Marico eyeing acquisitions of beauty firms in Asia, Africa

Marico eyeing acquisitions of beauty firms in Asia, Africa

Marico and rival Godrej Consumer Products Ltd are rumoured to be eyeing UK-based skin care brand ‘Simple’

Fast moving consumer goods company Marico Industries is scouting for acquisitions in Asia and Africa in the beauty and wellness segment, chairman and managing director Harsh Mariwala said.

“We will try and look for acquisitions in the beauty and wellness segment. Broadly, we are looking at Asia and Africa. We may look at larger countries in terms of population like Egypt or South Africa, but a lot depends on the options available,” Mariwala said.

Although he did not specify the amount earmarked for acquisitions or the nature of funding, Mariwala said valuations have still not corrected.

Mariwala, however, said that the company would be “a little hesitant to enter Britain because that market is different” and only emerging markets allow it to leverage its growth experience in India better.

BSE-listed Marico has a significant presence in most categories like coconut oil, hair oils, post wash hair care, anti-lice treatment, premium refined edible oils and niche fabric care among others.

The Rs2,390-crore company has decided to increase spend on marketing and overall packaging for brands like Revive and Medicare, he said.

The FMCG major markets well-known brands such as Parachute, Saffola, Sweekar, Hair & Care, Nihar, Shanti, Mediker, Revive, Manjal, Kaya, Aromatic, Fiancee among others.

“We are actually spending a lot in Revive. We have launched Revive Liquid, we are prototyping Revive Blue, which is a combination of a blue and starch in Kerala and West Bengal. Medicare is also being invested in and it is a growing brand,” Mariwala said.

The company will, however, not up marketing spend in edible oil brand Sweekar due to low margins on the product.

“We are recording a more or less double digit volume growth for our products and most of them except Sweekar have a good margin profile. Sweekar is a brand in which we are not spending much in terms of marketing investments because the margin profile is very low,” Mariwala said.
Despite pricing pressures led by high cost of raw materials, Marico has ruled out an increase in product prices.

“There is some degree of upturn in prices but its not much. At least in the next quarter we don’t see a price increase,” he said.

Ref: http://www.livemint.com/2009/12/17171109/Marico-eyeing-acquisitions-of.html

2009 round-up: FMCG and Retail, a Study in Contrast

2009 round-up: FMCG and Retail, a Study in Contrast

2009 has proved to be a turning point for the retail industry. Mindless expansion brought trouble knocking on their doors. But the FMCG space has a different story — one where they managed strong growth despite a recessionary environment. CNBC-TV18’s Tanvi Shukla and Priyal Guliani get the roundup for the consumer sector.

“I think 2009 came in and gave a slap on our face,” says Kishore Biyani, Chairman, Future Group. And why not? 2009 began on a disastrous note for the retail industry, with one of the biggest value chains — Subhiksha — going bust in January. Complete mayhem followed. Several players had to resort to shutting down a myriad of stores and lay off employees en masse. All because a recessionary environment played spoilsport and kept consumers away. The bursting of the real estate bubble added to the trouble with not even 10% of the malls promised being delivered. And with retailers cutting back on expansion plans, even these found few takers.

“We all got carried away in 2008 and when you get carried away, you tend to start making mistakes, you tend to start assuming that the consumer is there and India is going to grow,” Biyani says. “We have to understand the consumer, the consumer will have to understand us, the categories have to be understood deeply. You can’t go in for blind growth, costs have to be considered.”

Experts had expected a consolidation in 2010 — but this was forced on them a year earlier. Vishal Retail applied for its corporate debt to be restructured and international brands like Etam exited the Indian market. Retailers Spencers and Aditya Birla Retail decided to go the hypermarket way, and shut down loss-making stores. Reliance Retail carried out a restructuring process to reposition itself.

Sanity has now returned. 2009 is closing on an upbeat note with most categories registering double-digit growth and store launches coming back in fashion. Listed players like Pantaloon and Shoppers Stop have got their funding in place and others are in active talks with several private equity players. Some like Dominoes and Cantabil are getting ready for initial public offerings.

But even as retailers struggled to come to grips with the slowdown, the FMCG sector maintained a sunny disposition. Thanks to strong rural demand, most domestic firms grew at more than 25-30% over the year. And ad spends touched peaks in the last two quarters of 2009. This strong growth came despite the price hikes implemented in 2008 taking a chunk out of volumes for giants like HUL. However, experts say that rising food prices will mean higher raw material costs, and so advise caution.

