Hyderabad Small & Large scale Industries updates

[Gudavalli]

iHomes Launches a New Website

Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh -- (SBWIRE) -- 08/29/2012 -- iHomes, a Hyderabad based interior design and architecture company gets a new website, http://www.ihomesinteriors.com. This website will be helpful for the people who wish to be customers of this company.

iHomes is an interior designing company that also specializes as an architecture firm. It provides for cost- effective interior design courses that are also high quality and unique. They work with the clients to find unique interior design solutions for the client. Since its inception in 2007, the company has launched a lot of successful projects around the country.

They offer a lot of important services through which a person can lay the outline of their house and enhance it as well. They provide people with residential as well as commercial interior design, including floor plan, furniture design, lighting concepts, wall design, bathroom and kitchen design etc. They do provide modular kitchen services that are affordable and also ergonomic. The modular kitchen would be of high quality and provide optimal space for storage as well. Woodworking services are also offered- the kind of woodwork will be determined by the person’s personal choice. Woodwork for cabinets, beds, floorings wardrobes etc. is done.

All of this are related to residential areas. The company does provide interior design services for commercial areas as well. Corporate interior design would have to be done differently, to suit the needs of companies and not residences. The company offers interior design solutions for retail, hospitality and commercial institutions. They do workspace planning, modular workspaces, networking, filing and storage solutions, air conditioning solution, security systems, reception furniture, etc.

People who are interested in getting any of the services offered by the iHomes company can get in touch with the company as soon as they can. They will be able to discuss their options with the company, to come up with the interior design company they want. They do make good designs and implement it well as well, so people who are looking for good interior design companies in Hyderabad have come to the right place. Get in touch with http://www.ihomesinteriors.com.

[Gudavalli]

Tech Mahindra shares fall on BT stake sale; Satyam loses 1.93%

London / Mumbai / Hyderabad: Shares of Tech Mahindra tumbled on Thursday after BT Group Plc sold part of its stake in the computer services company to institutional investors, raising Rs. 1,390 crore, and said it may sell more.

Tech Mahindra fell 5.2% to Rs. 792.15 on BSE on a day the benchmark Sensex rose 0.29% to 17,541.64 points.

The UK’s largest fixed-line phone company sold a 14.1% stake, or 17.9 million shares, in Tech Mahindra at an average price of Rs. 777.73 per share, BT said in a statement on Thursday.

Tech Mahindra’s campus in Pune. Photo: Hemant Mishra/Mint
BT, which said Tech Mahindra will remain a key supplier to the company, now holds 9.1% of the software company. BT sold a 5.5% stake in Tech Mahindra to automobile maker Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd in December 2010 for Rs. 450 crore.
Credit Suisse Group AG and JPMorgan Chase and Co. managed the sale, said a person with knowledge of the matter, who declined to be named because the information wasn’t public.

A Tech Mahindra spokesperson declined to comment.

BT’s exit will not affect the business of Tech Mahindra “as this was on the cards for a long time”, said Ankita Somani, analyst, information technology and telecom, Angel Broking Ltd. BT is a major customer for Tech Mahindra. The net value of services purchased by BT from Tech Mahindra in the fiscal ended March 2011 was £258 million, and £301 million in the year prior.

“BT used to contribute around 35% to overall Tech Mahindra’s revenues, but since the last one year, growth in this segment has been flat,” Somani said. “Growth for Tech Mahindra is coming from non-BT business so we do not see any impact on existing operations of Tech Mahindra.”

The share prices of Satyam Computer Services Ltd, in which Tech Mahindra holds a 42.64% stake, also fell 1.93% to Rs. 93.95 following reports that a $125 million class-action suit that the firm had settled in a US district court in February 2011 was taxable in India.

The Authority for Advanced Rulings on 27 August said Satyam will have to deduct 30% of the total amount.

Tech Mahindra is merging Satyam with itself, buying the remaining stake in the Hyderabad-based firm in an all-stock transaction.

A Satyam spokesperson declined to comment on the matter. The settlement amount had been deposited in an escrow account (typically money held by a third party on behalf of the transacting entities), Satyam said in its annual report.

“The balance amount of $101 million (equivalent to Rs. 451.53 crore) would be remitted to the class members after the determination of the applicability of withholding tax by the Authority For Advanced Rulings,” the company said while announcing annual results for 2012-13 on 17 May.

Another settlement Satyam reached with Upaid Systems Ltd in the US for $70 million was also taxed. Satyam paid $59 million plus interest to Upaid in February 2012, deducting applicable withholding taxes in India.

Satyam can appeal against taxes imposed on the class-action suit, according to Gaurang Shah, assistant vice-president at Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services Ltd, a brokerage.

Somani said if the class action law suit settlement was taxable, “there will be an outgo of cash from Satyam and Tech Mahindra. A one-time hit on the profitability cannot be ruled out.”

“Currently, we are just seeing a knee-jerk reaction on the stock which is slightly negative for shareholders,” she said. “Long-term operations continue to remain intact.”

