HEADLINER
Rajan Nanda

On September 1, escorts chairman Rajan Nanda announced an overhaul of the company's board. Why? The company did not give any reasons, but it is understood that a debenture default to ICICI Bank may have necessitated it. The shake up also put Nanda's 31-year-old son Nikhil, an erstwhile executive director, at the centre of a restructuring effort as the new COO. Nikhil will drive the company's renewed focus on its core engineering businesses, Nanda said in a release.

The restructuring plan, according to Nikhil, is two-pronged. One, replace high-cost debt with cheaper funds, and two, infuse fresh working capital. Estimated fund requirement is Rs 450-500 crore-a package different from the earlier Rs 770-crore investment that Escorts was expected to, but didn't, receive in June 2005 from unnamed European investors. "The group's focus will be on engineering (including tractors), construction equipment and ancillaries," says Nanda Jr., adding that exports are expected to account for 25 to 30 per cent of tractor sales in another three years.

-Kumarkaushalam

M&M Makes Moves in Romania

M&M's Mahindra: Dial R for Romania

Mahindra & Mahindra's (M&M) Vice Chairman Anand Mahindra is taking his fascination for world maps dead seriously. Less than nine months after he acquired an 80 per cent stake in China's Jiangling Tractor Co., making M&M the fourth-largest tractor maker in the world, he's now bid for a larger Romanian tractor manufacturer, Universal Tractors, which has a capacity to produce 15,000 tractors and 20,000 engines annually. If M&M wins, Mahindra will be a step closer to his dream of becoming the world's #1 tractor player.

ICICI's Rogue Traders

Last fortnight, ICICI bank suspended three forex traders (besides two in the back office, whose job it is to monitor trades) for exceeding their daily trading limits and causing a Rs 1-crore loss. The incident evokes memories of Baring Investment Bank's rogue trader, Nick Leeson, who brought the bank down with $1.3 billion in futures losses, but the reality is more harmless, says ICICI Bank's Nachiket Mor. "It was more overenthusiasm than rogue trade, but we had to set an example," he says. ICICI's 120-odd traders will likely be more watchful hereon.

ONGC's Raha: Making a point

Subir Raha's Face-off

ONGC chairman Subir Raha is on a warpath. The government decision to put two additional directors on ONGC's board has irked Raha because one of them is dg Hydrocarbons, a regulator. Raha's point: there will be a conflict of interest. BT's with him on this one.

NEWSMAKERS
The IT Guys

This fortnight's heroes: Infosys' Nilekani and TCS' Ramadorai

This is the real story: TCS has bagged a euro 200 million (Rs 1,040 crore) component and Infosys an euro 100 million one (Rs 520 crore, scalable to around 200, the company claims), both in the area of applications support and enhancement, of an approximately euro 1.8-billion (Rs 9,360 crore) multi-year IT outsourcing deal from ABN Amro. The bulk of the deal (and this is something most Indian publications have glossed over, overwhelmed by the fact that two respected Indian firms are involved), some euro 1.5 billion (Rs 7,800 crore) has been won by IBM, in the area of IT infrastructure support (So there!). For the record, Accenture and Patni have won some parts of the deal too (applications development). If the numbers do not add up, it is probably because everyone who has won part of the contract is looking at how much it could grow to rather than its current size.

If Infosys CEO Nandan Nilekani and TCS Managing Director S. Ramadorai are this fortnight's newsmakers, then it is because no Indian company has won a deal as large as TCS' share of this. And it is because the ABN Amro deal is the first time a company has farmed out parts of the contract to independent vendors (five of them). Usually, the contract would have gone to one large vendor that would have then outsourced work. "Clients obviously realise that they can capture maximum value by going straight to the (offshore) vendor and this is a smart way of spreading risk and leveraging skills," says Partha Iyengar, Research Vice President, Gartner.

