Aarti Ind, Aarti Drugs likely to merge
Mumbai: Aarti Industries (AI) and Aarti Drugs (AD) reportedly to unlock shareholder value.

A company official said that the management was thinking in terms of merging Aarti Industries and Aarti Drugs, to reap benefits of investments made in scaling up its manufacturing plants to meet the US Food and Drug Administration requirements. The company may initiate plans for the merger this year and the combined entity can look at a profit of about Rs100 crore, the official said.

Aarti Drugs clocked revenues of an estimated Rs315 crore while Aarti Industries had revenues of about Rs700 crore in the year ended March 7.

Promoters, along with associates, hold about 58 per cent equity in both companies.
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Madras Cements applies for sugar mill license in TN
Chennai: Madras Cements wants to set up a sugar mill in Tamil Nadu and has applied for such a licence. The company wants to put up a sugar mill with a capacity to crush 5,000 tonnes of cane a day with a co-generation plant in Tamil Nadu's Villupuram district, according to sources.

Madras Cements said it would seek shareholders' approval to alter its Memorandum of Association allowing the company to enter into new businesses such as power generation, transmission and distribution; pharmaceutical; textiles; and solar power.

Industry sources say that Madras Cements is considering setting up the sugar plant to produce ethanol for blending with petrol and not for getting into sugar manufacture. However, the prevalent policy does not permit sugar plants to be set up exclusively for producing ethanol and hence Madras Cements' plans will depend on the policy being changed.
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Sonalika group to expand capacity with Rs700-cr investment by 2009
New Delhi: International Cars and Motors Ltd (ICML), part of the Sonalika Group is planning to invest Rs700 crore by 2009 in capacity expansion, launch of a sports utility vehicle (SUV) and a design facility.

Company officials said Rs200 crore would be invested in doubling production capacity from the current 2,000 units per month for the newly launched multi-utility vehicle, Rhino Rx while Rs250 crore would be used towards a new SUV and another Rs150 crore for a design facility.

The MUV has been priced between Rs5.85 lakh and Rs6.95 lakh and would be available across the country from September. The company would phase-out the earlier model, which sells about 200 units per month, and is targeting to sell 2,000 units a month of the new version. The company is looking to strengthen its position in the multi-utility vehicle segment by establishing a dealer network of 200 by the end of the fiscal and has already appointed 100 dealers.

International Tractors Ltd (ITL), also a part of the Sonalika group would invest Rs450 crore in setting up a new tractor manufacturing facility in South India for which it is already in talks with Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.
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Alstom Project to set up 950-cr plant in Gujarat
Ahmedabad: Alstom Projects India (APIL), a subsidiary of power equipment supplier Alstom SA France, has won a Rs950 crore contract for building a 370MW combined cycle power plant in Gujarat's Surat district. Alstom bagged the contract from Gujarat State Electricity Corporation (GSECL) and is expected to commission the plant by August 2009.

This power plant will be an extension to the company's existing combined cycle power plant in Utran, Surat district. As per the contract with GSECL, Alstom will provide all engineering, procurement and construction services to set up a power plant.
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Reliance plans tying up with local veg vendors
New Delhi: To preempt political opposition against its retail stores, Reliance Industries (RIL) is planning to tie up with local fruit and vegetable vendors in cities where it has opened its food & grocery format Reliance Fresh stores.

The company has already initiated pilot projects to partner with vendors in Hyderabad and Ranchi, where Reliance Fresh stores were ransacked recently. The company is working on two strategies to get small vendors in its fold. The first one is to get vendors on the company's direct payrolls. In this model, the vendor directly becomes a part of the retail juggernaut and works on a fixed fee.

In the second model, the company empanels vendors and gives products to them on credit. Once these products are sold, the profit is shared between the vendor and RIL. This gives the vendor an opportunity to gain directly from Reliance's low cost sourcing and supply chain infrastructure.

The company officials say these initiatives were part of Reliance Retail's original plans.

If these initiatives work they not only will help RIL counter the political opposition that the food & grocery stores have generated, it will also benefit the company benefit from the deep penetration levels of these vendors.
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Apollo Hospitals to set up Health City in Hyderabad
Hyderabad: Apollo Hospitals has announced setting up a 33-acre campus in Hyderabad as an integrated health delivery facility, covering a variety of aspects such as prevention, management of diseases, wellness and medical research. The 300-bed Health City, claimed to be the first in Asia, would comprise centres of excellence in areas such as cardiology, oncology and emergency medicare. The Apollo group would invest Rs100 crore more on the facility to establish some more facilities, which included a 11-storeyed building that would house modern research infrastructure.

Addressing a press conference to announce the launch of `Apollo Health City' here, Dr Prathap C. Reddy, Chairman of the Apollo Hospitals group, said the group was planning to set up hospitals in Fiji, Mauritius and the UK also.
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Tata Tele to invest Rs200 cr in AP circle
Hyderabad: Tata Teleservices plans to invest Rs200 crore in the Andhra Pradesh circle to expand its network. Currently, TTSL offers services across 357 towns and in over 9,000 plus villages in the State and the network expansion during the year is likely to cover another 127 towns and more than 1,000 villages.

The chief operating sfficer of TTSL, Andhra Pradesh circle, Sanjeev Khera, TTSL has acquired a customer base of about 1.8 million in AP State.

He added that while it took nine years to achieve the nine-lakh user base, the next nine lakhs were acquired in less than a year.
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Attrition rate touches 20 per cent at India Inc
New Delhi: The attrition rate has crossed 20 per cent in the manufacturing sector while the services sector is facing 40 per cent attrition, according to an ASSOCHAM study.

The ASSOCHAM Business Barometer Survey on 'Attrition Problem in a Growing Economy' revealed that maximum attrition is taking place among employees in the age group of 26-30 years, while those with an experience of 2-4 years were job-hopping the most, the survey covering 160 HR heads noted.

The survey found that women employees were less prone to job changing compared to men as for every 10 men leaving jobs there were only two women crossing over. Even if women face the pressure of balancing the management of their families and workplace, they tend to be more stable than their male colleagues 52 per cent of HR managers surveyed said.

The immediate gains in salary package was found to be responsible for job change in 61 per cent of the cases, growth potential was also rated quite high as an important reason.
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Renault sees India as low cost manufacturing centre
Paris: French car manufacturer Renault plans to create a USD 3,000 car in India within three years, French newspaper Le Figaro reported on Wednesday. The paper said Renault planed to open a third "techno centre" in India and hire 1,000 engineers to create a super low-cost model that would not be sold in Europe.
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