Business Line articles from April 2001

Business Line archives from April 2001

India: Enron pull-out could put Indian lenders in a spot.
April 30, 2001... MUMBAI, April 28. DABHOL Power Company's (DPC) overseas lenders have a guarantee cover of about Rs 6,000 crore from the IDBI-led consortium of Indian lenders. If the Enron-sponsored project is terminated, the Indian lenders will have to...

India: KPCL cancels contract with ABB.
April 30, 2001... BANGALORE, April 28. KARNATAKA Power Corporation Ltd (KPCL) has cancelled the engineering procurement and construction (EPC) contract with ABB Ltd for implementation of the joint venture Bidadi liquid fuel power project. KPCL sources...

India: Cadbury targets impulse buyers.
April 30, 2001... MUMBAI, April 28. THE Rs 570 crore-Cadbury India Ltd has identified gifting, child connectivity and low-end 'value for money' products as new growth drivers for the company. Cadbury's overall future strategy would be to maintain...

India: Dr Reddy's earmarks $30 m for discovery research.
April 30, 2001... MUMBAI, April 28. DR. Reddy's Laboratories Ltd, the third largest Indian pharmaceutical company, has decided to earmark substantial funds to the tune of $30-million from its ADS (American Depository Shares) proceeds towards discovery...

India: Kothari Pension: A conservative option.
April 30, 2001... INVESTORS looking for a long-term investment option with a moderate risk profile may consider investing in the Kothari Pioneer Pension Plan. A conservative balanced option, this fund has a consistent track record of good performance since its...

India: Forex reserves touch new high.
April 30, 2001... MUMBAI, April 28. THE country's forex reserves increased by $ 43 million to touch a new high of $ 42.765 billion for the week ended April 20, 2001, as compared to $ 42.722 billion in the previous week. Total accommodation provided by...

India: Ayurvedic oral pill awaits birth.
April 30, 2001... KOLKATA, April 28. ONE year from now, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare may start writing slogans and preparing advertisement campaigns to promote the first ayurvedic oral contraceptive pill prepared from Pippalyadi Yoga. ...

India: Writ against Heritage Foods dismissed.
April 30, 2001... HYDERABAD: The Andhra Pradesh High Court on Friday dismissed a company petition for winding up of Heritage Foods Ltd filed by the former Telugu Desam Rajya Sabha member and actor, Mr Mohan Babu. The petitioner had alleged irregularities...

India: Soliton Automation to patent product.
April 30, 2001... COIMBATORE: Soliton Automation Pvt Ltd is all set to patent its product 'Gauge View'. The three-year old company, based here, specialises in providing comprehensive test and measurement and industrial automation solutions, that result in...

India: SkyCell increases base stations to 83.
April 30, 2001... CHENNAI: SkyCell, one of the two cellular operators in Chennai, has increased the number of base stations from 33 to 83, since October 2000. "SkyCell, the only ISO 9001 certified cellular operator in the country, has also increased its...

India: Bhaskar Bhat made Titan Deputy MD.
April 30, 2001... BANGALORE: Titan Industries Ltd's board meeting held on Friday has appointed Mr Bhaskar Bhat as the Deputy Managing Director of the company with effect from May 1. Mr Bhat has been the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Titan for the past...

India: Volvo Penta bags service award.
April 30, 2001... BANGALORE: Volvo Penta has bagged the best performance award for after market service for 2000 along with an award for excellence in customer care and promotion of dealers' organisation in the country. The award was presented during the...

India: Arham Plastics awarded ISO 9002.
April 30, 2001... CHENNAI: The Chennai-based Arham Plastics Ltd, part of the National Plastics Group, has been awarded ISO 9002 certification by RWTUV, Germany for manufacture and supply of plastic moulded industrial products and furnitures. The company...

India: Birla Sun Life trims software exposure.
April 30, 2001... BANGALORE, April 28. BIRLA Sun Life Mutual Fund has cut exposure in all the major software companies, including Infosys and Visualsoft, to a single digit figure. Briefing reporters here, Mr Jeremy Beswick, President and Chief Executive...

India: TRAI moots no entry fee for paging new-comers.
April 30, 2001... NEW DELHI, April 28. IN an effort to aid the recovery of the radio paging industry from its ongoing lean phase, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has recommended conducive policy initiatives to make it more competitive. In...

India: Cell, fixed phone service not 'technical'.
April 30, 2001... CHENNAI, April 28. THE Madras High Court has held that neither the cellular telephone service nor the fixed telephone service can be regarded as "technical service" for the purpose of Section 194J of the Income-Tax Act. When a person...

