Andhranews

Hyderabad, Oct. 3: In one of the biggest deals so far this year, Wockhardt Ltd, a pharmaceuticals and biotechnology firm, has acquired Pinewood Laboratories, a branded generics company in Ireland, for over Rs 686 crores ($150 million), in an all-cash transaction.

Wockhardt chairman Habil F. Khorakiwala told this newspaper on Tuesday that the acquisition had been completed, and Wockhardt had paid for Pinewood out of the $400 million it had raised earlier this year, including $250 million through debt and $150 million through an FCCB issue. “It was a single-point transaction because Pinewood is an unlisted company,” he said.

“The revenues from Pinewood will be reflected in Wockhardt’s balance sheet from the third quarter of 2006-07,” Mr Khorakiwala said. According to Mr Khorakiwala, the acquisition of Pinewood would expand Wockhardt’s portfolio in solid and liquid dosages in Ireland and the United Kingdom. “We will also get some manufacturing advantages by doing some of the production at our US Food and Drug Administration-approved production units in India,” he said. “Pinewood has a strong presence in the solid dosage segment in Ireland and the liquid dosages and creams segment in the UK,” Mr Khorakiwala said.

“This acquisition gives us a larger footprint in Europe spread over the UK, Ireland and Germany. Our European business will now exceed $200 million, accounting for almost half of Wockhardt’s total sales,” he said in a prepared statement. Pinewood Laboratories reported sales of more than $70 million for the year ended June, 2006. Wockhardt also gets access to Pinewood’s marketing, distribution system and customer base in Ireland for its vast range of hospital products. Mr Khorakiwala said all the 270 employees of Pinewood would be retained.

Pinewood is Wockhardt’s fourth European acquisition, after the UK-based Wallis and CP Pharmaceuticals as well as Germany’s Esparma. The Pinewood acquisition is among the largest cross-border deals by an Indian pharmaceuticals company this year. In February, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories acquired betapharm,
Germany’s fourth largest generic drug maker, for $571.77 million, and in June, Ranbaxy Laboratories acquired Terapia S.A., a generic drug manufacturer in Romania, for $324 million. Asked about the status of Wockhardt’s proposed special economic zone at the Shendra industrial park in Aurangabad, Maharashtra, Mr Khorakiwala said the SEZ would serve as a new research and development base for Wockhardt.

Hyderabad, Oct. 3: Megasoft Ltd, a telecom software products company which has just announced the merger of VisualSoft Technologies Ltd with itself, is on the verge of acquiring a company in the United States, Mr G.V. Kumar, Megasoft’s managing director and CEO, said here Tuesday.

Mr Kumar told reporters Megasoft’s target for acquisition in the US was also in the telecom products space, and the company expects to pay up to $20 million for it. “We expect to finalise the transaction in the next four to six weeks,” he said.
Speaking about the merger of VisualSoft, Mr Kumar said while VisualSoft would not add to the merged entity’s bottom line, its strong net assets would help Megasoft in funding another acquisition in the US on Saturday, VisualSoft’s board of directors had approved the company’s plan to amalgamate with Megasoft Ltd. “VisualSoft has cash reserves of Rs 35 crores and other assets, which we can leverage for another acquisition overseas.

Post the acquisition of the two companies overseas, Megasoft expects to post revenues of Rs 550 crores in 2007-08. The acquisition of VisualSoft, which posted a net profit of Rs 25.8 lakhs in the first quarter of 2006-07, will not add anything to Megasoft’s bottomline this year,” Mr Kumar said. VisualSoft recorded revenues of Rs 18.7 crores in the first quarter of 2006-07. Megasoft posted a net profit of Rs 8.07 crores on revenues of Rs 37.72 crores in the second quarter of 2006.

Mr Kumar said that while the corporate entity of VisualSoft will cease to exist once the merger is completed in the next four-six months, the two companies are to decide whether to continue with the VisualSoft brand name. “We will, however, continue with VisualSoft Interaction, the BPO division of VisualSoft, because it will provide us with a bigger portfolio of offerings — from Megasoft’s telecom products and generic IT services to VisualSoft’s offshore product development and BPO services,” Mr Kumar said.