“We've to wait and watch what’s going to happen in the next few months especially those companies dependent on food whether it’s milk or sugar. They would experience some pressure on bottom-line,” said Harsh Mariwala, Chairman of Marico.

There is another reason to exercise caution, say experts. A bad monsoon in 2010, and falling consumer spending could hit FMCG volumes in the coming quarters. And while soap and biscuit makers close 2009 with a smile, 2010 could well give the cause to mutter and frown.

Ref:http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/cnbc-tv18-comments/2009-round-up-fmcgretailstudycontrast_432981.html

Now, get a color mobile phone for $10 in India

Now, get a color mobile phone for $10 in India

India based Gee Pee Infotech has geared up to launch a color mobile phone at just $10 (Rs. 500). Gee Pee has already launched wide range of user friendly dual sim low cost mobile handset in Kolkata and Eastern markets in India with good customer supports. Presently Gee Pee mobile phones range from Rs.1000 to Rs.6000, reports Telecom Talk.

The company makes sure that it follows the after sale grievances and has set up "Gee Pee Care" in various parts of the country. Gee Pee's aims is to reach the all round sector in the market thereby providing mobiles at an affordable price to every customer. Based on the current growth trend and the rate of mobile users, Gee Pee aims to get five percent of the total mobile market in the country.

With the present reputation built in West Bengal, Gee Pee has been contemplating to expand its presence across India and after the launch of such cheaper phones it might soon attain its target.
Ref:

http://www.siliconindia.com/shownews/Now_get_a_color_mobile_phone_for_10_in_India_-nid-64120.html

Infosys, Patni Contenders for Rs. 10K Crore Power Contract

Infosys, Patni Contenders for Rs. 10K Crore Power Contract

Indian government is planning to invest Rs. 10,000 crore in modernizing the power sector with the help of Information Technology (IT) in order to help the country's ailing power distribution and production units become more efficient and competitive. Infosys Technologies and Patni Computer Systems are among 14 firms eligible to bid for India's power sector modernization plan, which is worth almost Rs. 50,000 crore, reports Economic Times.

This heavy investment is a part of the Restructured Accelerated Power Development and Reforms Programme (R-APDRP). The second list of empanelled vendors for the implementation of the power reforms project will allow these vendors to compete for the tenders being put out by state electricity boards (SEBs) for modernization and implementation of IT. These vendors will be able to bid for different parts of the tender depending upon the category they have been empanelled for.

"We have already been empanelled as a system integrator. But we also wanted to be empanelled as an MDA solution provider because this allows us to bid for these solutions even when another vendor is the systems integrator," said Binod HR, Senior Vice President and Head, India business, Infosys.

The empanellment is in four categories - system integrator, GIS (geographic information systems) solution provider, network solution provider, and MDA (meter data acquisition) solution provider. Patni has been empanelled as a system integrator and the GIS solution provider, while Infosys has been empanelled as an MDA solution provider.

"Earlier, our focus on India was not so strong. But now we have re-structured our operations and India is a strategic focus market. The empanellment will allow us to participate in what is the largest IT programme under the 11th Five Year Plan," said Deepak Khosla, President, SAARC of Patni. He said Patni's target was to grow its India business to six percent of its revenues in three years.

KPMG had carried out the selection process. "Many government projects require the vendors to have worked on similar projects in the country. But this is a reforms programme and I believe this kind of initiative has not been undertaken in India before. It required us to demonstrate our global expertise in this area and we were able to do that," Khosla added. He said Patni was a strategic IT vendor to one of the U.S.' largest distribution companies.

West Bengal, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, have already awarded IT tenders, but 29 other SEBs are yet to do so. A single vendor can only work on a maximum of five projects. Vendors such as Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) have already won three projects from SEBs.

Ref: http://www.siliconindia.com/shownews/Infosys_Patni_contenders_for_Rs_10K_Crore_power_contract-nid-64083.html

India fast losing BPO jobs to Philippines

India fast losing BPO jobs to Philippines

For about a decade, it was India's call centre boom, that defined it as the 'world's back office', much like neighboring China, which has been immortalized as the 'world's factory.' However the situation seems to be changing, as Philippines is fast upstaging India's back office supremacy, with BPO service providers and customers seeming to favor this country as a better place for 'voice-related' work, reports Economic Times.