India: TV18 posts lower profit in first half.
April 30, 2001... MUMBAI, April 28. TELEVISION Eighteen (TV18) has reported a profit after tax of Rs 3.75 crore for the six months ended March 31, 2001. The company is in the process of changing its accounting year from October-September to April-March....

India: Max New York Life hikes paid-up capital to Rs 200 cr.
April 30, 2001... CHENNAI, April 28. MAX New York Life Insurance Company has raised its paid-up equity capital to Rs 200 crore, as against the minimum requirement of Rs 105 crore, prescribed by the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India...

India: New S. Asia chief for Oglivy PR.
April 30, 2001... NEW DELHI, April 28. OGLIVY Public Relations, Worldwide has appointed Ms Mahnaz Curmally as President, South Asia for an accelerated growth in the region. Ms Curmally was the Managing Partner of the Indian operations and would also focus...

India: Madagascar urged to buy drugs from India.
April 30, 2001... NEW DELHI, April 28. THE Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, Mr Omar Abdullah, has urged Madagascar to take advantage of the advanced pharmaceutical industry in India and make it an alternative and cheaper source of drugs. He...

India: New I-T Act draft soon.
April 30, 2001... NEW DELHI, April 28. THE Government plans to formulate a new draft of the Income-Tax Act by this year-end. A panel will be constituted to rewrite the existing legislation to conform with the existing business environment, according to the...

India: Shipowners sink differences.
April 30, 2001... NEW DELHI, April 28. THE Indian National Shipowners Association (INSA) has decided to sink the differences amongst its members and suggest status quo on the age norms for ships. "After intense deliberations at a meeting held in Mumbai,...

India: Indian Bank expects profits to double.
April 30, 2001... CHENNAI, April 28. INDIAN Bank's operating profit for 2000-01 "is estimated to be more than double" that of the previous financial year, the bank's Chairperson and Managing Director, Ms Ranjana Kumar, has said. In 1999-2000, the bank had made...

India: KPTCL distribution assets transfer at book value.
April 30, 2001... BANGALORE, April 28. IN A bid to accelerate the power reforms process, the State Government has proposed to transfer the distribution assets of the Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Ltd (KPTCL) at book value. However, the State...

India: ISRO set to launch met satellite in 2002.
April 30, 2001... THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, April 28. THE Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is set to launch a meteorological experiment satellite using GSLV some time next year. Dr Madhavan Nair, Director, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), told...

India: EDS opens centre at Chennai Tidel Park.
April 30, 2001... CHENNAI, April 28. ELECTRONIC Data Systems Ltd, India (EDS), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the US-based EDS Corporation, inaugurated its new IT solution centre at Tidel Park here on Saturday. The 89,000- sq.ft. facility is the fourth for the...

India: Dull trading in leather.
April 30, 2001... WHILE the trading in the leather market has been reported to be dull this week, hectic activity is reported in the raw centres. The prices of goat skins have again gone up by Rs 10 to 15 from the existing ruling prices at different raw skins...

India: PowerGrid to float fresh tenders for NLD partner.
April 30, 2001... NEW DELHI, April 28. POWER Grid Corporation of India Ltd (PowerGrid) will be floating tenders afresh in June for selecting a partner for the national long distance operator (NLDO) business, according to the Chairman and Managing Director, Mr...

India: Spurious goods to come under Consumer Act.
April 30, 2001... NEW DELHI, April 28. THE proposed Consumer Protection (Amendment) Bill, 2001, would bring manufacture and/ or sale of spurious goods within the purview of the Consumer Protection Act by treating such action as "unfair trade practices." ...

India: MNC stocks: Losing the halo?
April 30, 2001... The blind faith in MNCs is needless. Let investors be vigilant in tracking MNCs. Mr Vivek Reddy, CEO of Kothari Pioneer Mutual Fund, in a conversation with Business Line. AFTER enjoying a hallowed status for long, the stocks of...

India: Budget debate: Cat's disappeared but grin remains.
April 30, 2001... IN ALICE'S wonderland, the Cheshire cat and its grin are perhaps separable. But in the world of governance one always assumed that debate and policy formulation went hand in hand. The public had always been led to believe that...

India: SEC seeks penalties for fraud.
April 30, 2001... A GROUP of former New York Stock Exchange floor brokers facing civil charges involving illegal trading have won a preliminary battle. The Securities and Exchange Commission plans to seek penalties only for fraud, one of five major claims...

