In the latest annual report posted on its website, Danone has said it is negotiating with its partner with a view to selling its 25.5 per cent indirect stake in Britannia.
NMDC Spice International, a proposed 50:50 joint venture between state-owned miner NMDC and Spice Minerals and Metals, a part of the Spice Energy group, is close to acquiring two iron ore deposits in Armenia. The acquisition is likely to entail an investment of $500 million (Rs 2,173 crore).
A day before the deadline of exclusive takeover talks between Anil Ambani's Reliance Communications and South African company MTN expires, Reliance Industries has invoked the dispute resolution clause of the non-competition agreement against RCom. However, RCom plans to go ahead with its proposed merger with MTN without taking RIL's claim into account.
The Kenyan government has dumped the Mumbai-based group in favour of a Libyan company for a 50 per cent stake in a refinery project in Mombasa. Essar officials said they are still negotiating with the Kenyan government so that they can invest in the project.
Swiss cement major, Holcim, promoter of two of India's biggest cement companies, ACC and Ambuja Cements, said there is no escape from increasing the cement prices in the country considering the high energy costs.
Led by the record increase in benchmark iron ore prices, steel rates are set to climb steeply from August, immediately after the three-month period during which steel producers had promised the government to hold prices gets over.
The Ruias of the Essar group have decided to get into yet another takeover battle. And this time they are taking on none other than Lakshmi Narayan Mittal, the owner of world's largest steel maker, ArcelorMittal, to take over the Bulgarian steel firm, Kremikovtzi AD, an ailing steel mill owned by Mittal's younger brother Pramod Mittal.
The Aditya Birla group's wireless telephony firm Idea Cellular has agreed to buy Spice Communications in a three-stage deal in which minority shareholders of Spice would be given an option either to swap their shares for the Birla group firm or sell them in an open offer.
Telecom to Telekom Malaysia in an attempt to complete the merger, sources involved in the negotiations said, declining to be identified. The group has hired Enam Financial as adviser to the transaction. Investment banking sources said the lawyers from both the parties are now busy structuring the deal so that the acquisition meets all the regulatory norms of the country and the Birlas retain control over Idea Cellular.
Idea Cellular, the Aditya Birla group firm that is on the verge of taking over Spice Communications by buying out B K Modi's 41 per cent stake, is sounding out its bankers to raise funds to upgrade in the struggling telecom operator's network and technology.
Kolkata-based personal care products maker Emami, which made a hostile takeover bid for Zandu Pharmaceuticals, on Friday forced the latter to withdraw a plan to offer preferential shares to its promoters.Zandu had sent notice to the Bombay Stock Exchange late on Thursday evening saying its board would meet to discuss a preferential share issue to the promoters and directors.Emami lawyers swung into action and sent legal notice early on Friday to Zandu's board.
Essar Steel is likely to join the race for Brazilian miner and steelmaker CSN's Nacionale Minerios (Namisa), a fully integrated iron ore company. Sources close to the development said Goldman Sachs has approached Essar with the acquisition proposal and the company was considering it.
By July this year, Corus plans to close the operations of Corus Packaging Plus' Bergen (Norway) unit, which has a capacity of 150,000 tonnes and employs 260 people. Further, it might reduce the capacity of CPP's Trostre Works in South Wales by the year end, which could result in a reduction of 290 positions in operational and functional areas.
Numbers collated by the Business Standard Research Bureau show that in the last three years, leading cement manufacturers have multiplied their nine-month profits manifold and mining and paper companies have more than doubled it.
West Bengal, which has seen many violent protests against land acquisition in the country, is now set to get another exemplary rehabilitation package for land-losers. After the free shares by JSW Bengal Steel, now Bhushan Steel is going one step ahead to give free land to land-losers as a part of its rehabilitation and resettlement (R&R) package. Sources said the R&R package has been submitted to the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC).
A day after Minister for Steel, Chemicals and Fertiliser Ram Vilas Paswan told Parliament that steel prices would come down by Rs 500 a tonne on account of the 2 percentage point reduction in Cenvat, makers of flat and long products quietly raised prices by Rs 1,500 to Rs 3,000 a tonne on March 4.
Tata Steel's greenfield projects in Jharkhand, Orissa and Chhattisgarh have been delayed by about 12 to 16 months due to issues over land acquisition and resettlement, the company's executives said.
Token rollback will only help middlemen, complain large producers.
The dissent against the Tata Motors Rs 1 lakh car project at Singur appears to be finally ebbing with the disputed land being reduced to 120 acres vis--vis the earlier level of 330 acres.
Adding to its list of Ford, Maruti, Hyundai, Toyota, Tata Steel now boasts of Nissan and Volkswagen as buyers of Tata Steel.
