Kolkata Economy and Real Estate Thread

[IchimaruGin1]

I hope to discuss and update the commercial happening around the Kolkata Metropolitan area.

[IchimaruGin1]

Ambuja Realty to set up three IT parks in Kolkata

Ambuja Realty to set up three IT parks in Kolkata

KOLKATA: Kolkata-based Ambuja Realty plans to invest over Rs 300 crore to set up three business parks in the city. While two such parks will come
up in the city's IT hub-Salt Lake Sector V-Ambuja has plans to set up the third one in Rajarhat in the eastern fringes of Kolkata.

Plans are also afoot to set up office space in Siliguri, Patna and Raipur. Ambuja Realty chairman Harshavardhan Neotia on Thursday said the company plans to start construction of new projects in couple of months. "We are in the process of receiving the necessary approvals. All the projects will be ready for possession within three years," he added.

While Ambuja plans to invest Rs 200 crore for a 5-lakh sq ft business park in Salt Lake, the second project will be set up over 1.5 lakh sq ft and will entail an investment of around Rs 60 crore. On the other hand, the Rajarhat project (1.2 lakh sq ft) is coming close to the group's existing shopping mall, City Centre II, and will bear an investment of around Rs 35 crore.

"While we will definitely target the IT sector for leasing out and sell out of space, but the parks will be designed in a way which will have appeal for all the sectors. At the same time, we plan to set up office space in three of our upcoming mixed development projects in Siliguri, Patna and Raipur," said Mr Neotia.

Ambuja Realty on Thursday announced the launch of the second phase of the group's first business park, Ecospace, in Rajarhat. The second phase comprising of two blocks will have a saleable area of 4.5 lakh sq ft. The entire project is spread over 10 lakh sq ft. Already 85% of the area in the first phase is leased or sold out to the likes of Bajaj Allianz, HDFC Bank, Voith, Thyssenkrupp, Indus Towers and Bayer Corp. "Of the total project cost of Rs 300 crore, we have already invested Rs 200 crore in Ecospace. The project will be completely ready by April 2010."

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/...ow/5674392.cms

[IchimaruGin1]

PwC bullish on Kolkata

Kolkata: India’s largest audit firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is growing its business in the country with Kolkata at the heart of it.

As PwC in India becomes more tuned to our global operations, said PwC chairman Gautam Banerjee, who was anointed head of the firm in December to help the firm tide over the Satyam crisis, the Kolkata practice will expand.

“Our experience has been good. Kolkata is very competitive, it has a good talent pool and the cost arbitrage is quite compelling compared to other places like Bangalore,” Banerjee said. PwC which has close to 2,000 people here wants to add 3,000 more jobs over two years. “We will begin the ramp-up from July 1,” he added.

“The Kolkata practice for instance has more touchpoints with the global firm. As we do more of our global work in India, Kolkata which already does shared services in India will get more work,” he said. PwC has a historical connect with the city, because the firm opened its first office here in 1880.

That PwC is taking India seriously is evident from the fact that global chairman Dennis M Nally is visiting Kolkata on Saturday, his third to the country in a year. It also wants to put Satyam behind it, said Banerjee, pointing out that the firm was taking extra steps to reassure clients.

http://www.financialexpress.com/news...olkata/591839/

[sidney_jec]

nice thread Ichi

[IchimaruGin1]

Originally Posted by sidney_jec

nice thread Ichi

cheers

its my goal to start it for the top 6 indian cities.

Coal India to have new corporate office in New Town

KOLKATA: State-owned Coal India Ltd would have its new corporate headquarters at New Town while its current office would be turned into a museum.

Minister for Coal Sriprakash Jaiswal today laid the foundation stone for the new corporate office of CIL at the upcoming New Town in the north eastern region of the metropolis.

Speaking on the occasion he said that CIL should emerge as the biggest PSU in the country. CIL chairman Partha S Bhattacharyya said that present building in which the company was located was cramped and was gradually becoming unsafe.

"So, the need arose to shift our headquarters to New Town on a sprawling 15 acre area. The state-of-the-art new office complex will be constructed by NBCC at an estimated coast of Rs 126 crore," he said.

CIL Director (Technical) N C Jha said that the present century-old building in the busy B B D Bag area, would be converted to a museum depicting 200 years of coal mining in the country.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/...ow/5604596.cms

[avishar]

Does anyone have any renders for Coal Indian HQ?

[IchimaruGin1]

CSE index marginally down this week

KOLKATA: The Calcutta Stock Exchange (CSE) lost ground marginally moving in a narrow range during the week.

The benchmark index CSE-40 was down 10.91 points during the week. It had gained 301.43 points in the previous week.