India: The truth about tariff protection.
April 30, 2001... TARIFF protection can cut both ways. This truth was driven home to passenger car manufacturers last week when the Finance Minister, Mr Yashwant Sinha, increased the duty on the import of new CBUs (completely- built units) from 35 per cent to...

India: Balaji Telefilms: A hit script, but...
April 30, 2001... The Balaji Telefilms stock has been on a downtrend since the market turmoil. This despite it being at the top of the heap as far as popular and ad-raking television programmes go. The Ketan Parekh factor, the merger-in-offing with Nine...

India: Ban on BLESS/ALBM: Throwing out baby with bathwater.
April 30, 2001... IT IS quite clear that the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) does not seem to know what it should be doing about the stock market. It seems to be creating more chaos than placing the market on an orderly path of development. The...

India: Voices.
April 30, 2001... "The dramatic slump is akin to a 100-year flood which may not even happen in one's lifetime. Not only did it occur but its magnitude is about five times what we thought possible". - Mr John Chambers, CEO, Cisco Systems Inc. * * * ...

India: TVS-Suzuki: A rough ride.
April 30, 2001... Recommendation: Sell and evaluate re-entry later THE lacklustre performance reported by the two-wheeler major, TVS-Suzuki, is not all that surprising seen against the existing competitive pressure and the slowdown in growth rates,...

India: GTN Textiles'.
April 30, 2001... GTN Textiles' shareholders have approved the re-fixing of the share price at Rs 21.20 per share for 30 lakh equity shares of Rs 10 each to be issued to the promoters, associates and other associated companies.

India: Kesoram Industries.
April 30, 2001... The Board of Directors of Kesoram Industries has given in-principle approval to the merger of Hindustan Heavy Chemicals, Birla Century Finance and Bharat General and Textile Industries with the company.

India: Polaris Software Lab.
April 30, 2001... Polaris Software Lab has decided to increase the authorised capital of the company from the present Rs 30 crore to Rs 40 crore, divided into 7 crore equity shares of Rs 5 and one crore 11 per cent preference shares of Rs 5 each.

India: Groupe Bull.
April 30, 2001... Groupe Bull plans to divest its stake in PSI Data System. However, Bull intends to maintain strong business relations with PSI, keeping it as a business partner

India: SKF Bearings (India).
April 30, 2001... SKF Bearings (India) has reviewed the company's three-year plan and constituted a committee of directors to evaluate various options to fund the company's future operations and growth.

India: Balaji Industrial Corporation.
April 30, 2001... Balaji Industrial Corporation Balaji Industrial Corporation has decided to allot 38.4 lakh zero-coupon unsecured FCDs of Rs 100 each on a preferential basis to IFCI. It also plans to allot 4.3 lakh zero-coupon unsecured FCDs of Rs 100 each on...

India: HDFC.
April 30, 2001... HDFC has sold 52 lakh shares (26 per cent stake) held in HDFC Asset Management Company to Standard Life Investments Limited.

India: Dewang Mehta foundation mooted.
April 30, 2001... BANGALORE, April 28. THE software industry, in collaboration with Nasscom, is planning to set up a Dewang Mehta foundation in memory of the most effective lobbyist for the industry. At a condolence meeting in Bangalore, representatives of...

India: Hindustan Lever.
April 30, 2001... The Board of Directors of Hindustan Lever have approved the amalgamation of International Bestfoods (IBL) and Aviance (AL) with the company, subject to necessary approvals. As per the scheme of amalgamation, two equity shares of Re 1 each of...

India: Tips Industries.
April 30, 2001... Tips Industries has signed a three- year exclusive licensing deal with the global music conglomerate, Warner Electra Atlantic International Inc, US.

India: Aventis Crop Science India.
April 30, 2001... The directors of Aventis Crop Science India have approved the swap ratio of 1.6 equity shares of the company for one equity share of Aventis CropScience Pvt Ltd on amalgamation.

India: Gujarat Gas Company.
April 30, 2001... Gujarat Gas Company has completed the repurchase of debentures aggregating Rs 5 crore by individual negotiation with the debenture holders. The repurchase was funded by internal accruals available with the company.

India: Indian Aluminium Company.
April 30, 2001... Indian Aluminium Company has indicated that Hindalco Industries holds 530.64 lakh equity shares of the company - 74.62 per cent of the paid-up share capital.

India: Indian Rayon and Industries.
April 30, 2001... Indian Rayon and Industries has decided to seek the approval of shareholders so that the company can buy back up to 15 per cent of the equity shares at a price not exceeding Rs 95 per share.

