Canadian steel maker gets shareholders' approval for sale to Essar Steel
Mumbai: Canadian steel maker Algoma Steel's shareholders have approved for the of the company by Essar Steel Holdings for Canadian $1.85 billion (more than Rs7,097.94 crore) or at an all-cash consideration of $56 per share, Algoma said in a statement.

The deal, approved by 82.6 per cent of the shareholders, is expected to be completed by June 18.

Last week, Essar Global - the parent company of Essar Steel Holdings - said it had received approval from the Canadian government for acquisition of Algoma Steel.
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ESPN acquires Cricinfo.com
Mumbai: Sports broadcaster ESPN has acquired cricket website Cricinfo from The Wisden Group. With this ESPN's on-line portfolio has expanded. It now includes ESPN.com; ESPNdeportes.com — the Spanish-language sports website in the US and ESPNsoccernet.com — the English-language football website.

ESPN officials said Cricinfo was a tremendous property with a great fan base and would be a strong addition to ESPN.

Started in 1993, Cricinfo has been an online community of cricket fans supplying cricket-related information on a voluntary basis. Beginning with scorecards and live scores, the portal offers users audio and video streaming of cricket matches.

In 1999 Sify, a Hyderabad-based IT company acquired a majority stake in the company. It changed hands four years later when the Wisden Group, which then ran its own cricket website, Wisden.com, bought it.

ESPN's digital media services include live and on-demand sports events; up-to-the-minute sports news and information; scores, statistics and analysis; extensive on-demand and downloadable video and audio programming; fantasy sports, and video games across Web, mobile and other non-linear platforms.
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L&T Infotech to expand with Rs600 cr investment
Mumbai: Larsen &Toubro (L&T) Infotech, a part of the L&T group, has inaugurated a 1,900-seater software development centre at Mhape, Navi Mumbai and has launched its new logo as a part of its growth strategy. The company plans to spend Rs500-600 crore over the next three-four years in expanding its Bangalore, Chennai and Mumbai centers.

The company also plans to hire 20,000 more people by the end of 2010 from the current 7,200. According to A M Naik, chairman and managing director, L&T, "L&T Infotech has been growing at a rate of 50 per cent annually and expect to maintain this rate. The company has a target of $1 billion (around Rs4,100 crore) in revenue by the 2010 end.

The company is also evaluating an acquisition in the range of $50-200 million (about Rs200-820 crore) in US, Europe and India.

The focus of the company will be to grow its five verticals - manufacturing, BFSI, product engineering services and energy. Currently, BFSI and energy contribute 30 percent each to the revenues, while manufacturing has a share of 20-25 per cent.
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Ispat Group to invest $3 bn in Bangladesh
Kolkata: The Ispat Group controlled by Vinod- and Pramod Mittal plans to invest around $3 billion (Rs12,000 crore) in Bangladesh in gas exploration and production, power, petrochemicals and coal mining.

Ispat Group's investment outfit, Global Oil and Energy, has signed a preliminary memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Bangladesh's state-run Board of Investment (BoI) for this purpose. The group will begin funding after the completion of the detailed feasibility study. The actual quantum of investment by the group might vary, depending upon the outcome of the feasibility report.
A delegation led by group Chairman Vinod Mittal today also met the BoI officials.

Industry sources said the investments would include $300 million for mine development, $100 million for oil exploration and production, $500 million for power plants, $1.5 billion for petrochemicals and $500 million for liquefied natural gas (LNG) and related projects.

They said the investment, if cleared, would be the largest in Bangladesh.

Earlier Tata group Chairman Ratan N Tata signed an expression of interest (EoI) in October 2004 for a $3 billion investment in Bangladesh, the single largest investment in the country.
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Strides Arcolab acquires Grandix for Rs100 cr
Bangalore: Strides Arcolab has acquired Grandix Pharmaceuticals, Chennai, for Rs100 crore marking its foray into the national pharma scene. Strides Arcolabs, which financed the deal by debt and internal resources said the deal would enable it to ramp-up its businesses and introduce its own products into the Indian market. Strides recently, acquired an Italian fermentation facility for an undisclosed sum.

Strides Arcolab's scrip closed lower at Rs326.95, after opening at Rs 336 and touching Rs342.50 intra-day.

Post acquisition the immediate plan is to leverage existing products of Grandix with Strides' R&D pipeline. It will increase field sales strength nationwide to 400 from July.

Grandix, started in 1996, is a branded pharmaceutical company with operations in the South. It registered a turnover of Rs48.50 crore in 2006-07 and EBITDA of Rs10.89 crore. Strides said the 2007 sales growth was expected to be over 30 per cent.

Grandix has portfolio of over 100 products includes anti-diabetics, anti-hypertensives and painkillers. Its flagship brand, ReNerve vitamin capsules, is worth over Rs30 crore; it was the main attraction and a good fit for Strides which is the world's No. 5 soft gel maker. Strides Arcolab has 13 plants in India, Latin America, the US and Europe, manufactures generic anti-HIV drugs for export markets, as also anti-infectives, tuberculosis and malaria drugs. Its formulations are in various dosage forms, as soft and hard gelatin capsules, tablets, liquid injectibles and steriles. It closed 2006 with a group turnover of Rs760 crore.
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Hero Motors to get into auto component business for four-wheelers
New Delhi: Follows Hero Motor's joint venture agreement with Kiriu Corporation, a subsidiary of Japan based Sumitomo Corporation to manufacture disc brakes and drum knuckles the company is planning to get into the business of supplying auto components to carmakers in the domestic and the overseas market.

