New Delhi, May 9
The government will raise at least Rs 2,250 crore for selling its residual stake in the country's top carmaker Maruti Udyog Ltd (MUL) to banks and financial institutions, as it has fixed a floor price of Rs 760 a share.

As many as 36 banks, financial institutions and mutual funds have expressed interest in buying the stake. These include LIC, SBI, Corporation Bank and Union Bank of India, a government official told reporters here.

"We hope to complete the sale by tomorrow," he said.

The government will sell 2.96 crore shares, representing 10.27 per cent stake in Maruti.

Maruti's share was trading at Rs 802.05, up Rs 0.02 per cent from the yesterday's close.

According to sources, the bids were to be opened today, but it was postponed for tomorrow as heavy industry minister Santosh Mohan Deb, whose ministry holds the stake, was away in Guwahati.

The government had invited Expressions of Interest (EoI) for the stake in February, but deferred selling due to volatility in stock markets. The other reason for the delay was that the government was awaiting Suzuki's nod on whether LIC could be allowed to increase its holding beyond 10 per cent.

With Suzuki giving a go ahead, LIC would be able to participate in the sale aggressively.

LIC already holds over 8 per cent stake after buying more than half of the shares sold by the government last year. When government sold 8 per cent shares in Maruti, it had put a condition that no financial institution would be allowed to increase its stake beyond 10 per cent through participation in the disinvestment process. — PTI

New Delhi, May 9
GAIL plans to invest about Rs 25,000 crore in laying new pipelines and expanding petrochemical business during the next five years.

GAIL director (finance) R K Goel said "Out of the total capex, Rs 10,000 crore will be funded from internal resources and the remaining Rs 15,000 crore will be borrowed from domestic and overseas market."

GAIL's current debt-equity ratio of 0.12:1 will help leverage debt for the expansion projects. "We are getting ourself rated. Moody's Hong Kong is rating us and once that comes, foreign debt will be easier," he said.

The company will invest Rs 2,744 crore during current fiscal - Rs 1,761 crore in laying new gas pipelines, Rs 146 crore in petrochemicals, Rs 500 crore in oil and gas exploration and Rs 268 crore in new projects.

"Next year, the capex will be around Rs 6,000 crore and we may borrow Rs 2,500 crore toward the end of the current fiscal to meet part of that requirement," he said.

The state-run gas transporter may raise as much as 60 per cent of the planned borrowings overseas while the remaining would be domestic debt.

GAIL is in talks with US energy major Exxon for importing 5 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) at Dabhol, company chairman U.D. Choubey told a news conference here today.

"We have been mandated to source LNG for Dabhol power plant, for which we are in talks to import the fuel from Australia and Algeria," he said.

The company is talking to Exxon for importing LNG from its Gorgon project in Australia, and with Sonatrach for imports from Algeria, he said.

Meanwhile, GAIL’s net profit for the financial year 2006-07 went up marginally to Rs 2,387 crore against Rs 2,310 crore a year ago while its Q4 profit went up by 67 per cent due to overall increase in natural gas business. The increase in turnover was achieved despite the fact that gas supply was affected for about one month in the second quarter during 2006-07 due to floods in Hazira, Gujarat.

London/Beijing, May 9
UK's telecom giant Vodafone has paid a discounted price of $10.9 billion in cash for Indian mobile firm Hutch-Essar to complete a deal that gives it access to one of the fastest growing mobile markets to counter saturation in European markets.

The final price represents a reduction of $180 million from the originally agreed price of $11.08 billion, which reflects retention and closing adjustments as agreed with seller Hutchison Telecom.

The adjustments include provisions for a previously announced settlement pact with Indian partner Essar.

"I am delighted that, having secured all necessary regulatory approvals, we are now able to complete this important transaction and move onto the process of integration," Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin said.

"The transaction was completed yesterday," Hong Kong-based Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd (HTIL), which sold its entire stake in the company, said in a release.

The stage is now set for Vodafone to start its operations in India, which is witnessing an addition of five million new mobile subscribers every month. Hutch-Essar will become Vodafone-Essar over a period of time.

The estimated pre-tax gain from the sale is expected to be approximately $9 billion to HTIL.

The adjustments also include $352 million retention by Vodafone toward cost and expenses associated with the transactions.

The net cash inflow to HTIL before payment of the settlement amount is about $10.83 billion.

HTIL is expected to declare a special dividend of $ (HK) 6.75 per share following the completion of the necessary formalities.

Vodafone acquired 52 per cent direct stake of HTIL in Hutch-Essar, while Indian partner Essar holds 33 per cent and three minority shareholders the remaining 15 per cent. — PTI

Mumbai, May 9
Ranbaxy Group company Fortis Healthcare is targeting a pan-India presence with plans to set up 40 super-speciality hospitals by 2010.

"We plan to have 40 hospitals with 6,000-bed capacity by 2010," Fortis Healthcare CEO and managing director Shivinder M Singh said here today after his company's listing on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).

At present, the company has all-India capacity of about 2,000 beds.

