Corporate Moves

Bharti Cellular has announced the availability of its India-wide roaming services on its pre-paid cellular service - Magic. Its customers can now receive voice calls and SMS throughout the country without having to change their card or number. The tariffs, however, vary from Rs 15 per minute to Rs 28 per minute.

Dr Reddy's Laboratories has received a notification from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to the effect that the company has lost its eligibility to the 180-day marketing exclusivity of the Omeprazole 40 mg capsules.

Grasim Industries, the flagship company of the AV Birla group has decided to buy out just over 10 per cent of Larsen and Toubro from Reliance Industries (RIL). The consideration has been pegged at Rs 306.60 a share, aggregating to Rs 766.50 crore.

Hindustan Lever (HLL) has reached an agreement with ICI India to hive off its nickel catalyst business, at its Taloja plant (near Mumbai) to the latter for a consideration of Rs 21 crore, on a 'going concern' basis.

Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC) that has set up a 74:26 per cent joint venture with Standard Life Investments, is now planning to offload another 13.90 per cent of its equity stake in the asset management company, in favour of its foreign partner. The deal has been set at a value slightly higher than Rs 40 crore.

ICICI is making the fourth public issue of its Safety Bonds for an aggregate amount of Rs 400 crore. The issue opens for subscription on November 23, and will close on December 3, 2001.

Illinois Tools Works (ITW), US, has increased its stake in ITW Signode India to 91.9 per cent through a successful completion of its open offer. A second mandatory private offer to mop up the remaining 18.60 lakh shares held by the public would commence in December and run for 30 days. The offer price would be at Rs 80 a share and the company will delist its shares from the bourses at the end of the offer.

The Government has decided to exit from its joint venture with Suzuki in Maruti Suzuki (MUL). It has started by offering a rights issue that will subsequently see it exit from its 50 per cent stake in the venture. The Rs 400-crore rights offering will be priced at the average of three independent valuations submitted by S. B. Billimoria, Ernst & Young and KPMG.

Royal Philips Electronics has indicated that it would make an open offer to mop up the residual 17.1 per cent public holding in its Indian subsidiary, Philips India. The open offer has been pegged at Rs 105, and would pave way for delisting of the company's shares from the bourses.

State Bank of India (SBI) and Citibank N. A. have settled their differences with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of the US, over the issue of offering Resurgent India Bonds (RIB) to expatriate Indians in the US. The banks have not been penalised on the latest violations.

Tata Elxsi has tied up with Chemical Computing Group of Canada to offer next generation chemical computing software to the growing bio-infomatics and chemo-infomatics communities in India.