"India has lost tens of thousands of jobs to the Philippines. The caliber of English is better and companies don't have to put up with the mess (that exists in India) there," says Pramod Bhasin, President and CEO of Genpact.

Some of the major hassles that India poses, include arranging transport for employees, security, power back-up in offices, and basic infrastructure that firms can take for granted in the Philippines. The country has become a preferred destination, especially with the U.S. companies, many of which are more comfortable with the English accent spoken there. U.S. customers account for over 50 percent of the global outsourcing business.

Ananda Mukherji, MD and CEO of BPO provider Firstsource Solutions, says that costs are more or less similar in both countries. This means the accent proficiency in the Philippines tips the scales in its favor.

According to the Economic Times, many of the Philippines' advantages are due to the U.S. rule, which bequeathed the English language to that country with its distinct accent along with a robust telecom and broadband network laid out by the U.S. defense forces.

Prabhakar Bisen, Head of the Philippines operations of WNS says, "Apart from affinity to the U.S. culture and English-speaking skills, the country's time zone advantages make the Philippines a natural choice for providing 24x7 service to global companies, particularly those based in the U.S."

Genpact, Wipro BPO, Intelenet, Aegis BPO and Firstsource are all ramping up their operations in Philippines. Genpact has about 2,000 employees there and expects to scale up operations by 40-50 percent in the next 12 months. Firstsource has about 500 staff in Manila, while WNS has increased staffing to 1,100 from 200 in the past 18 months, providing a mix of voice and back-office services for telecom, consumer products, travel and financial services clients.

In the past 12 months, Wipro BPO has set up a 1,000 seat centre in the Philippines' Cebu City, with staff there engaged in telecom, healthcare, energy and utilities-related tasks.

Ref: http://www.siliconindia.com/shownews/India_best_BPO_destination_Lose_thousands_of_jobs_to_Philippines_-nid-64084.html

ExlService to set up two call centres in Noida & Jaipur

ExlService to set up two call centres in Noida & Jaipur

Nasdaq-listed ExlService Holdings Inc, one of the country's leading BPO firms, plans to open two new facilities in Noida and Jaipur. The two new centres, which will be opened sometime next year, will be in the special economic zones (SEZs). Rohit Kapoor, co-founder and president, EXLService told FE that the company will be investing close to $11 million in these two facilities. While the Noida centre will be a 900-seater one with a capacity of housing 1,600 employees, the Jaipur facility will house 450 employees.

EXLService, which currently has 12 delivery centres globally, will be opening another one in Romania by 2010. Moreover, its recent acquisition of American Express' global travel service centre will add another facility in Gurgaon to its list. Kapoor added that the company is also hiring for its facilities in Philippines and Czech Republic.

Having made two acquisitions in the last one year, Kapoor said the company is scouting for more buyouts. "We have $120 million of cash on our books and we are considering US onshore companies along with several captives," said Kapoor.

For the BPO firm, the insurance sector is the largest vertical contributing around 50% to its revenues. The company is also quite big in the utilities space with 30% of its revenues coming from that vertical itself. Kapoor said that these verticals will be the top priority for the company from an acquisition point of view. The firm is also trying to increase its presence in the banking sector, which currently contributes not a very significant amount to the company's balance sheet unlike other BPO firms.

"There are several captive BPOs in the banking space, which are on the block right now. We are looking at them," he said. Kapoor added that US onshore companies are willing to sell out at five to seven time multiple of EBITDA right now. "Valuations have significantly come down and are at a reasonable level currently," he said.

Ref: http://in.biz.yahoo.com/091224/50/bautco.html

Mobile Number portability set to miss date

Mobile Number portability set to miss date

Mobile number portability (MNP), which allows consumers to change their mobile operator without having to give up their phone number, is unlikely to roll out from January 1.

Most operators say they are not prepared to the offer the service from January 1, as instructed by the telecom sector watchdog Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

A senior official, who did not wish to be identified, said most operators including state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) have not yet upgraded their network to facilitate MNP. The telecom department had given licences to Telcordia and Syniverse to implement MNP. Telecom operators were to upgrade their networks for this.

