K K Swamy is between jobs. After spending a little over a decade running Toyota Kirloskar Motors as its deputy managing director, he made a quiet exit a month ago to move to Volkswagen India as its first managing director. He is moving lock, stock and barrel from Bangalore to Pune, where he is set to take charge on July 21.
American car maker Chrysler is in talks with the Tamil Nadu government to set up a greenfield facility in the state. The company has agreed to send a team to Tamil Nadu to study the feasibility of the project in the state. While the discussion with the Tamil Nadu government is at very early stage, a senior official in the government said that Chrysler was looking at expanding its operations in Asia and India is one market the car maker is keen to enter.
Maruti Suzuki India, the country's largest carmaker, may after all do what everyone expects it to: take on Ratan Tata's Nano with its own low-price car. For long, there has been a will-they-won't-they kind of speculation about how Maruti will protect its entry-level consumer base from the Nano, whose lowest variant is likely to cost Rs 1 lakh in some places and about Rs 1.26 lakh in some others. The higher variants may cost Rs 1.5 lakh or more.
The Tamil Nadu government has agreed to help Tata Steel procure nearly 10,000 acres of land for its Rs 2,500-crore (Rs 25 billion) titanium dioxide project in Tuticorin district, 540 km south-west of state capital Chennai. This is the first time the state government has officially said it will get involved in the land acquisition process for Tata Steel's ambitious project, which has been on paper for nearly a year.
Even as Tata Motors is racing against time to get its new Singur plant near Kolkata ready for commercial roll-out of the Nano by October 2008, the company may need an out-of-the-box solution to overcome some delays in the integrated plant and component park structure proposed for the vehicle.
Indian businessmen and executives may not yet be the most meticulous executioners of management principles in the world. But when it comes to keeping the Gods and lady luck happy, they leave no stone unturned.
Exporters involved in legal disputes with several private sector banks over foreign exchange derivative deals are now accusing the latter of violating the Foreign Exchange Management Act guidelines. Around 50 exporters in various states including Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Punjab have taken private banks like ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, Yes Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and HDFC Bank to court over foreign exchange derivative deals.
The Coimbatore-based sugar manufacturer had taken Axis Bank (formerly UTI Bank) to court for selling exotic forex derivative products.
K Raghavendra Rao, the promoter and the managing director of Chennai-based Orchid Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals Ltd, has managed to garner the support of large institutional investors to thwart a takeover attempt.Solrex (believed to be a company of the Ranbaxy promoter group), is known to have bought 12 per cent in Orchid so far, which is being seen as the first steps towards a hostile takeover of the company.
Decision comes weeks after the company pulls out of a joint venture with Renault and Nissan for a facility there. Commercial production at Chakan is expected to start in two years, about the same time Renault and Nissan will launch production at the Chennai unit. Pawan Goenka, president (automotive sector), M&M, told Business Standard that the company is committed to invest in the south, where a new plant will be set up near Chennai.
Japanese car maker Mitsubishi Motors Corporation has decided to manufacture its sports utility vehicle Outlander in India, through its Indian joint venture with Hindustan Motors, a C K Birla Group company. The Indian JV currently manufactures the Lancer range of sedans, sells Montero, a premium segment sedan, and imports completely built SUV Pajero. The company had earlier considered the option of importing Outlander as a fully-built unit for the Indian market.
Sun Network has shifted its regional news depts to respective state capitals and is also planning to shift its HQ, following a fallout with DMK party.
Firms like Global Adjustments are offering support services to foreign executives in India.
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.
Two wheeler sales dropped in the past quarter as leading banks put two wheeler finance under high risk category.
It is no coincidence that most of the willing land sellers are non-tribals who own plots to the south-west of Torpa on the road leading to the town of Simdega, where the highway crosses the Koel and Karo rivers.
Torpa is looking for a second chance to migrate from a poor village to a modern urban cluster but tension is building between those who want development and those against it. For two decades, National Hydel Power Corporation (NHPC) proposed, and some local tribal groups opposed, the setting up of the Koel-Karo hydro-electric project there, and it was finally abandoned last year.
Leading banks have raised the down payment for two wheelers to 30% and put them in high risk category. This move has dire consequences on two wheeler makers.
The two-year old alliance between Fiat and Tata Motors has done little to improve the former's domestic sales.
In a little over a year, Mahindra & Mahindra's (M&M) all-Indian utility vehicle, Scorpio, will enter the quality-conscious US market, which is also the largest in the world with 15 million vehicles in annual sales. The company already has firm orders for 45,000 units of Scorpio for the first year, which is more than the 40,000 it sold in India in the last financial year.
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