The index opened at 7,191.11 and after touching an intra-week high of 7,207.64 closed the week at 7,180.17 points.

Blueprint Securities ended the week at Rs 305.80, Larsen & Toubro at Rs 1,607.10 and Tata steel at Rs 608.30.

While Reliance Industries closed up at Rs 1,025.95, State Bank of India slipped to Rs 2,046.70. — PTI

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/...s/32131201.htm

[fred_the_cute_guy]

Nice thread to start.

On this note, does someone have a list of some of the important headquarters of industries and organizations of national and international importance located in Kolkata?

For example:
Banking:
Allahabad Bank - Corporate Headquarters
State Bank of India - Foreign Currency Exchange

Mining:
Coal India - Headquarters

And so on - to add to this list. And for Real Estate, list of Kolkata-based firms that have sufficient national presence would be nice.

[IchimaruGin1]

Originally Posted by fred_the_cute_guy

Nice thread to start.

On this note, does someone have a list of some of the important headquarters of industries and organizations of national and international importance located in Kolkata?

For example:
Banking:
Allahabad Bank - Corporate Headquarters
State Bank of India - Foreign Currency Exchange

Mining:
Coal India - Headquarters

And so on - to add to this list. And for Real Estate, list of Kolkata-based firms that have sufficient national presence would be nice.

why dont we ask sun to edit the opening post and add all the stuff?

I got this off the wiki

Some notable companies Headquartered in Kolkata include ITC Limited, Bata India, India Govt. Mint, Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd., Britannia Industries, Birla Corporation, Coal India Limited, Development Consultants Group (DC Group), Damodar Valley Corporation, Hindustan Motors, Bengal Peerless, Usha Martin, Jai Balaji group, Orient Airways, Exide Industries, Berger Paints India Ltd, CESC Limited, Emami Ltd. and National Insurance Company.

[IchimaruGin1]

IOC’s Haldia unit to boost margins

Kolkata,: Indian Oil Corporation’s (IOC) Haldia refinery expects to earn higher operational margins with the commissioning of the Rs 2,869-crore hydro cracker unit as well as the Rs 1,180-crore Haldia-Paradip pipeline.

An IOC official told FE that the margin is expected to go up by $2 per barrel of crude refined and IOC is likely to feel its impact in the coming quarter of the next fiscal.

The project work for a hydro cracker unit, which started in October 2006, was conceived as an Rs 1,400-crore project after it got the board clearance in 2005.

In fact, the oil PSU doesn’t divulge refinery-wise financial data but according to an official, the Haldia refinery has been one of IOC’s profit-making units and accounts for more than 15% of its total business. IOC operates 10 refineries across the country.

IOC’s executive director (Haldia refinery) AK Ray said ‘‘once through hydro cracker unit’’, comprising a hydrogen unit, sulphur recovery unit and revamp crude distillation unit, has upgraded the Haldia refinery’s products to Euro-IV grade.

According to a Supreme Court directive, all metro cities in India are supposed to use Euro-IV grade fuel from January 2010 and the entire country by 2011. Haldia refinery has been the first among all refineries in the country to produce Euro-IV grade fuel with its hydro cracker unit commissioned in February 26, an official said.

The unit will increase the distillate yield by 5-6% while augmenting the overall refining capacity from

6 mt to 7.5 mt per annum. This would help in increasing the refining margin by $1 per barrel, he added. Haldia refinery currently refines 150,000 barrels a day.

The Rs 1,178-crore subsurface 330 km pipeline, which was commissioned in November last year, has been giving IOC a refining margin of Rs 50 per barrel of crude refined, whose impact the company has been getting in balance sheets from the fourth quarter of 2009-2010 fiscal.

Another Rs 1,800-crore delayed coker unit, which has already got the board clearance and is now waiting Cabinet clearance, is further expected to increase the refining margin by at least another dollar, the official said.

http://www.financialexpress.com/news...argins/592292/

[IchimaruGin1]

Bill for corporation drainage tax

The state government wants to empower the Calcutta Municipal Corporation to impose a drainage development fee on new buildings.

The government will introduce a bill to that effect in the Assembly this week.

The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (amendment) Bill says “every person who intends to erect a building shall apply for sanction” together “with such fees, including drainage development fee”.

The bill also seeks to empower the CMC to assess and recover suo motu property tax of the premises whose owners have not submitted returns within the deadline. Mandatory disclosure of the financial transactions of the civic body is another highlight of the bill.

The government will also table the New Town Kolkata Development Authority (amendment) Bill, which seeks to levy tax on commercial advertisements in the upcoming Rajarhat township. The proceeds will be spent on infrastructure development.