Ref: http://in.biz.yahoo.com/091225/32/bautep.html

Dabur goes green in war on carbon

Dabur goes green in war on carbon

Consumer goods major Dabur India (DABUR.NS : 162.95 -0.2) has chalked out plans to emerge as a carbon-neutral enterprise. The company is setting up new boilers, gasifiers and biogas generators at its manufacturing units in India and Nepal to re-use wet herbal waste from the facility as fuel. The company also commissioned this month a new gasifier at its Nepal unit that would generate steam by using rice husk as fuel, thus saving on the energy costs. At its Katni unit in Madhya Pradesh, the company has substituted furnace oil with petcoke - a byproduct of crude refining - as fuel. Similar initiatives are also underway at its units in Newai (Rajasthan), Baddi (Himachal Pradesh), Sahibabad (Uttar Pradesh) and Nepal. The company would invest around Rs 5 crore towards these programmes.

Ref: http://in.biz.yahoo.com/090316/50/batblj.html

Pennsylvania Walmart Sued for Videotaping Employees, Customers in Bathroom

Pennsylvania Walmart Sued for Videotaping Employees, Customers in Bathroom

Surveillance Camera Secretly Placed in One Store's Bathroom

A Pennsylvania Walmart Supercenter videotaped employees and customers in a unisex bathroom, several former and current Walmart employees alleged in a lawsuit filed this week.

Several former and current employees at a Walmart in Easton, Pa., have filed a lawsuit against the retailer because a surveillance camera was discovered in one of the store's bathrooms.

(AP Photo)Seven former and current employees from the Tire and Lube department at the Walmart in Easton, Pa., filed a lawsuit in county court against the Arkansas-based corporation and four local managers Dec. 21.

Several employees discovered an "off-the-shelf" video camera in a store bathroom March 31, 2008, according to the court filing. The unisex bathroom, which also served as a changing room, was used by employees and customers. Customers and employees were not notifed of the surveillance, according to the court filing.

"I am incredulous that anyone would think that it's appropriate conduct for any reason to photograph people in a changing room and bathroom," said Erv McLain, the plaintiffs' attorney.
Walmart said two workers were responsible for the camera.

"Two associates were terminated for placing a camera in an associate dressing room bathroom," Walmart spokesman Greg Rossiter said. "When store management learned of the camera, it was immediately removed."

The company declined further comment.

According to the court filing, the camera was installed by Walmart's loss-prevention unit.

The camera was used to monitor employees for possible theft and it is unclear how long the surveillance took place, McLain said. None of the plaintiffs, however, were accused of stealing from the store.

A store manager acknowledged the existence of the surveillance camera only after employees produced a photo of the camera, McLain said.

"The filming of anyone, including employees, is not something that is unheard of in the industry," McLain said. "But to do it in a changing room and bathroom is totally unprecedented and it could border on criminal activity."

The retailer's "Security and Privacy" policy states that at "some stores and clubs [Walmart] may record your presence on security monitors for safety and security purposes," according to court documents.

Ref: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/walmart-sued-secret-bathroom-surveillance/story?id=9418710

Bafna Mahaveer Chand, Chairman and Managing Director, Bafna Pharmacuticals Limited

Bafna Mahaveer Chand, Chairman and Managing Director, Bafna Pharmacuticals Limited

Bafna Mahaveer Chand, Chairman and Managing Director, Bafna Pharmacuticals Limited, is a Chemistry Graduate from Madras University and has more than 26 years of experience in the trade of manufacture, export of pharmaceuticals and sale of formulation in Domestic and International Market. He is the main promoter of the company and has started his career as a trainee in Kemko Pharma for a period of one year and thereafter he formed his own proprietary concern and started dealing in pharmaceutical products. He has vast experience in institutional supplies and was instrumental in getting significant supply contracts of the central government, several State Governments (including Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and West Bengal) besides ESI Corporation and supplies to Sri Lanka Ukraine and other countries.

BAFNA started business in 1981 with the embodiment of the noble notion "Quality medicines for the needy suffering millions, at an affordable price". BAFNA was started as a proprietary concern in 1981 by Bafna Mahaveer Chand in the name of BAFNA PHARMACEUTICALS and has been engaged in the business of manufacturing pharmaceutical formulations of Betalactam and Non Betalactam products. During the year 1995, BAFNA PHARMACEUTICALS LIMITED was incorporated and it acquired the entire business of the proprietary concern. The Madhavaram unit is WHO GMP certified and also ISO 9000 certified. The products manufactured in this factory cater to the markets of Srilanka, Ghana and Ukraine.

