Daewoo's Surajpur plant: No takers for this one

There was enough in the way of IDBI, ICICI, and Exim Bank recovering their loans to Daewoo Motors India Ltd-the auto company owes the three Rs 1,242 crore-by selling the sick company's assets. Now, reports that its management may have misled its auditors merely piles on the agony. If the misrepresentation hadn't happened, claims one of the lenders, Daewoo's losses of Rs 715.71 crore for 2001-02 would have been higher by Rs 271.45 crore. That bodes ill for creditors: the last date for bids (February 12, 2003) draws closer and even the few bidders who may have been interested in the erstwhile car major will be put off by the latest revelation.

There are no takers for the engine and transmission facilities, which boast a capacity of 300,000 units a year each. Curiously, the plant can only make engines with a capacity of 1600cc or more-95 per cent of the cars sold in India have smaller engines. Even Matiz, which shone brightly before fading with the rest of the company, had its engine and transmission imported.

There's a constant buzz, a faint one, that Tata Engineering, Maruti, Ford, Ashok Leyland, Hindustan Motors, TVS Motors, and an unnamed Israeli company could be interested in Daewoo India. Eventually, several buyers could pick pieces they like-say the paint shop, which is considered the best in the country, or the foundry-at throwaway prices. "Nobody will buy Daewoo as a whole," says the chief executive of a car maker. The creditors shouldn't have a problem with that. Anything but the dark, dusty dungeons of the Board For Industrial and Financial Reconstruction would be preferable.

-Suveen K. Sinha

EXECUTIVE TRACKING
Wings Of Desire
NSR-I and NSR-II have ambitious aerospace aspirations.

N.S. Raghavan: Reason to smile

Remember NSR? N.S. Raghavan was the Patni Computers exec who refused his boss' job when the latter quit the company. Instead, he too quit and joined the man, N.R. Narayana Murthy. After voluntarily retiring from Infosys in 2000, Raghavan has led a busy vc's life (apart from serving as non-executive chairman of Murugappa Group for some time). His Nadathur Holdings (that's the n in his name) has funded ventures in areas as diverse as sports, spices, and biotech. Now, he and his son Anand Nadathur have been engaged in some heavy-duty hiring for their firm, Cades Tech, a cad/cam boutique focused on the aircraft design space. A former vice president at Boeing, Ed Glueckler has been roped in as CEO, Tyco's former head of manufacturing in South East Asia, Venkat Raman, as President, India, and Sastry Sarawathula, the Head of Satyam's cad/cam ops in North America, as Marketing Head, North America. Get ready for NSR Act II.

-Seema Shukla

FAD
Out Of The Box
Michel Adam's FTV takes fashion out of television and puts it in a fashion lounge.

F-Bar and lounge: Just another brand extension?

It has more viewers in Asia than Europe and North America put together-274.6 million vs 231.3, if you must know. And Fashion TV is hoping that all those people actually watch it for the cutting-edge fashion it broadcasts 24 hours a day, and not for the flesh-show. Ergo, FTV, which opened an F-Bar and Lounge in Bangalore in December 2000, has added a range of partywear targetted at 18 to 34-year-olds, and music (including an album from a group called Zero 7). Says Anita Horam, Head (Programming), FTV India, "Conceptually, it's a natural extension of fashion." One customer they'll never get: Sushma Swaraj.

-Abir Pal

GABFEST
Davos Watch
Iraq, telecom, and corporate ethics.

This world economic forum summit was unique. America faced flak for its Iraq policy. Sony America's Howard Stringer put it best. "How do you separate protesters outside from the hostility inside?" he asked. India's Finance Minister Jaswant Singh did his bit, slamming rich countries for aid that came with "an agenda". Blame it on the times.

-Suveen K. Sinha

SILVERS
Digital Designs
A Chennai filmmaker embarks on an ambitious attempt to replace celluloid.

P.C. Sreeram: Digital is the way to go

In Kodambakkam, the Chennai borough that houses Kollywood, the Tamil film industry, grey powder-coated Eastman Kodak film canisters are popular among housewives and shopkeepers who use them to store everything from cash to condiments. But if ace cinematographer-turned-director P.C. Sreeram's first-of-its-kind experiment with digital filmmaking catches on, the canisters and the celluloid films that come packed in them, could well be consigned to the history books.

The Tamil film Vaanam Vasappadum, directed by Sreeram will be India's first full-length motion picture shot, processed, and screened digitally. That will eliminate flutter, weave, dirt, and scratches to bring stunning visual quality on the screen. And more significantly it could transform the laborious and expensive manner in which films are processed and distributed. Today each cinema needs a print of the film, made from the master negative. Each print is then delivered in its metal canister to the theatre where the reels are spliced together, spooled on a platter and fed through the sprockets of a film projector resulting in wear and tear. The use of digital media prevents deterioration and it is best suited for projection in small and medium-sized theatres (increasingly, the norm worldwide) using disc-based playback equipment. "Digital movies are the only way forward with the growing number of multiplexes; but it could take another 10 years," says Sreeram. Steven Spielberg would beg to differ. The man is a self-proclaimed Luddite whose opposition to the digital medium stems more out of a love for the old way than anything else. Did he really make A.I.?

-T.R. Vivek