[Gudavalli]

New initiative to train tribal farmers to boost oilseeds production

HYDERABAD, AUG 31:
In an effort to boost oilseeds production, an initiative to train tribal farmers has been launched by the Directorate of Oilseed Research, Hyderabad.

A tribal sub plan has been firmed up recently. The emphasis is on taking tribal farmers to farms and laboratories to expose them to improved production technologies.

To begin with castor has been taken up, said K.S. Varaprasad, Project Director of the Directorate.

The objective is to enhance the income-levels of the tribal families. Select villages in Andhra Pradesh and some tribal villages in the country have been involved in the project.

The Hyderabad-based Directorate under the Indian Council of Agricultural Research is focussed on castor, sunflower and safflower production. It has come up with a wide range of varieties that are being cultivated across the country.

To further popularise some of these technologies among farmers, the Directorate is organising a farmer’s day on September 2 at its campus. Queries of farmers would be answered by scientists and state government agriculture officials.

An exhibition of inputs, equipment and seed, with the participation of private companies has also been planned, he said.

The country’s oilseeds production is set to touch 30 million tonnes during the year 2011-12 as per indications, the Oilseed Research Directorate said in a press release.

The production stood at 25.45 million tonnes in 2010-11. Bulk of this came from groundnut (5.8 mt), rapeseed mustard (7.1 mt) and soyabean (9.5 mt).

India is among the largest producers of oilseeds in the world. The present monsoon deficit across the country may hit the oilseeds and pulses crops, says the Agriculture Ministry.

[sriece19]

Morf India plans to expand in South

HYDERABAD, AUG. 31:
Morf India Limited plans to expand its presence in South India with its new range of water purifiers marketed under the licensing agreement with Electrolux Home Products.

These are marketed under the Kelvinator range of home appliances. This enables the company to have access to a large network of channel partners.

The company, which offers customised water and sewerage treatment solutions and markets water purifiers, is looking at fund infusion to meet its next phase of expansion. "We plan to spread our presence in the South Indian states by the year end and then go pan India," M V Praveen, Managing Director of Morf India, said.

Addressing a press conference here after the introduction of their products here, he said that the water treatment business in the country is posed to grow by five times to about $5 billion by 2015-16 offering immense scope to offer both customised solutions and mass produced water treatment products.

The company introduced its first model of Kelvinator water purifiers in Chennai in June and plans to add more products as it steps out to new markets.

"We plan to bring out new water treatment products every six months and are set to invest additional funds to meet this requirement," he said.

"As a part of the company’s fund-infusion plan, we are in talks with couple of private equity players and expect to close the deal by December this year. We may also consider part divestment of stake at a later date to the partner," he said.

[Gudavalli]

Technology, the wealth for health

Hyderabad-based Apollo Hospitals Group will set up 10 telemedicine clinics abroad. At the ‘3rd International Conference on Transforming Healthcare with Information Technology’ on Friday, Group Chairman Prathap C Reddy said the proposed telemedicine clinics would come up in Ghana, Nigeria, Oman and Abu Dhabi, among others.

In the conference, K Ganapathy, president, Telemedicine Society of India, urged the Government of India to allow the private sector into the network of National Knowledge Network (NKN).

Telemedicine Programme is an innovative process of synergising benefits of satellite communication technology and information technology with biomedical engineering and medical sciences to deliver health care services to remote, distant and under-served regions of the country.

Providing healthcare to India’s over one billion population of which about 75 per cent live in villages, is a formidable task. About 75 per cent of the doctors practice in urban areas and 23 per cent in semi-urban areas. This leaves just 2 per cent of qualified doctors, who are attached to about 23,000 primary health and 3,000 community health centres, to attend to 70 per cent of the population living in villages!

The Hyderabad conference pointed out that 80 per cent of doctors live in urban areas, while 80 per cent of the population lived in rural areas and the challenge was to bridge this gap using technology.

To improve healthcare services in remote parts of the country, the Planning Commission has suggested adopting telemedicine by using software applications such as Skype in its report on health for the 12th Five-Year plan.

According to an article in the Business Standard in April 2012, the Indian telemedicine market is estimated to be $7.5 million and is expected to grow at a rate of around 20 per cent over the next five years. It is estimated that 1.5 lakh people are benefited through telemedicine every year.

In March 2012, Saudi Arabia sought the help of Bangalore’s Narayana Hrudayalaya (cardiac hospital) in setting up a telemedicine centre in Riyadh for providing remote healthcare to its citizens in the desert country.

In the village of Hari Ke Kalan, in Punjab, residents who bicycle to a new health clinic started there, can get an appointment with a physician appearing on a large-screen television beamed over broadband Internet. The clinic, built by a start-up called Healthpoint Services, is one of a network of eight ‘e-health points’ that the for-profit company has built in India as part of a growing effort by entrepreneurs to capitalise on the rapid expansion of cellular and broadband access in the developing parts of the world.