The company said it is close to supplying about one million discs to General Motors and expected to finalise deals with other major players over the coming two-three months. The company is also talking to global players such as Continental AG, Valeo and Bosch to supply its disc brakes.

Six months ago, Hero Motors Ltd started a manufacturing plant to produce brake discs and knuckles, and will expand its capacity from 30,000 tonnes to 1,00,000 tonnes in the coming four-five years. The company expects to get revenues worth Rs600-700 crore over the coming years through this expansion. It is also planning to invest an additional Rs100 crore following its joint venture with Kiriu Corporation.

Till now, the company has been primarily catering to the two- wheeler segment and manufactures engine transmission, gearboxes, steel metal products and has now diversified into the production of ferrous casting products.
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Reliance to make presentation before ministry on K-G gas price formula
New Delhi: Reliance Industries (RIL) is expected to make a presentation before the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas on its pricing formula of gas from its Krishna Godavari Block. Only after the Ministry approves the formula would a clear picture on RIL's KG gas price emerge, sources said.

In order to reach a market-determined price for the gas, which is to start flowing from June 2008, RIL had called for quotations from the existing customers — power and fertiliser companies in keeping with the Petroleum Ministry's thinking that the prices should be arrived at on an arm's length basis and be market determined because once a price has been discovered between the suppliers and customers through a transparent competitive bidding process, there would be no need for the Government to interfere.

Sources said the formula being proposed by RIL has variables like crude price and exchange rate, with a floor of $25 per barrel and a cap of $65 a barrel for crude price.

In response to RIL's invitation for quotations, 10 companies from the power and fertiliser sectors had put in bids in the range of about $4.30 to $4.70 per million British thermal unit (mBtu) at Kakinada. This excludes marketing and transportation charges. According to industry sources, this range, when translated into delivered price, could be between $5.2-5.7 per mBtu, depending on the location as well as mode of transportation.

Sources said as per the bids submitted, the estimated volume demand for 2008-09 is a little over 25 mmscmd, which is expected to go up to 35 mmscmd subsequently.
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Japanese company selects Hexaware
Pune: IT services provider Hexaware Technologies has been selected by a system integrator in Japan to develop a core application for the modernisation of the postal department of a South East Asian country. The first phase of the deal worth $18million has been signed.

This is the first core application development of its kind for the postal department or in the logistics domain for Hexaware. The company is expected to deploy over 150 software developers for this multi-year logistics engagement. The deal will be primarily serviced out of Pune.
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BSNL's market share dives
New Delhi: BSNL's market share in the telecom market has declined. The company has appointed a consultant to suggest ways to improve its business processes.

To arrest its declining market share the company has short-listed five global consultants, including the Boston Consulting Group for advice.

One of the concerns for BSNL is its huge employee base of over 2.5 lakh.

While private operators are managing countrywide operations with fewer people, BSNL's number of employees per telephone line is much higher than the industry average.

The organisation also carries a lot of legacy network and processes that have been passed on from the time it was part of the Department of Telecom. The consultant will assist the company in improving its response time to the changing market demands and will go deep into the processes followed by it and suggest improvements.

BSNL has been steadily losing market share to private players and now accounts for less than 50 per cent of all services put together.

BSNL, which was number two in the GSM cellular segment, earlier is now behind Hutch on account of capacity crunch.
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Satyam enters into pact with US co for retail, supply-chain solutions
Hyderabad: IT solutions provider Satyam Computer Services has entered into an alliance with US-based JDA Software Group, Inc, to offer retail and supply chain solutions in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region.

JDA provides supply and demand chain solutions to 5,500 of the world's top retailers, manufacturers and suppliers. The partnership will enable JDA offering services in Europe and North America and leverage Satyam's capability in retail and consumer packaged goods practice and presence in the APAC region.
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Tata-Changi bids for development of Karnataka airports
Mumbai: The Tata-Changi Airport consortium has bid for development of Shimoga, Gulbarga and Bijapur airports in Karnataka for which the state government had invited expressions of interest.

The consortium is also bidding for upcoming airports in Navi Mumbai and Greater Noida near New Delhi and officials said it would also bid for other 35 non-metro airports whenever the bids are invited.

The Tata Group holds 51 per cent stake and Singapore's Changi the remaining 49 per cent stake in the Tata Changi consortium.

After the redevelopment of major airports across the country was taken up by the government, many consortia have jumped into the fray for the profitable ventures. Two cases in point are Delhi International Airport (DIAL), which is a joint venture between GMR group, state-run Airports Authority of India (AAI), Germany's Fraport AG, the India Development Fund and Malaysia Airports Holdings and Mumbai International Airport (MIAL), which is a JV between GVK, AAI and ACSA (Airports Company of South Africa) and the Bid Vest Group.
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Patni Computer partners with UK company
Mumbai: IT services provider Patni Computer Systems has tied up with Clear Technology of UK, a software solutions provider for insurance and financial services industries.

Under the partnership agreement, Patni will provide process consulting and system integration services to Clear. This will support the British firm in its efforts to fully capitalise on growing demand for its insurance and financial services solutions, a statement from the company said here today.

Through Clear, the Indian firm will get an entry into Clears portfolio of blue-chip insurance sector clients and the UK financial services industry.

The UK's insurance and financial services market is perhaps the most competitive in the world and means a huge commercial opportunity for software companies that deliver immediate bottom-line improvements.
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