Move to skirt public offer for S African telco.
Welcome to the world of Vishing or voice phishing, wherein hackers are using a combination of voice over internet protocol, SMSs and the internet to fool and redirect users into dialling a phone number and collect critical information for financial gain. In Kolaskar's case, both mobile spam and vishing were used.
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.
Sterlite Industries, the flagship firm of London-listed Vedanta Resources, may consider legal action if the bankruptcy court favours Grupo Mexico's counter-offer of $4.1 billion for Asarco, the US copper mining giant. Sterlite's takeover bid for Asarco hit a bump when a judge of a bankruptcy court in Texas signalled on Friday that he might give Grupo Mexico, Asarco's estranged corporate parent, a last chance to resume control of its US subsidiary.
A team of engineers at India's largest IT services provider firm. Tata Consultancy Services, was working on a project for an important client. While it was co-ordinating work from three geographical units - Europe, South America and India - it was finding it difficult to collaborate through telephone or other voice means as there were language and pronunciation hurdles.
VMIL officials declined to comment on the development. According to sources close to the development, VMIL will sell stake to raise money for expanding Hungama, the content and mobile services arm. The Mumbai-based company has already held two to three rounds of meetings with these private equity investors. The company's valuation has been pegged at Rs 800 crore (Rs 8 billion). The funds raised would be used for Hungama's expansion.
On the sidelines of crude oil price rise, Indian oil majors including Reliance Industries, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and Essar Oil are eyeing exploration opportunities at the oil-rich sand beds of Alberta in Canada. The firms are believed to be drawing up plans in consultation with the central government and considering tie-ups with international firms for sand-oil exploration.
Reliance Industries has signed agreements with nine fertiliser and power companies for gas sales from its field in the Krishna-Godavari basin over the past three months. India's largest private sector company has signed memorandums of understanding with Nagarjuna Fertilisers, GVK Industries, Konaseema Power (all in Andhra Pradesh), Kribhco, Chambal Fertilisers, Iffco, Torrent Power (all in Gujarat), Tata Power and Rashtriya Chemicals & Fertilisers in Maharashtra.
Anil Ambani has won Lebanon-based M1 Chief Executive Officer Azmi Mikati's approval for a possible merger of Reliance Communications and South Africa's MTN Group following a meeting between the two.
Global Steel owns 70 per cent stakes in iron ore mine in Brazil and two coal mines in Columbia and Mozambique. The company is setting up three special purpose vehicles for isolating financial and regulatory risks. Ispat will purchase the stakes in these SPVs, which are held by Global Steel. The iron ore mine has an estimated reserve of 500 million tonne while the coal mines hold reserves of 120 million tonne.
Aegis BPO Services, an Essar Group business process outsourcing (BPO) company, is close to acquiring an 8,000-seater BPO firm in the Philippines. The exact size of the deal is not clear.Aegis has been bullish on inorganic growth as its races to reach a turnover of $500 million (around Rs 2,000 crore) by 2010.
Vijay Mallya has ensured that his brands do not fall out of Indian Premier League (IPL) viewership, though his team Royal Challengers Bangalore bowed out of the tournament. After RC's series of defeats, the UB Group chairman decided to cash in on his smaller investments in rival teams such as Rajasthan Royals, Delhi Daredevils, Chennai Superkings and Mumbai Indians.
US-based buyout fund Carlyle, Providence Equity Partners, Warburg Pincus and Blackstone are understood to be exploring a buyout of Temasek's holding in Mumbai-based pure-play business process outsourcing firm Firstsource. The news triggered the company's share price to rise 6.76 per cent on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) to close at Rs 43.45 on Tuesday. Warburg Pincus has a stake in WNS, a BPO company, while Blackstone has a majority stake in Intelenet.
"The factories need consolidation and control as they operate independently with different human resource (HR) and logistic policies. The segmented operations cannot have power and focus on quality," K R Kim, vice-chairman and CEO (global operations), Videocon, who steered LG to market leadership in his earlier stint, told Business Standard.
The Singapore government-controlled Temasek Holdings, which controls over 90 per cent of power generation and distribution in Singapore, will soon call for bids to privatise the two companies. The Indian companies are exploring various options to bid for these assets, said sources familar with the developments. Spokespersons of both Reliance Power and GMR Infrastructure declined to comment.
The broad idea is to help freshers and high-potential employees develop soft skills not generally taught at universities, and simultaneously increase retention rates in an industry that has attrition rates between 30 and 50 per cent. The industry, according to Nasscom estimates, accounts for almost $11 billion and employs slightly over 700,000 professionals (in terms of direct employment).
Videcocon Industries plans a major consumer electronics retail foray across West Asia, Europe, Africa and Latin America under the brand name "VC" to raise global revenue shares from the current 2 per cent to 50 per cent by 2011.
Indian firms, including Tata Steel, in the past have formed SPVs to acquire foreign companies to protect local operations and also to avoid legal hindrances. The SPV may be registered in a tax-haven country, like Mauritius or Bahamas, the sources said. The move to float an SPV will help Bharti Airtel to continue being listed on Indian stock exchanges, while MTN's promoters will be given a stake in the SPV.
To up stakes in 'globally active' firms by 3 to 4% this year.
Reliance Industries Ltd, India's biggest firm by market capitalisation, is drawing up plans to convert its fuel retail outlets, which were recently closed owing to unviable operations, into malls and multiplexes.
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