IN THE LAST 30
Karnataka woos firms to Aero-space Park
The Karnataka government has said that a num-ber of aviation companies have evinced inter-est in setting up and expanding their manufac-turing capacity at the Aerospace Park located near Bangalore. Karnataka was the first State MISCEL-LANEOUS in the country to announce an aviation policy last year. The 1,000-acre park is already a host to some 50-plus companies and has potential to lo-cate many more. The Aerospace Park, which has a 252-acre special economic zone, provides the right infrastructure for manufacturing and other support services. The State government is developing four more similar parks of about 1000 acres each.
Narayana Health buys Jubilant’s 2 hospitals
Jubilant First Trust Healthcare (JFTH), a wholly owned subsidiary of Jubilant Life Sciences, has sold its hospital business to Narayana Health. JFTH op-erates two hospitals in West Bengal - Kalpataru in Barasat and Rabindranath Thakur in Berhampore.
The business has been transferred on a going con-cern basis as a slump sale, which will enable Jubilant Life Sciences to focus on its core businesses in phar-maceutical and life sciences. The acquisition, whose value has not been disclosed, will also enable Nara-yana Health to expand its reach in the eastern part of the country.
EPFO can now become member of bourse
Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), the retirement fund body, can now enlist as a member of any recognised stock exchange. The development follows a notification issued recently by the Finance Ministry’s Department of Economic Affairs, amend-ing the Securities Contracts (Regulation) (Amend-ment) Rule, 2010, to enable EPFO to become a stock market member. The notification paves the way for investment of the EPFO’s over Rs 5,00,000-crore corpus in equity markets in future. The move is line with the Finance Ministry’s long-standing proposal that the huge retirement corpus be invested in the stock market to get higher returns.
Commodity bourses to remain shut on Saturdays
The Forward Markets Commission (FMC) has ex-tended trade timings in a few internationally-linked agricultural commodities up to 11.30 pm. The com-modity market regulator has also directed exchanges to discontinue trading in agriculture commodities on Saturdays. The commodities put on extended trade timing from April 1 include soya oil, soya meal, crude palm oil, refined palmolein, cotton, kapas (raw cotton) and sugar, among others. Currently, commod-ity futures market trades between 10 am and 5 pm on weekdays and 10 am and 2 pm on Saturdays.
Last September, exchanges discontinued trading in nonagricultural commodities on Saturdays on the FMC’s direction.
Reforms can lift 58 cr people above poverty line
India can bring 58 crore people above the pov-erty line, a measure of income deprivation, by 2022 if it implements inclusive reforms, notes McKinsey Global Institute (MGI). The business and econom-ic research arm of consultancy major McKinsey & Company has also noted that India’s human develop-ment indicators show that deprivation extends well beyond 22 per cent of Indians who live below the of-ficial poverty line.
Inclusive reforms can stimulate investment, job creation and farm production as well as dramatically improve the delivery of basic services, MGI notes in a recent report.
Soon, track green nod for projects online
The Central government is planning to put in place by July a digitised platform to allow investors to apply for environmental clearances and track their progress online.
The Project Monitoring Group (PMG), consti-tuted by the Prime Minister’s Office for facilitating clearances of large infrastructure projects, is leading the digitisation drive that will allow investors to track in real time the movement of their applications and documents. Digitisation of clearance processes will ensure fast tracking of approvals in a transparent and accountable manner. It will also facilitate various stakeholders at the ground level to resolve many is-sues speedily.
India can quadruple Africa rev-enue: McKinsey
India can look to quadruple its revenues from Af-rica to $160 billion by 2025 by increasing its presence in sectors such as IT services, agriculture, infrastruc-ture, pharmaceutical and consumer goods, according to a recent McKinsey report. The report adds that In-dia can aspire to capture almost 7 per cent of the IT services market, 5 per cent of the FMCG segment, 10 per cent of the power sector and 2 to 5 per cent of the agricultural and allied services in Africa.
The report notes that Indian industry needs to con-tinually engage with governments and businesses in the continent proactively.
AMW Motors eyes new overseas markets
Commercial vehicle-maker AMW Motors is exploring newer markets of South-East Asia and East Africa as a part of strengthening its global foothold. The company currently exports ve-hicles to SAARC (South Asian Association for Re-gional Cooperation) nations, like Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Bangladesh, and have started exploring markets in South-East Asia, specifically In-donesia. AMW has also undertaken product promo-tion campaigns in Tanzania and has received its first orders from Kenya and other markets in East Africa.
The Mumbai-based company currently retails tip-pers, heavy-duty trucks, long-haul tractors and spe-cial trucks across various tonnages.
McLeod Russel enters green tea business
McLeod Russel India, the world’s largest black tea producer, is making an entry into green tea through acquisition of a tea processing factory in Vietnam.
The BM Khaitan Group company recently in-formed the stock exchanges that Phu Ben Tea Com-pany, a step-down subsidiary of McLeod Russel in Vietnam, had signed an agreement to buy a green tea processing factory in Vietnam for Rs 5 crore. The fac-tory has an annual production capacity of 6 lakh kg.
Daimler to roll out buses from Chennai plant
Daimler India Commercial Vehicles will start manufacturing buses from its facility near Chennai by the second quarter of 2015. The company recently laid the foundation stone for the Rs 425-crore factory, adjacent to its truckmanufacturing plant in Oragad-am, an industrial suburb of Chennai. Daimler India, a subsidiary of Daimler of Germany, is consolidating its entire truck and bus manufacturing operations in the country with this plant. The factory with a capac-ity of about 1,500 buses a year will make Mercedes-Benz rear-engine luxury buses and Bharat Benz front engine buses for the volume market.