The bill, however, exempts political parties and their “mass organisations” from paying the tax for their “non-commercial advertisements”. They will also not have to seek the civic body’s permission for putting up such advertisements. Written consent letters from the owners will do.

Though the Rajarhat township is yet to be covered by any formal municipal body, the bill empowers the New Town Kolkata Development Authority to collect the tax.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/110031...y_12224479.jsp

[sidney_jec]

PwC, Ernst and Young too have their country head offices in Kolkata

[IchimaruGin1]

Shree Ganesh to set up 2 gold refineries

Kolkata-based gold jewellery maker, Shree Ganesh Jewellery House, plans to set up two scrap gold refineries at its proposed jewellery making facilities in Mandalpada and Donjur near Kolkata. The combined investment in the two projects, each of which will have a small capacity of one-two tonnes, is estimated at Rs 90 crore.

Primarily, these refineries will process scrap gold jewellery collected from all the company’s 10 retail shops to produce pure gold. The capacities will be expanded later to process the additional scrap gold expected from a proposed 40 additional shops to be set up in two years. The company also plans to expand its retail presence across all Tier-I and -II cities and has earmarked Rs 50 crore for the exercise.

Additionally, the company, which is entering the capital market on Friday to raise Rs 360 crore, proposes to expand its manufacturing base in Manikanchan Special Economic Zone (SEZ) with an investment of Rs 56 crore.

When pointed out that other refineries are operating at 35-40 per cent of their capacities, Managing Director Umesh Parekh said the company would process scrap sourced from its own retail shops and serve them. The process would add at least three-five per cent to the company’s bottom line in two years, he said.

Shree Ganesh Jewellery exports to three major gold jewellery consuming markets – Hong Kong, Singapore and Dubai – that account for 90 per cent of the company’s turnover. Retail operations contribute five per cent of the Rs 2,150-crore annual turnover and, hence, has a lot of room for expansion. Retail shops will facilitate as scrap collection centres, buying the yellow metal at the prevailing market price. The company is currently focusing on the setting up of purity checking machines at each of its sales points so that sellers will get the correct value of their gold.

http://sify.com/finance/shree-ganesh...sbO5gfgcd.html

[IchimaruGin1]

IntraSoft IPO priced Rs 137-145 per share; opens Mar 23

IntraSoft Technologies Ltd has priced its initial public offer of 37,00,000 equity shares of face value Rs 10 each in the Rs 137 to Rs

145 per share band. The issue opens on March 23, and will close on March 26.

The company will raise Rs 50.69 crores at the lower end of the price band, which is 13.7 times the face value, and mop up Rs 53.65 crores at the upper end, which is 14.5 times the face value. The issue constitutes 25.12% of the post issue paid up capital.
At least 50% of the book build issue will be reserved for QIBs; not less than 15% reserved for non-institutional bidders and 35% reserved for retail individual bidders.

IntraSoft plans to fund the company’s requirements for branding & promotion, purchasing a corporate office in Kolkata, and investment in technology infrastructure from the issue proceeds.

CARE has assigned IPO Grade 3 to the IPO, indicating average fundamentals

.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/...ow/5700674.cms

[SarafIndian]

German engineering company mulls unit in city

Udit Prasanna Mukherji

Times of India

Maschinenfabrik Herkules Group of Germany — has decided to set up its first South Asian manufacturing facility in the state.
Rollshop equipment finds use in a variety of industries which include steel, auto, paper, and shipbuilding. Headquartered in Siegen, Herkules is one of the oldest engineering groups in Germany. It has floated a wholly owned subsidiary called Deutsche Maschinen India Pvt Ltd (DMI) for starting manufacturing activities in India.
DMI director P K Mazumdar told TOI that the company has acquired an unit of a local firm called Gloria Engineering to establish its manufacturing footprint in South Asia. “Our unit is in Gangarampur Road near Maheshtala on the outskirts of Kolkata. The unit will be inaugurated by the global chairman of Herkules group, Christoph Thoma,” he said.
The German firm counts Tata Steel, Hindalco, HAL, BILT, ITC, JSW and the B K Birla Group among its Indian clients. Besides, it has customers in Bangladesh who would now be catered to from the Bengal unit.

[fred_the_cute_guy]

Originally Posted by IchimaruGin1

why dont we ask sun to edit the opening post and add all the stuff?

I got this off the wiki

Excellent thought. The first post can be used as a place holder and expanded. Would you in fact want to add back some of the information you got from Wikipedia etc when you get a chance? That way, it may become a 1-stop thread for reference of the reviving Kolkata's industrial position.