India: Framatome Connectors OEN: Lucre in telephony.
April 30, 2001... Recommendation: Buy AFTER the recent stock market slide, the share prices of quite a few fundamentally sound companies have been pushed to lower levels. Long-term investors could use this as an opportunity to pick up equity exposure in...

India: Down with 'price spurt' virus?
April 30, 2001... Recommendation: Smithkline Consumer: Buy PSI Data Systems: Sell on rise GLOBAL-LEVEL consolidations have had their effect on the Indian stock market. While not all such activity has had a positive impact, divestitures with the...

India: New insurance products: May be worth the wait.
April 30, 2001... LAST year, the market for insurance products was thrown open to private competition. Shortly afterwards, last December, HDFC Standard Life Insurance launched life insurance products. HDFC Standard Life is a joint venture between HDFC and...

India: Marginal rise in standard deduction.
April 30, 2001... THE Finance Minister, Mr Yashwant Sinha, has enhanced the limit for standard deduction to Rs 30,000 for those with annual income of up to Rs 1.50 lakh, and to Rs 25,000 for those with income between Rs 1.50 lakh and Rs 3 lakh. There is no...

India: Ban on short-selling.
April 30, 2001... THE Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) recently banned short-selling. What is short-selling and why did SEBI ban such trading? Suppose you hold a view that, say, Infosys, is overvalued at the current price and may fall...

India: Trademarks: Basics of registration.
April 30, 2001... THE four-decade-old Trade and Merchandise Act 1958 has been repealed, and the Trade Marks Act 1999 passed. It was felt that a comprehensive review of the 1958 Act be made in view of the developments in trading and commercial practices,...

India: Risks revisited.
April 30, 2001... NOW that you have become a stakeholder in a listed company, we welcome you to the securities market. Securities and Exchange Board of India, a statutory body constituted by the Government of India, stands committed to the assigned objective...

India: Do not go too deep.
April 30, 2001... Recommendation: IFCI: Sell MRPL: Sell on uptrend Hotel Leela: Avoid IFCI Deep Discount Bond A SET of two Millionaire bonds issued by IFCI is a frequently-traded deep discount bond. One of these was issued at Rs 5,000 as a...

India: Range-bound movement likely.
April 30, 2001... BONDS were wobbly last fortnight. Prices were down initially as banks cut their trading portfolio in response to strong dollar demand. Bonds, however, bounced back later, triggered by positive sentiment from the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI)...

India: 'Small investor should not be in to such an extent' - Mr Shailendra Bhandari, MD, Prudential ICICI.
April 30, 2001... Post the market meltdown of 2001, many fund houses are doing a lot of soul searching. Mutual funds did make mistakes and got carried away by the technology euphoria, says Mr Shailendra Bhandari, Managing Director, Prudential ICICI, in an...

India: Stable in difficult times.
April 30, 2001... Recommendation: Hold INVESTORS can consider taking small exposures in with the Templeton India Growth Fund as a measure of diversification. In January, Business Line had recommended cutting exposures in the fund. But since then, the NAV...

India: Hit by slide in tech stocks.
April 30, 2001... Recommendation: Hold Avoid fresh exposures OVER the past year, the performance of Birla Equity Plan (earlier Birla Tax Plan) has slipped badly; with the fund underperforming both the narrow market indices and some of its peers. An...

India: Sun F&C Value.
April 30, 2001... Recommendation: Pare exposures SUN F&C Value Fund,which had cash to the extent of 32 per cent at the end of December 2000,invested a major portion of the cash during the quarter ended March. Equities as a portion of the portfolio have now...

India: Tata Pure Equity: A different perspective.
April 30, 2001... Recommendation: Invest INVESTMENTS in Tata Pure Equity Fund may be made only by those with a different perspective on the strategies necessary to maximise returns. The fund managers believe in not only timing the market but also in...

India: PruICICI's one-year Gilt Plan.
April 30, 2001... PRUDENTIAL ICICI Mutual Fund plans to launch the Treasury 1-Year Plus Plan under the Prudential ICICI Gilt Fund an open end Gilt Fund. The initial offer period is between April 26 and April 27. The fund offers two options - Dividend Option...

India: 'Things will get worse before they get better'.
April 30, 2001... MARCH was a turbulent month for the equity market. It ended, as it had begun, with great uncertainty. US technology companies issued earnings warnings right through the month, and this had a negative effect on domestic software stocks. ...