Chakrajmal village, in Bijnor district in Uttar Pradesh, got its first doctor in 2008. He was not based in the village, though. The villagers had access to the doctor via a telemedicine project launched by World Health Partners (WHP) to provide health care services to 1,000 villages in Uttar Pradesh’s Bijnor, Meerut and Muzaffarnagar districts. Gopi Gopalakrishnan, founder-president of WHP, is replicating this model in Bihar.

Telemedicine is a crucial element in the development of Africa healthcare services, where like other poor nations the ratios of doctors to patients are abysmal. As all towns and villages are accessible by cars, use of telemedicine saves time and lives.

Telemedicine and tele-health have the potential to increase access to care, improve quality of care and decrease costs. For instance, the American Telemedicine Association proposed a legislation that would expand telemedicine and save an estimated $186 million over the next 10 years.

Physicians should get more involved in telemedicine, enterprise software expert and former technology company executive Shahid Shah said on his Health IT Guy blog. And they don’t necessarily need expensive equipment to do so. For example, Shah noted, physicians can use widely available web meeting and online video tools to connect with patients in remote areas.

Availability, affordability and accessibility of healthcare can be bridged big time with the latest technology.

[Gudavalli]

Pennar bets big on pre-engineered buildings arm

Hyderabad-based Pennar Industries Limited (PIL) is betting big on its pre-engineered buildings subsidiary, which recorded over 68 per cent growth and contributed 20 per cent to the net revenues in 2011-12.

Last year, Pennar Engineered Building Systems (PEBS) executed 78 projects and posted revenues and net profit of Rs 279 crore and Rs 10.4 crore respectively.

PEBS executive director, PV Rao, told Business Standard that the subsidiary, engaged in design, fabrication and erection of pre-engineered steel buildings, had targeted a turnover of Rs 350 crore in the current year and Rs 1,000 crore in the next five years.
PEBS contribution to the Pennar group is going to be significant considering PIL’s gross sales and net profit during the first quarter of the current year declined 5.6 per cent and 43.8 per cent respectively. PIL recorded a turnover of Rs 329 crore and a net profit of Rs 10.9 crore in the quarter ended June 2012 as against a turnover of Rs 348.7 crore and a profit of Rs 19.4 crore posted during the same quarter in the previous year.

PEBS is now planning to construct a second plant in north India with an initial investment of Rs 50 crore. The capacity of the new plant is expected to be 30,000 tonnes per annum (tpa). Its existing plant in Hyderabad has a capacity of 90,000 tpa.

“Currently, we are not able to penetrate north as well as Gujarat markets in view of freight disadvantage. That is why we are planning to construct our second plant in Rajasthan or Gujarat. We are also looking for expansion through the inorganic route in the north,” Rao said.

According to Rao, transportation of material from its existing unit to the northern markets will cost about Rs 6,000 a tonne. Besides, it will take 7-10 days to send the material. Hence, the company cannot be competitive to execute works in north India.

Keeping this in view, PEBS is looking for industrial lands developed by government in the north for setting up a greenfield facility. The plant is most likely to be located in Gujarat, which has ports that facilitate exports. “Alternatively, we are also looking at suitable companies in Rajasthan and Gujarat for acquisition,” Rao said.

PEBS, which has a technical collaboration with the NCI Group of the US, is stated be having an engineering team comprising 25 experienced structural engineers.

“Our fundamental strength lies in our engineering capability and in our project execution capability,” Rao said, adding this was the reason behind PEBS having a blue-chip clientele within a short period of three years of its inception.

On Tuesday, PEBS clientele include L&T, UltraTech, ACC, ABB, Schneider Electric, Dr Reddy's, Bosch, Toyota, HCC and JSW. It is currently executing a 450,000-sft building for Reliance’s national distribution centre at Pune. L&T has rated PEBS as the preferred vendor for its projects across the country.

[Gudavalli]

Raju kin oppose Mahindra Satyam with Tech Mahindra merger

HYDERABAD: Justice Ramesh Ranganathan of the AP high court on Wednesday posted to two weeks hearing on the petitions filed by real estate companies floated by kin of Satyam founder Ramalinga Raju as well as that of the Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) which are opposing the amalgamation of Mahindra Satyam with Tech Mahindra.

The companies numbering 37 urged the court to reject the amalgamation as it did not say anything about how it would repay the Rs 1,230 crore loans advanced by them to the erstwhile Satyam Computers.

"Nor did it recognize us as unsecured creditors," the companies maintained. Mahendra Satyam management has been using the pretext of an alleged advise rendered by Enforcement Directorate and has been showing the same as 'Amounts Pending Investigation Suspense Account' though no such advise was rendered by the ED in reality, the companies maintained in their petition and urged the court to direct Mahendra Satyam to produce before the court any such letter written by ED. The Raju companies also sought a direction to MSat to conduct a meeting of its unsecured creditors and obtain their views on the amalgamation.

[Gudavalli]

Divi's Laboratories denies stake sale buzz

Hyderabad-based Divi’s Laboratories Limited has strongly denied the rumours of a promoters' stake sale in the company, saying there have been no talks on this either with Pfizer or any other entity.