[IchimaruGin1]

Apollo won’t sell stake to Parkway

India’s largest healthcare group, Apollo Hospitals, has ruled out selling its stake in the seven-year-old Apollo Gleneagles Hospitals, a 50-50 joint venture with Parkway Health of Singapore. Interestingly, Kolkata-based, 425-bed Apollo Gleneagles has now come under Fortis following its acquisition of 24% stake in Parkway Holdings, a few days back.

“Apollo Hospitals is ready to work with Fortis, but is also ready to acquire the Parkway stake if the latter comes forward to sell the same in the Kolkata venture,” said Prathap C Reddy, chairman, Apollo Hospitals group.

“West Bengal in general and Kolkata in particular are our major thrust areas and we are committed to serve the people of this region with our quality services in a most cost-competitive manner”, Reddy maintained.

http://www.financialexpress.com/news...arkway/591174/

[IchimaruGin1]

Airtel country’s largest mobile operator has come up with a competitive onnet tariff packs for its customers in Kolkata.

Airtel seems to be ushering new offers every week in Kolkata and RoWB. Yet again they have launched a new offer all the Night birds can now talk freely with the new pack priced at Rs.56 offers a whooping 560 On-net minutes which can be used between 11pm-7am.

The pack can be recharged through E-recharge option and come with zero talktime. The free minutes is valid only A2A calls at night and will be valid for 30 days.

http://telecomtalk.info/airtel-kolka...et-pack/22444/

[IchimaruGin1]

Afcons bags 938 cr KMRC deal

Kolkata Mar 20 (IBNS) Afcons Infrastructure Ltd., the infrastructure arm of Shapoorji Pallonji Group, had bagged a Rs 938 crore ($206 million) deal from Kolkata Metro Railway Corporation through competitive bidding.

On Saturday, the company said that in an integrated joint venture with Transtonnelstroy Limited of Russia, Afcons will design and construct the Underground Metro from Howrah Maidan station to Central Station which will be part of the East West Metro Project in Kolkata.

The project is to be completed in 4 years time and also includes the construction of three stations at Howrah Maidan, Howrah Railway Station and Writers' Building and one crossover at Howrah Maidan.

Director (Transportation), Afcons Infrastructure Ltd, R. V. Ramanan said, "We are very happy to get ourselves associated with the Kolkata Metro Corporation through this order."

"This is the first time India a transportation tunnel project is running approximately 20 metres below a river and hence challenging. The project will be a boon to commuters travelling from Howrah to Kolkata city" he added.

According to company sources, primary work has already been initiated and boring is is to begin in January 2011 with planned rate of drilling being at 50 metres a week or 300 metres a month.

Twin bored tunnels of a total length of 2954 metres and 5.4 metres in diameter each will be drilled of which approximately 520 metres will go about 20 metres beneath the River Hooghly.

Due to the nature of the soil, a method called the Earth Pressure Balancing Method (EPBM) will be used by the Tunnel Boring Machines (TBM) to drill through the earth.

At it's peak, the project will employ about 800 people.

Afcons has earlier worked on the the tunnelling of the North-South Kolkata Metro in the late eighties and has been in the in the construction and civil engineering industry for five decades.

Having completed much of the subway and underground railway in many Russian cities , Transtonnelstroy too has extensive experience in the tunnelling industry.

The final deal was signed by Sumanta Choudhury, MD, Kolkata Metro Railway Corporation and R. V. Ramanan.

http://www.indiablooms.com/BusinessD...ils200310a.php

[IchimaruGin1]

Apollo Hospitals opens cancer hospital in Kolkata

In continuation of our journey towards our pledge for meaningful contribution to the community, Apollo Gleneagles Cancer Hospital will be inaugurated on March 23, 2010. Apollo Gleneagles Cancer Hospital is Eastern India's first comprehensive cancer care hospital which is equipped with the latest radiotherapy - Novalis Tx Unit, Chemo-therapy Unit, Onco-Surgical Unit, Bone Marrow Transplant Unit with specialized wards.

Apollo Gleneagles Cancer Hospital will be inaugurated by His Excellency Shri M. K. Narayanan, Governor of West Bengal in presence of Shri Dinesh Trivedi, Union Minister of State for Health & Family Welfare and Dr Surjya Kanta Mishra, Minister of Health & Family Welfare, West Bengal, presided by Dr Prathap C Reddy, Chairman - Apollo Group of Hospitals.

From now, everyday Apollo Gleneagles Cancer Care team reaffirms its focus on winning the many battles in the war against Cancer in Eastern India.

http://www.indiaprwire.com/pressrele...0032246242.htm