Ranbaxy recalls 64,000 bottles of generic Lipitor
Ranbaxy Laboratories has recalled more than 64,000 bottles of its generic version of Lipitor, a cho-lesterollowering drug, in the United States of Ameri-ca. The Gurgaon, Haryana-based drug-maker recalled tablets of atorvastatin calcium after a US pharmacist found a 20-mg tablet in a sealed bottle marked for 10-mg tablets.
Ranbaxy confirmed the recall of select batches of the drug, but said that it had not received any prod-uct complaints. The recall is the latest in a series of problems to hit Ranbaxy, which has been barred from exporting drugs into the US made at its Indian plants.
GSK Pharmaceuticals’ open offer oversold
The UK-based GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Group’s open offer to increase its stake in GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals, its Indian subsidiary, ended on a strong note recently with the offer getting oversub-scribed. The oversubscription will help the parent company increase its holding to 75 per cent from the existing 50.67 per cent. The offer saw tendering of over 2.3 crore shares by public shareholders as against an offer for 2.06 crore shares.
The key to the offer’s success was the attractive price of Rs 3,100 a share, offering a good exit option for existing investors.
BASF opens global R&D centre in Navi Mumbai
BASF Chemicals India, a wholly owned subsid-iary of Germany-based BASF, recently opened a global research and development centre at its plant in Navi Mumbai with an investment of about Rs 17 crore. The new research centre will help the com-pany work with a wide range of scientific talent in India and take it closer to the goal of innovating from Asia-Pacific for Asia-Pacific and the world. By 2020, BASF Chemicals is planning to do 50 per cent of its research in Europe and split the rest between America and Asia.
Tilaknagar buys IFB Agro’s liquor business
Tilaknagar Industries, a manufacturer of Mansion House brandy, has acquired the Indian-made foreign liquor (IMFL) business of Kolkata-based IFB Agro for an undisclosed amount. Keen to consolidate its position in the country’s 30-crore case IMFL market, Tilaknagar will add all of IFB Agro’s IMFL brands, including Volga vodka and Blue Lagoongin, to its portfolio. According to the terms of the agreement, the trademarks of all IMFL brands of IFB Agro will be transferred to Tilaknagar.
US bans imports from Sun Phar-ma’s plant
Sun Pharmaceutical Industries has received an import alert from the US Food and Drug Ad-ministration (USFDA) on its cephalosporin fa-cility located in Karkhadi, Gujarat.
While an import alert virtually bans all products from the plant, the company has said that the contri-bution from this plant to its consolidated revenues is “negligible”. The alert was issued by the USFDA as a follow-up to the last inspection of the facility, during which some noncompliance of current Good Manu-facturing Practice regulations was identified.
The development is the latest in a string of USF-DAinitiated action against Indiabased drug compa-nies.
Mercedes rolls out first made-in-India S-500
Mercedes-Benz India has rolled out the first, lo-callybuilt S-500 from its Chakan plant near Pune a little earlier than originally planned. The petrol car that has a V8 engine is priced at Rs 1.36 crore (ex-showroom, Mumbai) against Rs 1.57 crore for the completely built unit (CBU) version. The package in-cludes a 21- module, multi-lingual chauffeur-training programme for drivers. The locally built S-500 is a five-seater, while the CBU one launched in early Jan-uary is a four-seater.
It has 35 to 40 per cent local content, including the body work, engines, axles and transmission.
Polaris Financial hives off product business
Polaris Financial Technology has announced a demerger of its product business into an independent entity. The new company will be known as Intellect Design Arena (Intellect) and comprise four business-es - global universal banking, risk and treasury man-agement, global transaction banking and insurance.
Chennai-based Polaris Financial will continue to run the software services business. The product busi-ness is offered to clients on a licence fee model. Polaris Holdings, whose name has been changed to Polaris Banyan Holding, will continue to be the promoter of the both companies.No penalty
The RBI has asked banks not to levy penalty on non-maintenance of minimum balance in ordinary savings bank accounts and instead limit the services. In a move to o safeguard customer interest, it has also asked banks to limit the liability of customers in elec-tronic banking transactions in cases where banks are not able to prove customer negligence.
Groupon India – Magzterdeal to offer digital magazines
Groupon India and New York-based Magzter have inked a deal to promote digital magazines for Indian readers. Online shoppers will be able to choose their subscriptions from different magazine titles including Women, Men, Health, Lifestyle and Travel, among others at 50 percent discount.
Buzziest: Micromax
The brand’s CMO Shubodip Pal announced that Micromax had become the first Indian hardware brand to go global. The brand has penetrated a tough international market like Russia with its Canvas se-ries. Signing Hugh Jackman was perhaps one of its boldest and most favourable moves.
Big Move
Samsonite international has promoted its top ex-ecutive, Ramesh Tainwala as global COO. Tainwala was earlier executive director and president, Asia Pa-cific and Middle East. He has been at Samsonite since 1995. In the new role, he will handle day-to-day glob-al operations of the US-based company and continue to be directly involved in Samsonite’s businesses in China, Philippines and Australia.
Brazil rocks, Cannes celebrates
The Cannes Lions International Festival of Cre-ativity announced that this year’s Festival will in-corporate a programme dedicated to showcasing, understanding and celebrating Brazilian creativity. According to a Cannes report, Brazil stands tall as the second most creative country in the world and São Paulo - the most creative city in the world. The coun-try’s haul of lions stood at 114. Brazil also reportedly has the highest-ranked creative director, art director and copywriter.
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Posted On: Wednesday, 14 May, 2014 - 13:07