HEADLINER
P.K. Ruia

KOLKATA MAY BE an unlikely place to give rise to a takeover artiste. But if the city-based industrialist Pawan Kumar Ruia has it his way, then the unthinkable may just happen. Ruia, 47, who shot to fame with his acquisition of state-run engineering giant Jessop & Co. in 2003, is said to be in the lead for buying the late Manu Chhabria's tyre companies, comprising Dunlop, Falcon Tyres and India Tyre. When BT went to press, Ruia was in Singapore trying to close the deal. It is not known how much the trader-turned-takeover-artiste has bid for the companies, but market sources put the figure between Rs 250 crore and Rs 300 crore. Ruia, a chartered accountant by education, faces stiff competition from a host of rival bidders, including Swraj Paul's Caparo Group, JK Tyre, Hero Group and Metro Tyres. Sources close to Ruia say that his group will shell out between Rs 350 crore and Rs 400 crore in modernising the companies. Whenever the deal is signed, it will mark the exit of the Dubai-based Chhabria family from India Inc.

Ritwik Mukherjee

Giving Simputer A New Lease Of Life

PicoPeta's Manohar: There's hope yet

In the four years since it was launched, the Simputer, a low-cost handheld computer hailed as an answer to India's digital divide, has sold a bare 4,000 units-there are more mobile phones sold in India every day. And just when people were beginning to write off the Simputer, developed by Swami Manohar of PicoPeta, it has found a new lease on life. Mumbai-based Geodesic Information Systems has acquired the Bangalore-based hardware firm for an undisclosed amount. Prashant Mulekar, a Director with Geodesic, says that the Simputer has been doing below potential. "We can add the product expertise to the Simputer and take it forward," he says. It's a moot point if Geodesic will succeed where PicoPeta failed.

-Kushan Mitra

Ranbaxy's Patent Challenge Woes

Ranbaxy laboratories suffered another setback last fortnight, when a us Court of Appeals ruled that it could not continue selling generic version of Pfizer's anti-hypertensive drug, Accupril. The Gurgaon-based pharma major had appealed against an injunction delivered by a district court. "Ranbaxy intends to vigorously challenge infringement, validity and enforceability of the patent in further proceedings before the district court," Ranbaxy's Vice president of Global Intellectual Property, Jay Deshmukh, said in a release. The company's stock fell on the news. Earlier, in the middle of October, Ranbaxy had suffered another reversal when a UK court barred it from launching a generic version of Pfizer's $12-billion (Rs 54,000-crore)-a-year anti-cholesterol drug, Lipitor.

NEWSMAKERS
Oil's Power-duo

Raha (L) and Aiyar: The smiles are for the camera

India's petroleum minister Mani Shankar Aiyar and Subir Raha, the Chairman and Managing Director of the country's most valuable company, a public sector enterprise to boot, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, have been sparring for some time. The bone of contention has been different things at different times; the origin of the spat, however, and its continuance has to do with control. It could, in part, also arise from Aiyar's desire to be seen as India's Mr Oil, something that has been scotched at times by the media-savvy Raha, who seems to nurture similar ambitions. In the past fortnight, however, the fight has gotten shriller (at least from one side). Aiyar has sort of upped the ante by reportedly asking the apex body in charge of public sector firms to remove ONGC from its list of navratnas (literally, nine gems). If that happens, ONGC will lose more than just a title; public sector firms that are labelled navratnas get to practice a lot more autonomy (near-total; well, almost) than others (who get no autonomy at all). The ostensible reason for this is ONGC failing to meet production targets specified by Aiyar's ministry (this dates back to April 2005). Aiyar has also taken his campaign to the media, praising Raha as a competent manager to a leading financial daily while, in the same breath, hinting at serious operational and corporate governance issues at ONGC. There's no telling how the tug of war will play out, but in its 50th year of existence, this is publicity of the sort ONGC could have done without.

