Jul

10

RIL top Indian firm on Fortune 500 list

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Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries has emerged as the top Indian private company on the latest Fortune 500 Global list. The country’s presence has grown to seven firms with a debut by Tata Steel.

The list released by US business magazine Fortune, includes two private (RIL and Tata Steel) and five public sector companies from India, topped by Indian Oil Corp (IOC), and including BPCL, HPCL, ONGC and SBI.

IOC is the top-ranked Indian company among both private and public sectors at 116th position in the worldwide list, topped by US retail giant Wal-Mart.

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May

30

US oil probe focusing on price manipulation

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On Friday the Wall Street Journal reported ,’’ A US regulatory probe into oil trading and is stressing on short-term maangement of benchmark crude prices and the use of information linked to essential oil storage tanks to influence prices.’

The newspaper has quoted that people are aware of enforcement priorities of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and said that the CFTC is doing many oil investigations and most of those are related to one another.

‘’It would improve the insepection of energy trading by tracking index funds and had an agreement with the U.K.’s Financial Services Authority and ICE Futures Europe for exchanging information on power contracts’’, said the US futures market regulator.

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May

22

Microsoft Offers Rebates to Shoppers Using Its Search

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bill_gates.jpgWith its share of the Internet search market in stable turn down and its pursuit of an alliance with Yahoo in doubt, Microsoft is taking a new approach to jump-starting its search engine: offering rebates to people who make use of it to find and purchase some products.

Microsoft executives said the program, called Live Search cashback, is part of a plan to come up with new approaches to areas of the search business where they see possibilities to make inroads against Google, the market leader.

The new program focuses on searches for products to be bought online, which Microsoft executives stated account for roughly a third of search queries and a majority of search advertising revenue.

“This is a very large part of the $20 billion search market,” stated the chairman of Microsoft, Bill Gates, at an advertising conference run by the company. “Make no mistake; we are about having the best search, having the best results.

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May

15

Report: Investor to lead fight against Yahoo board

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Billionaire investor Carl Icahn reportedly has decided to guide a revolt against Yahoo Inc.’s board in an effort to pressure the directors into reviving negotiations to sell Yahoo to Microsoft Corp.

To turn up the heat on Yahoo’s board, Icahn has lined up a slate of 10 directors to nominate as replacements, The Wall Street Journal stated on its Web site Wednesday, citing an anonymous person close to the subject.

Icahn hadn’t returned phone messages from The Associated Press as of late Wednesday. His purposes should become clear quickly, however, since Yahoo has set a Thursday deadline for

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Apr

12

Microsoft, HCL launch cheapest ultra portable laptop

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Microsoft Corporation and HCL Infosystems on Friday declared a series of joint ventures, including launch of cheapest ultra portable laptop of the world and creating a centre of excellence, which will provide employment for over 500 professionals.

Priced at Rs 16,990, Mileap brand of HCL laptops with Microsoft Windows XP home operating system is the least priced among the MS operating system powered laptops, the company officials stated.
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Apr

5

Inflation Hits 3-Yr High At 7%- Common Man Hit Hard

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India’s wholesale price index moved to 7 percent in three years by March 22, as compared to 6.68 percent in the previous week, the government data confirmed on Friday. The inflation mounted due to higher prices of food, minerals, vegetables and manufactured items, to lead toward a tight monetary policy and slow economic growth.

The prices of fruits and vegetable rose by one percent, masur by two percent, gram by three percent, while urad and moong, meat, eggs and fish got dearer by one percent.

The cost of gingelly, mustard seed and rape rose by five percent and linseed by three percent. However, condiments and spices fell by two percent and fish-marine by four percent.

Among fuel, light, power and lubricants category, prices of furnace oil rose by two percent. The mineral category-index blasted up by 38.2 percent with 46 percent hike in iron ore.

In the manufactured items, vanaspati move up by four percent, sunflower oil by nine percent, mustard oil, while butter, sugar and groundnut oil became costly by one percent each.

Elsewhere, electrode prices soared by 14 percent, steel lumps by 57 percent, forging by 22 percent, cast iron casting with four percent and zince by three percent.

However, ghee, coconut oil prices are calmed by one percent each. At the same time, car chassis got inexpensive by one percent.

The inflation rate for the week ended January 26, has been modified to 4.78 percent from drafted estimate of 4.11 percent as the wholesale price index finally stood at 219 points earlier estimate of 217.6.

The government has already condensed duties on import of different varieties of palm oil and the duty cut on soya oil would be considered by the empowered Group of Ministers (eGoM).

The government has also elevated the minimum export price for non-Basmati rice from USD 650 per tonne to USD 1000.

Manila-based Asian Development Bank expects some measures to sway prices by the month end.
It could also prompt RBI to take financial measures, like raising short-term lending and borrowing rates and compressing money supply in its annual credit policy planned to be announced on April 29.

Signifying that global circumstances are fuelling inflation, managing director of ICICI, K V Kamath said, “I am sure policy makers at the monetary level and in the ministry will collaborate to ease supply side restraint.”

The government is all set to tackle inflation and announced a host of fiscal measures like banning export of non-basmati rice and pulses, scrapping import duty on crude edible oils.



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Mar

26

Mobily To Invest Rs 70 Cr in India

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Mobily, leading GSM operator in Saudi Arabia announced on Tuesday to invest Rs 70 crore in the next three years, Mobily Infotech India Private Limited (MIT).