As part of its greenfield projects, it will be launching a hospital in Jaipur on June 2, followed by greenfield facility in New Delhi and Medicity at Gurgaon in the next phase.

"Fortis has aggressive expansion plans...after remaining focused on north India, we plan to expand elsewhere and Mumbai will be the next location," Ranbaxy Laboratories CEO and managing director Malvinder Mohan Singh said.

The company's first hospital in Mumbai will come up at Vashi in neighbouring Navi Mumbai in the next two-three months, Shivinder said.

Talking about the huge growth opportunities in the healthcare sector, Malvinder said, "The Indian healthcare industry has grown to around $30 billion right now as compared to $20 billion in 2001 and is expected to be worth 40 billion dollars by 2012."

When asked about international expansion plans, Shivinder said, "Fortis has a polyclinic in Kuwait and a heart command centre in Afghanistan but right now the focus is on domestic expansion." The average cost per bed for developing a greenfield hospital is between Rs 30 to 60 lakh, he said.

The company is working on the hub and spoke model, where hospitals in various cities are networked with each other, he said.

The IPO of Fortis Healthcare was oversubscribed 2.78 times with bids for over 12.74 crore shares against about 4.57 crore shares offered in the public issue. — PTI

Tiruchirapalli, May 9
Indicating a stable growth performance, Information Technology major Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has said it would recruit 32,000 employees this fiscal.

The head strategy, K. Karthikeyan, Planning and Operational Excellence, said the company recruited 32,000 professionals in the last financial year which would be repeated in the current fiscal too.

Of the 32,000 personnel planned for recruitment, 50 per cent would be freshers from engineering, arts and science colleges and the rest would be ones having experience.

As many as 19,000 professionals were recruited last year at the Chennai branch while an addition of 6,000 is planned this year.

The company’s upcoming facility coming up at Siruseri near Chennai is scheduled for completion in six phases. — PTI

New Delhi, May 9
The country’s IT exports have grown at 38.28 per cent to touch Rs 1,58,500 crore during 2006-07, according to an estimate by the Electronic and Computer Software Export Promotion Council (ESC).

The ESC chairman, Sanjiv Narayan, said in a statement that computer software and services were the key drivers with a 40 per cent growth at Rs 1,05,000 crore during the period as against Rs 75,000 crore in the same period last year. ITeS exports during 2006-07 increased to Rs 41,000 crore, up from Rs 30,000 crore in the previous year, registering a growth of 36.67 per cent. — PTI

New York, May 9
NRI business tycoon Lakshmi Mittal-led Arcelor Mittal, the world’s largest steel maker, is looking to acquire US-based rival AK Steel for about $4.5 billion, media reports said here.

Mittal’s offer values Ohio-based AK Steel at $40 per share, the British daily Financial Times reported on its FT Alphaville website, without disclosing any sources.

AK Steel, a Fortune 500 company, is best known for making armco barriers installed around Formula One racing tracks.

The shares of AK Steel rose by 3.5 per cent in New York to $32 yesterday as the news about the impending deal apparently leaked out to the market, the report said.

When contacted, an Arcelor-Mittal spokesperson said, “It is a company policy not to comment on this sort of market speculations.”

AK Steel reported $1.72 billion sales for the first quarter this year, as against $1.44 billion last year.

The deal, if successful, would follow a $38 billion takeover of Luxembourg-based Arcelor by Mittal Steel last year.

An intense consolidation process is going on in the global steel space since the Mittal-Arcelor deal, with transactions like $12 billion acquisition of Corus by Tata Steel. — PTI

Chandigarh, May 9
Leh Berry Minerals aims to get a 5 per cent share by the year-end in the Rs 100-crore mineral water market. The company will initially market the water in the country and begin its exports next year.

This was stated by M.S. Dhanota, president and COO of Seabuckthorn Indage Ltd, after the launch of Mountain Spring — the natural mineral water made by the company. “The total bottled water industry in the country is worth Rs 1000 crore, of which 10 per cent is the mineral water industry. By the end of this year, we hope to capture a 5 per cent share in the market,” he said.

Leh Berry Minerals , a unit of Compact International Limited, has also signed agreements to set up offices in the UK and Dubai. “We will also be expanding our manufacturing facilities in Bhutan, Nepal and Sri Lanka,” he said.

The company has set up a manufacturing facility at Paonta Sahib in Himachal Pradesh with an investment of Rs 3.50 crore and has a capacity of 1 lakh litres of mineral water per day.

Dhanota also said they were planning to have 14,000 outlets for selling mineral water this year. As part of their distribution network expansion, the company has tied up for co branding with Café Coffee Day, which has given them access to 1,200 outlets across the country.

Mumbai, May 9
Drugmaker Lupin has reported close to three-fold growth in net profit to Rs 137.08 crore for the three months ended March 31, 2007, compared to Rs 50.19 crore in the year-ago period.

Total income (net of excise) of the pharmaceutical firm rose nearly 40 per cent to Rs 646.40 crore for the fourth quarter, against Rs 463.02 crore in the same period a year ago, Lupin informed the BSE.