NUMBERS OF NOTE

14%: The number of workers worldwide who are highly engaged-defined as willing and able to help a company succeed-according to Towers Perrin, a human resources consultancy. In India, just 7 per cent of workers are "highly engaged", one-third the number in the US. Only Japan ranks lower (2 per cent)

12 million: The number of pages the documents with the The Independent Inquiry Committee into the Oil-for-Food Programme (Volcker Committee) run into

$21.7 billion (Rs 97,650 crore): The flow of NRI remittances into India in 2004, according to a World Bank report. China received remittances worth $21.3 billion (Rs 95,850 crore) from Non Resident Chinese

$1.5 billion (Rs 6,750 crore): Daily trading volume on India's two new exchanges, the Multi Commodity Exchange and the National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange

101: The number of companies that have applied for 300 FM radio licences in 91 cities

300: The number of jobs UK bank Lloyds TSB will move to India when it closes an office of its mortgage provider, Cheltenham & Gloucester, near Warwick by the end of 2006

17 million: The number of children working in India, according to government data. Child rights activists put the figure at 200 million

20: The number of Indian companies featuring in Forbes magazine's list of Best Small Asian Companies. The 20 includes companies such as Cipla, Asian Paints, Bharat Forge and Satyam Computer Services

59.54 million: Domestic and international passengers that passed through Indian airports in 2004-05, compared with 40 million a year earlier

2.67 million bpd: India's oil demand in the last quarter, up from 2.52 million bpd in the preceding quarter

0.1 per person: Per-capita air travel (flights per year) in India, a fraction of the global average of 2

Going, Going, Gone

Actually, that's no pun on the state of the state-owned Great Eastern Hotel, once one of the best hotels in this part of the world. It was spoken of in the same breath as Singapore's Raffles. Since 1975, and its acquisition by the state government-the acquisition was driven by the desire to prevent it from falling into hard times-the hotel has gone to seed, and its acquisition by Lalit Suri's Bharat Hotels, may well be for the best. Suri plans to pump in Rs 120 crore to turn the hotel into a 250-room heritage property. The trade unions (employees received golden handshakes) are happy; so is the government. And to think this happy ending was effected in Red bastion, West Bengal.

-Ritwik Mukherjee

NOTED

Acquired: By telecom major Vodafone, the (enabling) permission of the Indian government to hike its stake in Bharti Enterprises, the company that owns a 45.9 per cent stake in Bharti Tele-Ventures (India's largest mobile telephony company), should both partners agree to do so. Vodafone (CEO Arun Sarin, above) recently acquired a beneficial 10 per cent stake in Bharti Tele-Ventures.

Murdered: Indian Oil Corporation's Sales Manager, Manjunath Shanmugam, 27, by the owner of a petrol station in Uttar Pradesh. The retail petrol and diesel business in parts of Uttar Pradesh is controlled by the mafia. Over the past few months, Shanmugam, an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow had shut down two petrol stations for selling adulterated fuel.

Ranked: India as the #1 location in consulting firm AT Kerney's Global Services Location Index, a listing of companies in terms of their standing as preferred 'offshoring' destinations for IT and IT enabled services. China is ranked #2 and the United States #11.

Announced: By the International Labour Organization, that it is considering laying down norms (in terms of work conditions) for call centres and business process outsourcing firms, amidst widespread reports of people working in 'sweat-shop' conditions in companies engaged in such businesses. There are fears in some quarters that the norms, when they are stipulated, could be used by some countries as a 'barrier' against outsourcing work to companies in countries such as India.

Rated: Reliance Industries (Chairman Mukesh Ambani, left) above
India's sovereign rating, by international rating agency Standard & Poor's.
It is rare for companies operating in a country to receive a rating higher
than the sovereign rating. Reliance is the third Indian company after
software services firm Infosys Technologies and steel major Tata Steel
to receive this distinction.

The Mid-tier Search Engine

Korn/Ferry's Reilly: "India is short of experience"

India's still-young executive search business has suddenly grown up. Segmentation and differentiation are sure signs of maturity and Korn/Ferry International's launch of Futurestep, its seven-year-old global company that headhunts middle managers across sectors, in India last month is as textbook a case as segmentation gets. Currently, there are just a few companies that operate in this space; ABC Consultants and Manpower Services India are two. What makes middle management recruiting happening is the booming economy and the fact that there aren't too many middle managers around. "Senior and middle management talent is short for different reasons across the world," says Paul Reilly, Chairman & CEO, Korn/Ferry International. "India is short of experience-(d middle managers), while Europe and the Americans are short, demographically." Could Indian middle managers (those of whom are experienced) fill in vacancies in European and American companies? Well, Futurestep's Indian operations are to be headed by Asim Handa, a veteran of the Business Process Outsourcing industry and he knows a thing or two about that.

-Amanpreet Singh