This is the second time the company is in news in the last 10 days. It had to issue a clarification on a rumour about balance-sheet-related issues on August 28, the day when Divi's share price fell 4.52 per cent.

The company believes these to be the handiwork of some elements in the market.
On Wednesday, the market was abuzz with rumours that Pfizer was in talks to buy out promoters' stake in Divi's at Rs 1,450 a share. This is "totally unfounded," said L Kishore Babu, chief financial officer of the company.

The company's scrip on Wednesday closed Rs 8.35 higher at Rs 1,121.45, after touching the intra-day high of Rs 1,138.15 on the BSE.

"Promoters hold 53-54 per cent stake in the company, which has remained the same since 1995. Not a single share had been pledged and there is no obligation on the promoters' part to divest a single share to anyone," Kishore Babu told Business Standard.

The promoters strongly believe they will take the company to further heights, he said.

Founded in 1990, Divi's Laboratories has emerged as a strong player in the areas of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and advanced intermediaries, including custom manufacturing.

Divi's reported a top line of Rs 1,910.7 crore and a net profit of Rs 545.97 crore in the financial year 2011-12.

The company, in its last clarification on the alleged accounting issues, said it was financially comfortable with cash reserves of Rs 500 crore. "Promoters had not even touched their share of dividend amounting to Rs 200 crore, and have no reason to divest their stake," a company insider said.

[Gudavalli]

ECIL to back study on universe evolution

HYDERABAD: The Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL), Hyderabad, will contribute for studying the building blocks of matter and the evolution of universe. It will supply power converters to the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (Fair), an international science centre at Darmstadt near Frankfurt in Germany.

'Fair' is a highly sophisticated accelerator complex which will provide high-energy, precisely-tailored beams of antiprotons (the 'antimatter' versions of protons with opposite electric charge) and many kinds of ions (atoms with most of their electrons stripped away) at unprecedented quality and intensities.

On Saturday, a bilateral contract will be signed by Bose Institute, Kolkata and ECIL for supplying the power converters to 'Fair' in the presence of T Ramasami, secretary, department of science and technology. Bose Institute, Kolkata, founded by JC Bose, is an autonomous R&D institute under the department of science and technology. It

has been designated as the Indian shareholder in 'Fair' and is the nodal Indian institute for the management of 'Fair' programme.

The programme is supported through extra-mural fund at Bose Institute and is jointly implemented by Bose Institute and Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre, Kolkata along with many other R&D institutions and universities.

The 'Fair' facility in Germany consists of carefully designed configuration of interlinked machines for accelerating and storing high-quality beams and creating new particles by colliding or bombarding the beams on targets for a wide range of experiments.

'Fair' is being built through international collaboration for which India is a major partner. Other contributing nations include Austria, China, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Spain and Sweden.

India will be contributing around 36 million euros for 'Fair', which provides an opportunity for Indian scientists, engineers and industry to work in this unique high technology project.

ECIL which is a public sector enterprise under the department of atomic energy (DAE) provides cutting-edge technology solutions to atomic energy, defence, aerospace and homeland security sectors. The corporation has also provided equipment and services to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN ( European Organisation for Nuclear Research), General under CERN-DAE collaboration.

[Gudavalli]

Bartronics India wraps up reorganisation exercise

HYDERABAD: Beleaguered Hyderabad-based automatic identification and data capture (AIDC) solutions provider Bartronics India Limited on Friday said that it had completed the re-organisation process.

According to the company, the decision to reorganize its operations was taken to have clearly defined business lines and address efficiently the opportunities provided by each of these business units.

As part of the rejig, the loss-making listed Indian company has reorganized both its domestic and international operations. While the company's international operations are now headquartered out of Singapore, its American entity would now become a subsidiary of Bartronics Asia.

In addition to this, a separate subsidiary called Bartronics Global Solutions Limited has been set up as an off-shore development centre to cater to international operations, the company informed the bourses.

The company has revamped its Indian operations into Bartronics identification solutions division, Bartronics financial inclusion division and Bartronics e-governance division. While the identification solutions division would include the business of providing solutions using AIDC technologies along with manufacture of smart cards, the financial inclusion division will include all projects that the company has one in the field of financial inclusion, the company said, adding that the e-governance division would focus on e-governance projects.

Bartronics, which was set up in 1990 in Hyderabad as a bar code solutions provider, has been making losses over the past few quarters and has even extended its financial year 2011-12 by six months upto September 2012. The company posted a net loss of around Rs 26 crore for the quarter ended June 30, 2012, on a total income of Rs 100 crore as against profits of around Rs 31 crore during the quarter ended June 2011 on a total income of Rs 262.32 crore.

The company today designs technology enabled solutions across technology consulting, hardware and RFID tag manufacturing, custom software development, product engineering, systems integration as well as business process outsourcing and has a manufacturing facility at Medhal in Ranga Reddy district of Andhra Pradesh with a capacity to manufacture 100 million smart cards per annum. The Bartronics scrip closed 2.24% up at Rs 22.85 on the Bombay Stock Exchange on Friday.