Mobily has already invested over Rs 20 crore in the initial year of registration and operations in MIT and plans were on to invest Rs 70 crore for infrastructure development, skilled manpower among others, said Ahmed M al-Orani, proclaiming the launch of a new facility centre at Whitefield in the city here.

MIT, the company’s first subsidiary outside Saudi Arabia, has employed 70 professional and the number is likely to grow to 800 in the next five years, he said.

“The subsidiary, specialised in providing it services, will extend the capabilities of the current information technology division. MIT will add more skilled manpower to Mobily’s it division and allow the company to handle much tighter it project deadlines needed to improve both the time to market and quality of service required in a competitive environment,” said mobily CEO and MD, Khalid Alkaf.

Till 2009, Mobily Infotech will provide it solutions and consulting services only for the parent company. From 2010, Mobily Infotech would be able to provide services to other telecom operators as well, Ahmed said.

Listing the benefits that Mobily would derive from its Indian subsidiary, Ahmed said it would help in improving both quality of products and responsiveness.

“It would help meet the tremendous growth and increase the competitive edge of Mobily”, Ahmed said.

The Indian unit would help Mobily to be in tact with the latest developments in this space and the new service in the industry. If possible, these products and services could be initiated in Saudi Arabia, he added.

Mobily, the brand name of Etihad Etisalat Co is the second GSM operator in Saudi Arabia providing GSM, 3 and 3.5 g voice, data and multimedia streaming services with high speed.

Mobily, which is the fastest growing mobile operator in the Middle East and North African region, by end of 2007, revenue of USD 368 million, Khalid said.



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Mar

26

CEO Indra Nooyi made over $14 mn last year

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Indra Nooyi, the India-born chief executive of PepsiCo, received $14.74 million in compensation in 2007.It is her first full year as head of the world’s second-largest soft drink maker.

Her 2007 compensation value more than doubled the $6.3 million she was paid in 2006, when she served as Pepsi’s chief financial officer for most of that year before taking over the top spot in October 2006.

According to the company’s annual regulatory , Nooyi’s package makes her the highest paid executive in the company.

Her package includes $1.3 million in salary, $3.2 million of non-equity incentive plan compensation, and nearly $400,000 in compensations such as executive perks including flying on the company jet.

She was also granted stock and option awards worth $9.83 million as of the grant date in February 2007.

The Fortune magazine recently published a cover story on her, in which she said she was not averse to a position in Washington later.

PepsiCo International CEO Mike White is the company’s second-highest paid executive with a compensation package worth $7.1 million in 2007.

Pepsi’s rival Coca-Cola gave its chief executive, Neville Isdell, $21.65 million in compensation in 2007, a 3.6 per cent increase from the previous year.



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Mar

25

Ficci-Frames 2008 opens Today in Mumbai

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Ficci Frames 2008, Asia’s biggest global convention on the business of entertainment opens on 25March, 2008 in Mumbai with focus point to sustain and make the industry bigger.

The entertainment and media industry clocking a robust 17% growth in 2007 over the previous year. The mood of the players of the Rs50,000 crore plus industry is one of optimism and expectancy.

On this day ,chairman  Reliance Entertainment; A P Parigi, MD & CEO, ENIL, & director, Bennett & Coleman Group; Peter Mukherjea, chairman, INX Group; Yash Chopra, chairman, FICCI Entertainment Committee & Yashraj Films and Subhash Ghai, filmmaker & MD, Mukta Arts, will present their views on the latest breakthroughs in films.

Is news entertainment?, is the theme on which Barkha Dutt, managing editor, NDTV; Rajat Sharma, chairman & editor-in-chief, India TV;and other would deliberate.

The focus of the event is to understand ‘news’ as it is being presented today and drow the thin line between news and entertainment.

Activity of language media, developing animation content, reviewing television content, ways to spellbound audiences, using new age technology in animation, entertainment financing and reviewing the gaming sector would also be part of the discussions.

Ficci-Frames will honour excellence in animation, visual effects and gaming segments of the entertainment industry through the FICCI-BAF Awards 2008. Presented by Autodesk, the awards will be in the categories of best animated feature film, animated short film, animated TV episode, animated ad film, animated promos, PC games, console games, mobile gaming, best VFX in a motion picture, best VFX in a TV episode, best VFX in a commercial, best VFX in a music video, best VFX shot of the year, animated film on social welfare, best online game of the year and outstanding original Indian content in animation, gaming & VFX.



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Mar

25

Tata Motors forms team to cut cost of Nano

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Tata Motors has formed a team to look into ways of cutting the cost of its Rs 1 lakh car, Nano.

Tata Motors MD Ravi Kant said that we had formed a team. The input costs had gone up .

Tata Motors has formed a team at its plant in Pune.Nano’s ex-factory price is Rs 1 lakh, making it the world’s cheapest car.

Nano would be manufactured at the company’s upcoming facility in Singur, West Bengal and is expected to roll out from the factory in October.Bookings for Nano are expected to start three-months from now.

As part of phase I, Tata Motors would manufacture 2.5 lakh Nanos and in phase II it would increase up its facility in Singur to 1 lakh more.

Ravi Kant ruled out the possibility of Nano being made in the company’s Ranjangaon factory in Pune. At Pune, Tatas and Fiat have 50:50 joint venture manufacturing plant.

Today both the players announced that they are ramping up facility in Pune.



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