-Priya Srinivasan

NUMBERS OF NOTE

$5.7 billion (Rs 25,080 crore): India's purchase of arms in 2004, more than any other developing country. A report by the US Congressional Research Service says India's purchases have overtaken China's ($2.2 billion or Rs 9,680 crore)

$440 billion (Rs 19,36,000 crore): India's infrastructure funding needs. Here is a break-up: power ($243 billion or Rs 10,69,200 crore), roads ($107 billion or Rs 4,70,800 crore), telecom ($49 billion or Rs 2,15,600 crore), railways ($29 billion or Rs 1,27,600 crore), ports ($7 billion or Rs 30,800 crore) and airports ($5 billion or Rs 22,000 crore)

8.02%: Proportion of women employed by the government against the national average of 14.47 per cent (all sectors). It is almost 62 per cent for Kerala but only 2.44 per cent for Uttar Pradesh

20%: Proportion of Café Coffee Day outlets, India's largest chain of coffee cafes (250), catering to the IT and BPO sector

36%: Proportion of NASA employees that are Indian. At Microsoft and IBM, the ratio is 34 per cent and 28 per cent of the global workforce

$30 billion (Rs 1,32,000 crore): Amount expected worldwide from sales of diabetes drugs by 2009

260 million: Proportion of India's 1.1 billion population that lives in abject poverty, despite economic growth of 6 per cent a year

6.2 lakh: Number of commercial vehicles that were sold in China between February and July 2005 against 1.56 lakh in India

119 million: Number of Americans (64.5 per cent of adults) who are either overweight or obese. The number has been rising steadily every year. The percentage of obese adults rose from 23.7 per cent in 2003 to 24.5 per cent in 2004

$800 million (Rs 3,520 crore) and 14 years: What it takes to develop a drug and win the US Food & Drug Administration approval. Some 30 million rabbits, mice and other creatures are sacrificied each year for pharma's sake

NOTED

De-merged: By Great Eastern Shipping, its offshore oil-field services business, which has been spun off into a new company that will be listed on both National Stock Exchange and Bombay Stock Exchange. The promoters have billed the exercise as one targeted at unlocking the value inherent in the offshore division. Bharat Sheth (shown here) will continue to head the shipping business while his cousin Vijay will head the new entity.

Requested: India's telecom regulator, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India by BSNL, the state-owned telco, India's largest, to share its views on the controversial Access Deficit Charge regime with the government (read: the Department of Telecommunications) before taking any decision on the same.

Bought: By Infosys, the country's and, possibly the world's, largest group insurance policy worth around Rs 7,500 crore from Life Insurance Corporation. The policy will insure each of the company's 38,000 employees for amounts ranging from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 40 lakh. The premium the company will pay: Rs 3 crore. The previous largest group insurance policy in the country was bought by BSNL (Rs 4,770 crore).

Reached: By Rahul Bajaj (shown here) and his brother Sishir, an agreement on a long-simmering row over cross-holdings. Bajaj, who announced the agreement on the sidelines of a convention organised by Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers, said it was "in principle" and that a formal announcement on the details would be made soon. Sishir owns a 5.7 per cent stake in Bajaj Auto and Bajaj, a 55 per cent stake in Bajaj Hindusthan.

Approved: By the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), the sale by the government of an 8 per cent stake in Maruti Udyog to public sector banks and financial institutions for Rs 1,100 crore. The sale will reduce the government's stake in the company to just over 10 per cent.

HOG LOVER

Spotted, timothy hoelter, 59, vice President, Government Affairs, Harley-Davidson Motor Company. Hoelter, a first-time visitor to India delivered a keynote address at a convention organised by Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (he is president of International Motorcycle Manufacturers Association). The good news: Hoelter thinks the 'cruiser' market in India will evolve over a period of time with "an increase in disposable incomes". He likes to think Harley's motorcycles will soon be available in India (at prices between Rs 4 lakh and Rs 14 lakh, with an additional 90 per cent import duty) but would rather not say when or how.

BREAKING NEWS

Launched, by TV today, part of the India Today Group that publishes this magazine, Tez, a headlines-only channel. "Tez fills a gap (in the market) as there was no Hindi news channel catering to the young, who want to see news but are not interested in analysis," says G. Krishnan, Executive Director and CEO, TV Today. Tez will address "the evolving viewership needs of modern society," adds Aroon Purie, Chairman and Managing Director, TV Today. This is the company's third channel after Aaj Tak, the nation's #1 news channel and Headlines Today, the choice of the young urbanite.

THE LUX MAN

The man you see on the right, Shah Rukh Khan, will be the first male anywhere in the world to endorse Unilever's (HLL's) Lux. Everyone from Leela Chitnis (in 1941) to Kareena Kapoor has endorsed the beauty bar, but this magazine isn't quite clear why India's most saleable star has been chosen to do so. Maybe because he is India's most saleable star.