[Gudavalli]

Amara Raja bags Quality Circle award

HYDERABAD, SEPT. 8:
Amara Raja Batteries Ltd has been conferred the award for “Best organisation supporting Quality Circle movement” from Quality Circle Forum of India, Hyderabad. The company has won this award for the year 2012 for the third consecutive time.

Jayadev Galla, Managing Director, said, “At Amara Raja Batteries, we believe that quality management is a pre-requisite to achieve excellence in whatever we do. Awards like these underscore our focus on Quality Management as an important activity for us and motivate us to perform better.”

[Gudavalli]

Medvarsity in re-seller tie-ups with overseas players

Hyderabad-headquartered Medvarsity, a medical e-learning initiative by the Apollo Hospitals Group, has entered the overseas market, including Africa and Bangladesh, by forming re-selling partnerships with local medical service providers there.

“The African market is huge and encouraging. We have entered into a re-seller partnership with Global Projects, represented by Dr Wale, to market our products in Ghana and Nigeria among others,” Sanjiv Zutshi, chief executive officer, Apollo Medvarsity, said.

Apollo already has a hospital in Bangladesh and “we will venture into that market,” he added
For the Indian markets, the company sells its courses/products through multiple channels and spends around 20 per cent of the budget on marketing. "For the overseas markets, there will be no investment required and the partnership will be on a revenue-sharing model,” he said.

The company is also looking at partnering an Indian education player to develop medical course. "We are in initial discussion with a major educational player and would tie up during December-January," he said. It has already partnered IndiaCan and NIIT to develop a diploma course in hospital operation management.

It is planning to pilot-launch an initiative ‘DigiMed’ — which provides digitised course curriculum for medical colleges, with Apollo Hospital in September this year.

“We are planning to tie up with 10 medical colleges by March 2013 to digitise their course content,” he added.

[Gudavalli]

India's second school of mines to come up in northeast

New Delhi, Sep 9 — Even as irregularities in coal mining hits the headlines, India's second school of mines is being set up in the country's northeast in collaboration with the government of Queensland, Australia to provide skilled manpower for the growing needs of the mining industry.
"We now have an understanding specifically on setting up a school of mines in India," Rod Solomon, Trade and Investment Commisioner of Queensland, told IANS. This, he said, followed talks with the Indian government on cooperation in the field of vocational education.
Solomon declined to disclose the exact location of the school. He only said it would be set up in "one of the northeastern states."
Probed further, he said, "We (Oueensland state) are not going to actually build it (school). Somebody else will build the infrastructure. The understanding is that we will bring in the curricula and the trainers to provide the education."
The only school of mines in India is the Indian School of Mines in Dhanbad in Jharkhand, which was established in 1926 by the then British colonial government. The news of a second school of mines comes days after Hyderabad-based infrastructure company GVK received crucial Australian federal government clearance for a coal mine and railway project in Queensland.
Environmental clearance for GVK's Alpha Coal and Alpha West projects were halted in June after differences arose over its impact on Australia's Great Barrier Reef between the Australian and Queensland governments. GVK can now start implementing the $10.47 billion Alpha coal and rail project that would also allow the group to take up power projects in India based on Australian coal.
For all this GVK would need skilled manpower, like 20,000 to 30,000 people for the project. "In view of all this, we've been talking to the Indian government for some time for an overall memorandum of understanding (MOU) for organising vocational education for multiple sectors in India. The accord on a second school of mines is a result of this."
Solomon said the new push out of India is towards thermal coal for increased power production. Groups like the Adani Enterprises of Gujarat and GVK are acquiring large mining interests in Australia.
"In opening up these new mines they need to build infrastructure. GVK, for instance, will build a 490 km railway line from the Galilee Basin (Queensland) to the port at Abbot point as part of a pit-to-port project," he said.
GVK paid $1.26 billion last year to acquire 79 percent stake in the Alpha Coal and Alpha West projects and a 100 percent stake in the Kevin's Corner project in Queensland from Hancock Prospecting Pty Ltd.
The projects hold coal reserves of eight billion tonnes and can produce 80 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) at peak capacity. The Alpha Coal project has a mine life of at least 30 years and a capacity of 32 mtpa.
Adani Enterprises plans to start digging its $10 billion Carmichael coal mine in Galilee in mid-2013.

[Gudavalli]

IVRCL aims to get back Rs 1,000 crore equity, retire Rs 2,400 crore debt

After a disappointing 15-month year ended June that saw it incurring Rs 124 crore of loss, infrastructure firm IVRCL has chalked out a multi-pronged strategy that includes a holiday from bidding for new road BOT projects to stay afloat, said chairman E. Sudhir Reddy.

"The strategy includes staying away from bidding for new BOT road projects for 3-6 months, monetising existing road projects and real estate assets, downsizing the manpower, spreading the construction business to overseas markets, strengthening manufacturing operations and focus on large amount of receivables," said Reddy.

