Archive for July, 2007

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Infosys in global BPO deal with Philips

Thursday, July 26th, 2007

Infosys Technologies on Wednesday signed a multi-million dollar outsourcing contract with Netherlands’ Royal Philips Electronics. As part of the agreement, Philips will enter into a multi-year contract with Infosys BPO to provide finance & accounting services and the processing of purchasing orders.

Infosys will also acquire three shared service centers located in India, Poland and Thailand from Phillips.

The contract is amongst the largest finance & accounting BPO engagements from India and will expand Infosys’ global network, particularly strengthening its European operations, Infosys said in a notice to NSE.

Infosys will gain around 1,400 Philips professionals, the company said.

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Mittal bats for Mukesh Ambani on gas prices

Thursday, July 26th, 2007

Steel tycoon Lakshmi N Mittal on Wednesday backed fellow billionaire and Reliance Industries Mukesh Ambani, who is fighting opposition to get market determined price of gas to be produced by his firm, saying globally fuel prices were much higher than those proposed by Ambani.

During his meeting with Petroleum Minister Murli Deora, Mittal said his steel plants were getting gas at no less than $6 per million British thermal unit (mBtu), much lower than the $4.33 per mBtu price proposed by RIL.

Official sources said Mittal made the comments when Deora asked him about the gas price scenario.

The world’s fifth-richest person and chief executive officer of the world’s largest steel producer Arcelor-Mittal told Deora that new long term contracts for gas, be it piped or transported in its liquefied form, were not less than $6 per mBtu and spot prices ranged around $9 per mBtu.

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Ginger to set up hotels in malls

Thursday, July 26th, 2007

Ginger, the budget hotel arm of India Hotels that also owns the luxury hotel chain Taj, wants to set up a string of hotels on the top floors of malls.

Most malls find it difficult to find tenants for third, fourth or fifth floors since most retailers want to stick to lower levels.

Ginger Hotels now will be taking up these floors and set up their hotels here and being in a mall suits Ginger’s business model perfectly as well.

“Our guests can use the mall for dining and their entertainment needs,” said Prabhat Pani, CEO, Ginger.

Ginger has already tied up with Aerens for their mall in Ludhiana and is also tying up with Ansal API for their malls across the country.

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No cap on private sector salaries: FM

Sunday, July 22nd, 2007

Setting at rest speculation that the government may put a cap on salaries for India Inc, Union Finance Minister P Chidamabaram has said there cannot be any legislation on pay packets nor was it desirable.

“The government does not legislate on salaries and government ought not,” he said here, replying to a question raised by a Mumbai University research student on whether low remuneration was acting as a disincentive to attract researchers.

Government salaries were no doubt poor as compared to market salaries. In fact, government salaries no where in the world match private sector except in Singapore, Chidambaram said during an interactive session with students on Friday.

“I do not think there is any comparison between government salary and salary of private sector. In fact, to come into the research field it calls for certain attitude. Are you inclined towards academics and research?” he asked.

“Nobel laureate and renowned physicist Sir C V Raman could not have been a great scientist if he had thought he should be paid like IT icons Narayana Murthy and Azim Premji.”

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DoT leaves room for only 3 GSM players

Saturday, July 21st, 2007

A high-powered Department of Telecom (DoT) committee has recommended that only three GSM (one slot reserved for state-owned BSNL/MTNL) and two CDMA operators be allowed to offer 3G services in any given circle.

It has further proposed to double the base price for auction of 3G spectrum to Rs 2,800 crore per player on a pan-India level, compared to about Rs 1,400 crore suggested by Trai. The telecom regulator had proposed allowing up to five GSM players (without any reservation) in the 3G space.

The new base price for 3G spectrum as recommended by the DoT panel will be Rs 160 crore ($40 million) for Delhi, Mumbai and other category ‘A’ circles; Rs 80 crore ($20 million) for Chennai, Kolkata and category ‘B’ Circles; and Rs 30 crore ($7.5 million) for category ‘C’ circles—which add up to Rs 2,800 crore for an all-India licence.

The committee, set up to examine Trai’s recommendations on 3G spectrum allocation and pricing, has also ruled out M&As in the 3G space for the first five years after the rollout of this service to ‘permit adequate competition and prevent hoarding of spectrum by any operator’. In the case of GSM operators, the second and third bidder, including the PSU, must match the price offered by the highest bidder.

The two CDMA operators, which will operate on a different frequency, will also have to match the price offered by the highest GSM bidder. DoT has justified the move to double the base auction price on the grounds that it has also recommended doubling the 3G spectrum to be allotted to each player.

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It’s raining wine

Saturday, July 21st, 2007

Wine drinkers in India were cheered by the recent news that the government had (effective July 3) abolished the invidious ‘Countervailing Duty’ imposed on imported alcoholic beverages — and in turn increased the basic customs duty on wine from 100 per cent to 150 per cent, presumably to protect the fledgling domestic wine industry (and the consumer) from a flood of cheap wines.

No so bad, we thought: imported wines would become more affordable, particularly at the lower-end of the price spectrum where the earlier duties were 250 per cent, as well as in the mid-priced segments, which had been taxed at about 200 per cent.

And even though there were some mutterings questioning the government’s capitulation in advance of a complaint brought before the World Trade Organisation by France and the US in this regard, we thought the change was justified if the action led to giving consumers a wider choice — even if the drop in prices was only between Rs 50 to Rs 100 per bottle.

So why are the importers not jumping for joy?

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