India: Aluminium: From strength to strength.
April 30, 2001... FOR THE first time in the past five years, the aluminium industry is moving with a sense of purpose and direction. The process of consolidation, sparked off in the primary metals segment with the acquisition of Indian Aluminium Company...

India: Alumina: On terra firma at last.
April 30, 2001... OVER the past two years, the international price trends of alumina have come a full circle. Starting from around $150-160 a tonne in mid-1999, the prices shot up to $350-450 per tonne in late 1999 and the nine months of 2000, only to slump to...

India: Extruded by the majors.
April 30, 2001... THE TWO key events of 2000-01 - the acquisition of a 74.62 per cent equity stake in Indian Aluminium Company (Indal) by Hindalco Industries (Hindalco), and the acquisition of a 51 per cent equity stake in Bharat Aluminium Company (Balco) by...

India: Consolidation at the same pace?
April 30, 2001... DOES the 'urge to merge' among international aluminium producers remain as strong and relevant in 2001 as in 1999? The rationale for consolidation among aluminium producers - that is, shareholder value-creation, global focus and price...

India: Indices end in negative territory.
April 30, 2001... IN an unending litany of woes for the stockmarkets, the markets witnessed yet another 'Black Friday' as the Sensex, Nifty and all the other key indices such as BL -250 Index went into a tailspin on the announcement by the SEBI Committee's...

India: Weak trend in key pivotals.
April 30, 2001... ITC (Rs 839): As expected last week, the stock ruled firm and went on to touch a high of Rs 887 on Thursday. It turned weak thereafter to close at Rs 839. Though there is still no evidence of a short-term downtrend, a decline below 802...

India: Sterlite draws investor attention.
April 30, 2001... GRASIM Industries has not seen the best of weeks with its shares falling 11.04 per cent. The share price fell Rs 33.54 to close the week at Rs 269.50 from the previous week's close of Rs 302.95. This fall could have been triggered by the...

India: Tata Tea: Ready for triangle break-out.
April 30, 2001... AFTER a strong rally the earlier week, there was no follow-up action in the week gone by. After being confined to a narrow band, the Sensex saw a downside break-out triggered by the SEBI's recommendation to ban ALBM and BLESS. As a result,...

India: Move on badla halts uptrend.
April 30, 2001... WHEN the market was consolidating the gains of the previous week, the regulator spoiled the party at the wrong time. The issues and problems related to carry forward is well known. Whenever the SEBI initiates any measure to ban 'badla'...

India: Moderate uptrend likely in Ranbaxy.
April 30, 2001... THE average badla rate for the week was about 7 per cent per annum, marginally lower than the previous week's rate of about 8 per cent per annum. The aggregate turnover was Rs 855 crore, lower by Rs 113 crore (12 per cent) in relation to...

India: Still hugging a decline.
April 30, 2001... THE Nasdaq and Dow/Russell went their separate ways after both sectors had strong mornings. By midday, all indices had stalled, and in the afternoon, the Nasdaq began to fall. It slipped into negative territory, and increased volume qualified...

India: Futures guide.
April 30, 2001... - Spot Index Value (SIV): Represents the closing value of the index on which the futures are based. In this case, this represents the closing value of the Nifty and the Sensex respectively. - Fair Value: Fair Value is the theoretical...

India: SEBI move may have positive impact.
April 30, 2001... THE cash markets treaded in negative territory during the course of the week. However the decision by the SEBI to remove badla trading and other deferral products and introduce more derivative contracts in the near future is likely to have a...

India: Sundaram Finance: Money-wise.
April 30, 2001... SUNDARAM Finance accepts fixed deposits under two schemes: Cumulative and non-cumulative schemes. The deposits are accepted for a duration of one, two and a maximum of three years. Scheme features: Under the cumulative scheme, Sundaram...

India: Room for better service.
April 30, 2001... IN THE letters to the editor column that appeared in a national daily recently, an investor had a suggestion for small savings schemes. He suggested that the post office authorities provide a facility whereby the monthly interest payments...

India: Ratings update.
April 30, 2001... - The 'BBB' rating assigned to the Rs 26 billion bond issue of Steel Authority of India Ltd, has been reaffirmed by Crisil. The reaffirmation indicates moderate safety. It reaffirmed its "FA-" rating, adequate safety, assigned to the fixed...

India: 'Choppy outlook for interest rates'.
April 30, 2001... OVERALL we are positive about the Credit Policy initiatives. Going forward, the interest rate market would continue to be choppy. We, however, continue to offer different debt products suitable for different investment horizons. The RBI...