Addressing the media in Hyderabad on Monday, he cited problems in national highway projects such as delays in land acquisition, right of way, cautious approach of lenders and delayed payments as some of the reasons to go in for holiday. He said the period of holiday could be further extended based on the then prevailing market conditions.

"Meanwhile, we will complete the existing road projects in the order book and keep monetizing as and when they are completed and begin toll collections. This will help us get back our equity and transfer the debt burden into the books of the buyers," said Reddy.

The company is targeting to expand its construction business to overseas markets, aiming to report at least 50% of its revenue from overseas operations in 4-5 years, he said. At present, the company does not earn anything from overseas construction business.

The IVRCL Group Chief Financial Officer and Executive Director R. Balarami Reddy said the company has already sold its stake in one of the road projects during last quarter for Rs 231 crore with a profit of Rs 117 crore. The company is looking at selling its equity in three of the completed road projects in Tamil Nadu and is also considering selling three more road projects in other parts of the country. "We expect to get back around Rs 1,000 crore of equity and retire a debt of around Rs 2,400 crore by selling these six road projects," he said.

At present, the company has a debt burden of around Rs 5,200 crore on a consolidated basis and the company incurred finance costs of Rs 731 crore for the 15-month period ended June. In all, IVRCL has invested Rs 1,600 crore of equity in assets that include 10 road projects, a desalination project and an oil tankages project.

On the strategy of pruning down the employee force, Balarami Reddy said the company has already reduced the size by around 15% over the last six months and may go for next round of downsizing if the economy didn't revive in another quarter or so. IVRCL with around 5,000 employees now incurs an expense of around Rs 200 crore a year towards wages.

Further, Balarami Reddy said efforts were also on to realize regular receivables around Rs 1,000 crore of which around Rs 600 crore were blocked from various agencies owing to disputes.

On Monday, the IVRCL stock lost 1.53% to close at Rs 38.70 on BSE, whose benchmark Sensex gained 17 points at 17,766 points.

[Gudavalli]

Nimsoft Partner Olive Solutions Provides A.P. Mahesh Bank Powerful, Easy-To-Own IT Monitoring and Service Management Capabilities

Industry-leading Cloud Solution Enables India's Premier Banking Co-operative to Improve Service Availability and Customer Satisfaction

CAMPBELL, Calif., Sep 10, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Nimsoft today announced that Olive Solutions, an India-based managed service provider (MSP), has brought the benefits of Nimsoft Monitor and Nimsoft Service Desk to the A.P. Mahesh Co-operative Urban Bank Ltd., Hyderabad.

Click to Tweet: Olive Solutions brings the benefits of Nimsoft Monitor and Nimsoft Service Desk to AP Mahesh Bank #ITSM http://bit.ly/OUdsxw

With 39 branches across the country, the A.P. Mahesh Co-operative Urban Bank Ltd. is India's premier co-operative financial institution with diversified banking products. Managing a large compliment of infrastructure across the numerous datacenters serving these branches was a major challenge.

"We were looking for a unified monitoring and service desk solution that could provide us with a 360-degree view of our entire IT infrastructure," said Mr. Milind Rajhans, IT head at A.P. Mahesh Bank. "Olive Solutions suggested Nimsoft for the 24/7 monitoring and real-time alerting and reporting we needed to achieve continuous IT service availability."

Olive Solutions deployed Nimsoft Monitor and Service Desk at A.P. Mahesh Bank to manage devices across branches using a single, unified solution. Deploying the Nimsoft solutions resulted in tangible cost savings and process efficiency, and helped the bank improve customer service by increasing application uptime and accelerating problem resolution. Insight into mission-critical systems and applications also enabled the bank's IT staff to achieve higher system performance and availability.

Olive Solutions began offering Nimsoft to its customers earlier this year. The combination of industry-leading infrastructure monitoring and ready- to-use ITIL(R)-based service management enables Nimsoft to provide comprehensive infrastructure coverage, streamlined automation and easy integration with third-party tools to MSPs like Olive.

"Olive relies on Nimsoft to provide a first line of defense for its customers against IT service outages," said Mr. Chandrashekar, Olive Solutions COO. "A one-size-fits-all approach would not work for us. Nimsoft enables us to provide individual clients a tailored, responsive service--without having to reinvent the wheel every time."

"Companies are embracing Nimsoft ITMaaS solutions as a way of reducing costs, increasing business agility and allocating a larger percentage of IT resources to strategic projects," said Mark Frost, general manager, Nimsoft. "We continue to explore new ways to support companies like Olive Solutions and A.P. Mahesh Bank in delivering the best possible value to their customers."

