will be the new executive chairman and Mallya will be the vice-chairman. There will also be six independent directors on the board.

Both airlines have formed a team that will study ways to reduce costs as well as share each other's services and infrastructure, Capt Gopinath said.

The new funding for Deccan Aviation comes when it has taken a Rs200-crore loan from State Bank of India and had to pay up the amount before May 31. The airline is now negotiating for an extension of the deadline. It has posted a whopping Rs213-crore loss during the quarter ending March 31, 2007 on a net income of Rs437 crore.
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L&T to invest Rs 2,500 crore in expansion
Mumbai: Larsen & Toubro plans to invest Rs2,500 crore in setting up new factories and expanding operations across the country over the next few years. The company's orders are growing at 35-40 per cent but execution was only at 19-20 per cent, owing to both paucity of skilled manpower and capacity constraints senior company officials said.

L&T will soon finalise a location for its shipbuilding operations. Currently, this business is operating out of its existing facility at Hazira where only smaller ships can be built. An investment of Rs2,000 crore would be required for a new shipbuilding facility.
L&T is targeting Rs4,000 crore in revenues from its power division in four or five years, from Rs800 crore to Rs1,000 crore currently.
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Tatas' SEZ proposal gets go ahead, Ambani's in limbo
New Delhi: The Board of Approval for Special Economic Zones (SEZ) has granted 22 formal approvals. Tatas high profile multi-product Gopalpur SEZ in Orissa has received in-principle approvals. However, a decision on the Mukesh Ambani-promoted Navi Mumbai SEZ has been deferred on points raised by the representative of the Revenue Department.

Notable among the formal approvals include IT/ITES SEZ by Technopark Pvt Ltd, Tamil Nadu, IT/ITES SEZ by GENPACT India in Andhra Pradesh, IT/ITES SEZ by Shivaji Marg Properties Ltd in Delhi; Biotech SEZ by Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation, Vadodara, Gems and Jewellery SEZ by Shripur Gold Refinery Ltd at Dhulia, Maharashtra, and three SEZs for textiles, leather and engineering goods by Uttar Pradesh State Industrial Development Corporation (UPSIDC) at Kanpur, UP.

Officials in the Commerce Ministry said that a decision on the multi-product Navi Mumbai SEZ was deferred as the Revenue Department had some reservations about the fencing of five villages and water bodies that fall in the zone. Besides the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust too has raised objections stating that national highway passing through Navi Mumbai SEZ was proposed to be upgraded to four-lane. So far, 111 SEZs have been notified and 41 are in the process of being notified. In the zones notified up till now, Rs35,000 crore have been invested and 32,578 direct employment to people have been created.
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Piaggio launches sub-one tonne Ape Truk
Chennai: Piaggio Vehicles has launched the Ape' Truk, a sub-one-tonne vehicle positioned in the segment catering to the large three-wheeler commercial carriers and the smaller four-wheel commercial carriers. In two-three years Piaggio would also consider a passenger vehicle on the Truk platform the company said. The Ape Truk is powered by a 482 CC engine with a 5-speed (plus reverse) gearbox with a kerb weight of 685 kg and a capacity to carry a payload of 865 kg.

The commercial vehicle application would serve to expand Piaggio's reach and complement its own diesel three-wheeler Ape'.
The company said the Ape' Truk, was India's only international pick-up in the sub-one-tonne' category and is the same model that runs in Europe.

Ape' Truk will meet the needs of those who move goods within the city and their long distance transportation. It is priced at Rs2.15 lakh in Chennai.

The company has also announced plans to invest € 65 million (Rs353 crore) in a diesel engine facility at Pune.
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Britannia Q4 net up 43 pc
Bangalore: Britannia Industries has reported a 26.5 per cent dip in net profit for fiscal 2006-07 at Rs107.6 crore against Rs146.4 crore last year. The company says the decrease is to "unprecedented inflation in all key commodities". Its net sales for the year grew 28.4 per cent to Rs2,199.3 crore.

For the fourth quarter of the year, the company reported net sales of Rs599.2 crore and net profit of Rs39.8 crore - up 32 per cent and 43 per cent - respectively over the corresponding quarter of last year.

The board of directors has recommended a dividend of Rs15 per share of Rs 10 each, same as the previous year.

The group's net sales for the year amount to Rs2,266.3 crore. The net profit for the year is Rs105.1 crore.
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Tantia gets work order worth Rs178 crore
Mumbai: Infrastructure and construction company, Tantia Constructions Ltd, has bagged orders worth Rs178.29 crore of road works in Bihar. The Central Public Works Department (CPWD) awarded contracts are for works in Rohtas, Lakhisarai and Jamui districts of the state. The project value for construction and development of highways in Rohtas is Rs113.45 crore and in Jamui and Lakshisarai is Rs64.84 crore. The company, listed on the BSE, currently has orders worth Rs 1,200 crore on hand of which the ongoing projects in Bihar are worth Rs400 crore.
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Tata Power to part fund Mundra plant through Rs14,000 crore loan
Mumbai: Tata Power Company (TPC), the country's biggest private power utility, plans to raise up to Rs14,000 crore in loans to fund the Rs18,000 crore ultra mega power project in Mundra in coastal Gujarat. The company had appointed SBI Capital Markets as head arranger for the funds.