London, Oct. 3: ICICI Bank UK Ltd, expects to be the largest Indian bank in the UK shortly, if the two transactions it is negotiating come through in its favour. Speaking to this correspondent at the Indian Calling 2006, India-UK Business Summit in London, Mr Sonjoy Chatterjee, head of ICICI Bank in London, said, “Today we are number three, but we will soon be number one. There are two big ticket transactions we are currently negotiating, and if they come through, we should be the biggest.“

ICICI Bank is the third largest after SBI and Bank of Baroda. It was set up in 2003 as a full service subsidiary and brought in Indian skills, technological capabilities where the cost of technology formed 2 per cent of the operating exp-enses and soon had six branches. One of the big-gest drivers of its growth was remittances where the market is worth $25 billion.

Nellore, Oct. 3: Union finance minister, P. Chidambaram predicted that industries other than software would face a crunch for technical manpower if the present trend of engineering graduates opting for software jobs irrespective of their branch of study continues. Mr Chidambaram revealed this while addressing students of NBKR Engineering College run by former chief minister and Vizag MP N. Janardhan Reddy’s brother N Padmanabha Reddy at Vakadu in Nellore district on Tuesday.

“Out of the 3.3 lakh engineering graduates coming out of colleges every year, as many as 1.7 lakh pass out in first class and all of them opt for the software industry irrespective of their branch of study after pursuing 16 weeks software courses” Mr Chidambaram noted. Referring to his recent visit to Infosys campus at Mysore, he said that all the four big software firms in the country estimated a need for 1.25 lakh engineering professionals in the current year and 1.50 lakh in 2007 and 1.75 lakh in the following year. This is going to hit the other industries depending on engineering professionals.

Mr Chidambaram said that he had held meetings with officials of L&T, the Tata group and some construction and chemical companies and had advised them to devise methods to attract engineering students. Reacting to the concern expressed by Mr N. Padmanabha Reddy over the problems affecting rural India, Mr Chidambaram said the government has sanctioned Rs 1,75,000 crore for Bharat Nirman programme to develop education, health, communication, roads and other infrastructure in the rural areas.

Chennai, Oct. 3: Saksoft Ltd, a software solution company to the banking and financial industry, on Tuesday announced that the company had acquired 100 per cent stake in the UK-based Acuma Group for $17 million in an all-cash deal.
Acuma is stated to be the UK’s largest provider of information value management solutions, including business intelligence, data warehousing, data integration, data quality improvement and testing services. “The combined entity’s offerings will now be multi-vertical, multi-service with customers facing domain experts and backend technology and service specialists,” said Mr Aditya Krishna, managing director of Saksoft. A top official of the company said that Acuma would go in for restructuring soon. According to him, Acuma has 80 consultants and domain experts in the UK and 12 people in India at its Hyderabad centre.

He said the transaction was effective from October 1 and funded through 20 per cent internal accruals and the remaining 80 per cent by debt. Acuma had revenues of over $20 million for the year 2005 and Saksoft reported sales of Rs 50 crores for the year 2005-06. The combined entity should have revenue of Rs 200 crores with 500 people and diversified operations in Asia, Europe and USA.

New York, Oct. 3: Chennai-born Indra Nooyi, who was recently appointed as CEO of global soft drink giant PepsiCo, has been named as the world’s most powerful business woman by Fortune magazine, ahead of people like Oprah Winfrey and eBay chief Meg Whitman. The latest feat follows a similar honour bestowed upon Ms Nooyi by another business publication Forbes, which had also named her as the world’s most powerful woman soon after she was named the new PepsiCo CEO.

Fortune, the business magazine of CNN-Time Warner Group, said Ms Nooyi had been named to the top spot on its ninth annual list of 50 Most Powerful Women in Business, which would appear in the latest issue of the magazine hitting news stands on October 9. Padmasee Warrior, another woman of Indian origin, who is the Chief Technology Officer at US-based telecom giant Motorola, has also been named among the four “rising stars” in the same issue of Fortune, who could find place in the next list of power business woman of the world.