About The A.P. Mahesh Coop Urban Bank Ltd., Hyderabad-India

A.P. Mahesh Co-operative Urban Bank Limited is India's premier Urban Co-operative Banking Institution. The Bank has attained this premier position without compromising the spirit of co-operative principles, while at the same time striving to assimilate and implement newer methods of work organization and management, with a firm commitment to its objectives. Registered as a Primary Co-operative Society in June, 1977, the Bank commenced its operations in 1978.Mahesh Bank has 39 branches--31 in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad and one each at Khammam, Vijayawada, Guntur, Rajahmundry, Visakhapatnam, Warangal in Andhra Pradesh., Jaipur in Rajasthan and Mumbai in Maharashtra. For more information, visit http://www.apmaheshbank.com/

About Olive Solutions

Olive Solutions has been established by an experienced team who worked in Information technology and have more than 25 years of core expertise in IT infrastructure, data center design and operations, managed services and remote infra management. Olive's mission is to advance the performance of our clients by offering innovative solutions that deliver measurable business value. Through its service lines Hi-end technologies, Consulting, Systems Integration and Managed Operations and its deep industry knowledge, Olive is able to provide innovative and individually tailored end-to-end IT solutions.

[Gudavalli]

Mahindra Satyam set to treble staff in China by 2015

Employee ramp-up part of the company's strategic focus on engineering, manufacturing, telecom sectors

Hyderabad-based consulting and IT services provider, Mahindra Satyam, will be trebling the number of its associates (as the company's employees are called) in China to 1,500 by 2015. The employee ramp-up plan is part of the company's strategic focus on the engineering and manufacturing and telecom sectors, while using China as a base to serve its global clients.

Mahindra Satyam, which had set up its operations in China in 2002, and its parent Tech Mahindra have global delivery centres at Shanghai and Nanjing in China.

In the first quarter ended June 2012, the company added 2,643 associates, taking its total headcount to 35,996. The average employee utilisation, both onsite and offshore, was at 76%.

“Chinese universities are producing a high number of quality engineers each year. We are impressed by the level of skills, expertise and the willingness to learn. -- the qualities we will build upon as we expand our operations in China. There exists a great opportunity to combine the software capabilities of India and manufacturing excellence of China to herald a new chapter in the economic transformation of Asia,” said Amitava Ghosh, vice-president and head (north Asia) of Mahindra Satyam.

Mahindra Satyam intends to focus on very specific verticals such as manufacturing, engineering and telecom in China, and will also explore strategic alliances and partnerships with Chinese companies to leapfrog its growth within China and to increase its near-shoring support of Japanese clients, according to Rohit Gandhi, senior vice-president (Asia-Pacific, India, West Asia and Africa), Mahindra Satyam.

“China will be a critical pillar of our regional and global strategy. The region will increase its revenue contribution from the current 24% in view of the size of Chinese economy and specific opportunities which we have identified,” Gandhi said.

China’s telecom sector has yet to experience the transformation which unifies fixed-line, mobile and data services into a seamless offering. Mahindra Satyam and Tech Mahindra have helped global and regional telecom giants such as British Telecom achieve this transformation in front-end customer interface and back-end integration and billing, and are keen to help Chinese telecom companies in this aspect, he added.

Mahindra Satyam’s scrip is currently trading at Rs 103 on the Bombay Stock Exchange, up 0.64%, over the previous close of Rs 102.35.

[Gudavalli]

VAS TOP 10: #2 IMImobile - Smart Moves

Wading fearlessly through the highly competitive Indian telecommunications industry that is marred with ever-increasing controversies and challenges, IMImobile, under the leadership of Vishwanath Alluri, is expanding rapidly both organically and inorganically.

Its strong foothold over operators as well as enterprises gave the company a good revenue growth of around 35%, taking the total tally of `310 crore in FY11 to `440 crore in FY12.

With successful technological innovations and global acceptance, the Hyderabad based company that pioneered the managed VAS model, today boasts of a wide range of product portfolio which includes a service delivery platform, a mobile advertising platform, carrier grade messaging platforms and gateways, applications for data services, music download and video streaming, and voice platforms.

IMImobile displayed innovation by spearheading the 'Open Mobile Market' for the delivery of new applications and services.

Moving a step ahead with the concept of 'Open Mobile Market', IMImobile also pioneered to build a technologically advanced 'Innovation Center' as well as business analytics tools for the operators to help their customers retention. The innovation center aims to provide live connectivity with 90 telecom operators in 65 countries.

At the core of IMImobile's managed service model lies the innovative DaVinci ESP and is developed in over 5 years in India at its Hyderabad facility. To deliver carrier grade SLAs and 24/7 support to more than 80 operators globally, IMImobile uses an innovative cloud based service delivery model deployed from its Hyderabad based virtual network operation center (VNOC).

On the enterprise front, the company offers solution for employee engagement, customer engagement, payment management, enterprise mobility, and mobile marketing.


Making some smart moves and foreseeing the face of the Indian market, IMImobile emphasized more on its international operations with a special focus on Middle East and Africa.

Its tie-up with MTN in Africa and operations in 20 countries, partnering major operations in France Telecom and Zain in Saudi Arabia, fortified the technology backbone of the firm. By using IMImobile's platform, MTN has found that the time-to-market has been reduced, the average revenue per user increased, and the local content was facilitated.