The company would raise the remaining Rs4,000 crore through internal resources. The company is also in talks with Asian Development Bank (ADB) and International Finance Corporation (IFC) for raising a part of the Rs14,000 crore.

The Tata group company is also considering the option of having the project part-funded by export credit agencies.

TPC is in talks with SBI and Power Finance Corporation for funding the Rs4,600 crore 1,000 mw power project at Maithon, in which it holds 74 per cent stake, while Damodar Valley Corporation owns the rest. The debt-to-equity ratio for this project is 70 to 30.
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Amtek Auto to acquire foundry business in the UK
New Delhi: Amtek Group's flagship Amtek Auto is acquiring the foundry business of the UK-based auto component major JL French Castings for an estimated Rs150 crore to Rs160 crore. The deal includes the company's operations in Whitham in the UK.

Amtek would fund the acquisition through $250 million foreign currency convertible bonds (FCCBs) it issued in May 2006. Sources said, Amtek Auto is acquiring the company to gain a foothold in the aluminium case components business and to gain market access to the European Union.

The foundry is expected to bring expertise to Amtek Auto in the manufacturing of cylinder heads, transmission case and engine blocks.

JL French Casings foundry business is worth Rs240 crore ($70-80 million) and expected to touch $150 million in the next three years. The company has a capacity of about 20,000 units and services original equipment manufacturers like Jaguar, Land Rover, Ford and Peugeot among others.
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Is Mount Everest on Tata Tea's radar?
Mumbai: Tata Tea is said to be looking at picking up a significant stake in Mount Everest Mineral Water, makers of the Himalayan brand of mineral water.

Rumours doing the rounds sent shares of both the companies soaring on the exchanges on Thursday. Tata Tea gained Rs44.30 or 5.05 per cent on the BSE to close at Rs921. Mount Everest gained by Rs6.05 or 4.98 per cent to close at Rs127.65.
However, there was no official confirmation from the Tatas.

Speculation has it that Mount Everest might agree to a preferential allotment to Tata Tea. Mount Everest is part of the Dadi group of companies, chaired by Dr Dadi Balsara. The company claims that Himalayan is graded equivalent to `Evian' and `Vittal' from France.

For the nine months ended December 2006, the company reported net profit of Rs1.16 crore and net sales of Rs 17.7 crore. The annualised third-quarter EPS works out to 45 paise.
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Madras Cements expands production capacity
Chennai: Madras Cements plans to add 40 lakh tonnes to its existing production capacity of 60 lakh tonnes. The company which reported a nearly four times jump in net profit in 2006-07, expects to sustain and improve its output during the current year supported by a growth in demand. The company attributed its performance to a tight rein on costs.

The company is doubling its wind power generation capacity to 120 MW, which would substantially contribute to the control on energy costs.

Madras Cements, which has a total production capacity of 60 lakh tonnes, will add 20 lakh tonnes by September, when it will commission a 4,000-tonne-a-day kiln at its Jayanthipuram factory. The company is also setting up a 20-lakh-tonne a year cement project in Ariyalur, which would be commissioned in June 2008. This project, coming up at a cost of Rs967 crore, includes 56.7-MW of wind electric generators to substantially meet the power requirements. It also announced plans to set up grinding units in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal, where fly ash is available and markets are in the vicinity. This would help to bring down the transportation costs for the company. The capacity expansion comes at a time when the buoyancy in demand for cement is expected to sustain.

The company's total production during 2006-07 was 56.68 lakh tonnes, a capacity utilisation of 95 per cent against 79 per cent (47.11 lakh tonnes) in the previous year. Sales touched 56.67 lakh tonnes (47.28 lakh tonnes) representing a 20 per cent growth against an industry average of 10 per cent. The growth in domestic demand has contributed to a reduction in exports, which stood at 76,107 tonnes of cement against 2.28 lakh tonnes of cement and 2.88 lakh tonnes of clinker previously.
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Reliance Retail's first hypermarket likely by July
Bangalore: Reliance Mart, Reliance Retail's first hypermarket would come up by July this year in Bangalore. The 1.8-lakh sq ft. hypermarket will house a range of digital, food and lifestyle products such as apparel and footwear under various price points. The company's second hypermarket will come up in Gujarat. The size of Reliance hypermarkets will be between 40,000 and 2-lakh sq ft.
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JSW Steel offers free shares to the displaced
Kolkata: As debate increases about land acquisition displacing marginal land owners, JSW Steel has announced a package offering shares to landholders who sell their land to JSW Bengal Steel, the company floated for the Rs35,000 crore, 10 million tonne steel plant at Salboni in West Medinipur, 200 km from Kolkata.

This is the first time that a company has announced that it will give shares to those losing land over and above a compensation package.

The Jindal package for Bengal will have three components: employment for at least one person per family losing land, compensation for land price (50 per cent in cash and 50 per cent annuity from Life Insurance Corporation) and free shares at par equivalent to the land price.

A trust, to be administered by the district magistrate or the West Bengal government, will be set up for the shares, which will have a lock-in period till the first phase of the plant is complete, which will be March 2011.

The West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC) has an 11 per cent stake in JSW Bengal Steel, with the balance held by JSW group.
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