Ms Nooyi, who had taken over the reins at PepsiCo on Monday, has moved up ten slots from 11th position in 2005. She has replaced eBay CEO and president Ms Whitman from the top position, a position Ms Whitman occupied for the past two years. Ms Whitman has been ranked at the third position in this year’s list, while Xerox Chairman and CEO Anne Mulcahy holds the second position.

“Pepsi’s brand new chief is a powerful force behind the consumer giant’s strong profit pipeline and $108 billion stock market valuation,” the magazine said. Formerly chief financial officer and president, the Indian-born strategist reached the top even though she never ran a line operation at Pepsi, it added. Fortune said that Ms Nooyi believes in constant reinvention, while quoting her: “The minute you have developed a new business model, it’s extinct, because somebody is going to copy it.” “The list of brand name companies with women chief executives is longer and more impressive than ever, after a year of stunning breakthroughs in corner-office hiring,” Fortune editor Patricia Sellers said in the story.

Mumbai, Oct. 3: India’s leading corporate house Tata group on Tuesday unveiled plans to enter the consumer and electronics durables retail market thro-ugh multi-brand outlets, for which it has provided an initial resource base of Rs 800 crore. The group, which already has presence in various retail verticals through brands such as Westside and Landmark, will launch the new outlets under the brand ‘Croma’ to be run by Infiniti Retail Ltd.

“We have earmarked Rs 400 crore as initial investment and another Rs 400 crore through borrowing, taking the total resource availability to Rs 800 crore,” Infiniti Retail Ltd CEO Ajit Joshi said. The ‘Croma’ chain of stores would retail over 180 brands, both global and Indian, ranging from LG, Samsung, Lenovo, IBM, HP, Compaq and HCL. Besides, the new venture, which will be a 100 per cent subsidiary of Tata Sons, would offer more than 6,000 products across eight categories.

“Anything that can be legally imported and custom is paid for could be made available at our stores, which we would like to be of the size of 15,000-20,000 sq.ft. After we execute the first phase and give a proper plan to the Tata Sons, then further resources could be allocated,” Mr Joshi, said without elaborating.
“The move is to enhance Tatas’ presence in growing retail industry in the country. We have a technical alliance with Australian retail major, Woolworths to source product for the venture,” Tata Sons director R.K. Krishna Kumar told a conference here on Tuesday. In the first 18 months, the company would open 30 stores beginning with one in Juhu in Mumbai on October 9 and then at Ahmedabad, Pune and Bangalore, bes-ides cities in North India.

The Tatas would also look at investing in other retail formats, Mr Kumar said. It would also look at introducing private label brands at some point in the future, but not immediately, he added. When asked if the initial investment was very modest compared to what was announced by Reliance and Bharti for their retail ventures, Mr Joshi said: “Our ambition is to be among the top two players. If we have the proper plans and if we show as to how to execute these, I am sure Tata Sons would consider necessary funding.”

Mumbai, Oct. 3: The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 20 points at 12,474, and touched a high of 12,489 in morning deals. However, selling in afternoon deals saw the index drop to a low of 12,344. The Sensex finally closed with a loss of 88.03 points at 12,366.39. NSE Nifty also lost 18.89 points to close at 3,569.60. Selling pressure in the index heavy weights dragged the benchmark Sensex below the 12,400 mark.

The BSE auto and metal index stood firm in a falling market. Auto stocks were in limelight with some gains in the morning session on the back of good monthly vehicle sales figures recorded by most of the automakers for September. However, auto stocks failed to sustain their early gains with profit booking taking hold of market sentiments in the afternoon session.

Ranbaxy was down Rs 11.40. Similarly, Cipla and Dr Reddy’s Labs declined by Rs 6.60 and Rs 4.10 respectively. Advances were marginally ahead of declines as out of 2,533 scripts traded, 1,413 moved up, 1,054 declined and 66 were unchanged on Tuesday. HDFC was down Rs 57, Infosys slipped Rs 30, HLL Rs 7 and Maruti Rs 13.20. While Wipro, TCS, Bhel, L&T, ONGC and ICICI Bank were among losers. Among the gainers were NTPC up Rs 3, Bajaj Auto up Rs 33 and Tata Motors up Rs 8. SBI, Satyam, Hindalco and ITC finished with gains.