With global footprint in operations and data centers across the world, it employs more than 650 people across Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa connecting 900 mn mobile subscribers. It is working with over 80 mobile operators and media companies and enterprises in 64 countries.

Its operator customers include Aircel, airtel, BSNL, Meteor, Mobitel, MTN, Tata, Telefonica, Virgin Mobile, and Vodafone. Our media and enterprise customers include BBC, Star TV, Reuters, Yahoo!, Google, EMI Music, Universal Music, Sony, and Warner Music.

However realizing the huge potential of the Indian enterprise market, IMImobile is betting big on this front with a special focus on the BFSI sectors which are one of the largest users of messaging services. The firm is all set to launch its new API index that will not only benefit the BFSI sector but the wholesome of enterprises at large. Previously, the firm had come up with a joint report on 'Mobile Platform Adoption by Enterprises' conducted along with Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI).

[Gudavalli]

DQE partners with Burger King to promote The Jungle Book

MUMBAI: Hyderabad-based DQ Entertainment has entered a global promotional partnership with Burger King Worldwide (BKW) that will commence from the summer of 2013.

The participating Burger King restaurants in more than 12,000 locations worldwide will launch an integrated marketing campaign meant to be highlighted by in-restaurant merchandising and promotional themed toys featuring The Jungle Book characters.

"Burger King is proud to feature The Jungle Book property to complement and enhance the excitement of our kids meal offerings during this promotional partnership," said Burger King Corp. vice president, marketing and R&D, Latin America and Caribbean Jose R. Costa.

The Jungle Book promotion is based on The Jungle Book TV series - seasons 1 and 2, and The Jungle Book Feature Film that is currently being produced by DQE.

DQE chairman and CEO Tapaas Chakravarti said, "Burger King is the second largest hamburger chain in the world. With The Jungle Book airing successfully in territories such as the US, Canada, Germany, France and UK, this collaboration provides strong synergies and will further increase the fan base of this classic property."

[Prodigist]

ECIL to supply equipment to Germany

Source: Business Standard

Hyderabad-based Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL), a public sector enterprise under the Department of Atomic Energy, will supply ultra stable power converters for the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR), which is coming up near Frankfurt in Germany with international collaboration.

FAIR is similar to the large hadron collider (LHC), Geneva, that grabbed headlines this year by announcing the existence of a sub-atomic Boson, and aims to explore the properties of the building blocks of matter and understand how they evolved into more complex forms.

ECIL is signing an MoU for this purpose on Saturday with Kolkata-based Bose Institute, which has been designated as the Indian shareholder in the FAIR company and the nodal Indian institute for management of FAIR programme from India. The institute had invited bids for supply of this equipment last year.

While the country had committed to contribute around Euro 36 million to this programme, ECIL would be supplying Euro 7.5 million (around Rs 50 crore) worth of ultra stable power converters that power the super conducting magnets that bend the high energy particle beams in the upcoming facility, according to a press release.

Previously ECIL had supplied a variety of power systems to LHC as well.

Apart from deepening the understanding of subatomic constituents of the matter, the scientific knowledge and technology acquired by the experiments in FAIR would help in a variety of applications, including development of nuclear-fusion energy and preparing secured manned space missions in high radiation conditions, according to the international research laboratory.

[Gudavalli]

With IPL team Deccan Chargers up for sale, Deccan Chronicle plans CDR for loans

Debt-ridden Deccan Chronicle Holdings Limited (DCHL), the Hyderabad-based media house, has decided to approach its bankers for a corporate debt restructuring (CDR) of its outstanding loans on the lines of cash-strapped Kingfisher Airlines as a last-ditch effort to wriggle out of the financial mess.

A decision to this effect was taken at a meeting of the DCHL Board of Directors in Hyderabad on September 7 under the chairmanship of T. Venkattram Reddy.

The DCHL management informed the National Stock Exchange that it is going in for restructuring of the debt by filing an application with the Corporate Debt Restructuring Cell, under the CDR mechanism, as envisaged under Reserve Bank of India (RBI) guidelines.

According to sources, once DCHL files the application, the lenders would form a consortium to study the financials of the company and decide on debt restructuring.

"We will have to examine the terms of restructuring, the methodology of restructuring," Andhra Bank chairman and managing director B. A. Prabhakar told Mail Today.

"As per the RBI guidelines, the consortium of lenders would go into the debt structure of DCHL first and their collaterals. Moreover, 75 per cent of the lenders have to agree for CDR; or, it would be rejected," Prabhakar added.

DCHL has outstanding dues of over Rs 3,270 crore, which it owes 28 lenders, including banks, financial institutions and nonbanking financial institutions.

ICICI Bank is the biggest lender to the DCHL with loan outstanding of Rs 490 crore followed by Axis Bank with Rs 400 crore.

According to sources, DCHL management is confident of convincing the banks for restructuring of debts once auction of its Indian Premier League franchise Deccan Chargers is over.

"The response to the tender notice for the Chargers is quite encouraging and the management hopes to rake in Rs 800 crore to Rs 1,000 crore," sources said.