While speaking to Anurag More of India Infoilne, Mr. Bafna says, "We set our standards and are continuously thriving upwards to redefine our own standards in accomplishing our position as the most preferred one stop source for all product development"

What prospects are you seeing for the pharma industry in India?

Indian pharmaceutical industry has grown leaps and bounds, emerging as a global hub and a destination of choice; several initiatives are successfully taken to bring the Indian industry to the forefront of the global pharma industry. The Indian pharma industry today is among the top ranked research-based pharma industries with wide ranging capabilities in the complex field of drug manufacturing.

Despite the global slowdown, the Indian pharma industry has maintained commendable growth. A highly organized sector, the Indian pharma industry is estimated to grow at the rate of 14% per year. The US$20 billion Indian pharmaceutical industry has been growing at a compounded annual growth rate of 9%. The sector is likely to grow to US$50bn by 2015. It is one of the largest and most advanced among the developing countries. So, the Indian pharma industry is a success story.

Brief us about your products?

Our focus is mainly on lifestyle products. The company presently manufactures 126 formulations under various therapeutic segments such as - anti-infective, antihypertensive, cholesterol lowering agents, analgesic and antipyretic, anthelmintics, appetite stimulants, cough & cold preparations, antiulcerants, hypoglycemics and vitamins etc.

The manufacturing facilities of the company are adaptable i.e. the facilities can produce multiple products using a combination of process.

What would you describe is your core strength?

The MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency) approval for Bafna Pharmaceuticals has opened gates for the company to market its products in the European market. This certification will act as a catalyst for the organization’s growth. Our undivided concentration is on product development through R&D.

Bafna has a modern plant which meets International quality standards. Given our facility and R&D, we are determined to make a mark.

What would your focus be?

Comment on your exports?We set high standards and are continuously thriving to redefine ourselves. We hope to emerge as one of the most preferred one stop sources for all product development and contract manufacturing activities for the regulated markets and across the pharma value chain.

We have increased exports from 30% of total revenue to 50%. This year we look forward to export seven variations and in the next two years 17 products will be ready for launch in European countries.

We have a very strong presence in Sri Lanka, Africa and CIS regions. Recently we got the approval for our first branded product Olmesartan Medoxomil. With this, we have started directly marketing our own brands in Sri Lanka.

Bafna presently has 336 product licenses and has 72 products registered in various countries such as Sri Lanka, Ukraine, Ghana and Lao. The company has registered a few of its brands in India as well.

Tell us about your manufacturing units?

Are they USFDA approved?The company has a WHO-GMP certified manufacturing facility in Madhavaram, which is a 100% Export Oriented Unit (EOU). The facility at Grantlyon, Chennai is accredited with Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency, UK (MHRA). This accreditation has made Bafna Pharma has opened the gates for exploring markets of the European Union. Apart from this, few innovator companies and few renowned European and Indian companies have audited & approved this site for the contract manufacturing. Our plan is to enter the US market in the next 18 months.

What growth do you see in the Indian pharma industry?

While it is generally believed that the pharma industry is recession proof, the fact of the matter is, people do cut down even on healthcare expenses when faced with an economic crisis. Most Indian companies are therefore building a hybrid portfolio i.e. a presence in more than one sub segments - Generics, NCE, CRAMS, and domestic market, in order to diversify risks emerging from a single segment. This is certainly a good strategy going forward.

The vision of the Department of Pharmaceuticals is to enable Indian pharma industry to play a leading role in the global market and to ensure abundant availability, at reasonable prices within the country, of good quality pharmaceuticals of mass consumption.

Brief us about your R&D initiatives?

With advanced manufacturing equipment, testing instruments and process control facilities, the formulations R&D center is equipped to manufacture new products from laboratory scale to validation batches.

The R&D center has qualified and competent research scientists, who have developed many innovations, to meet the various requirements of the global market.

The R&D facility is designed and equipped to meet the stringent international standards. It will be operational by Q4 FY10.

Any new segments you plan to enter?

We would like to enter into a niche segment like Immunosuppressant. Also, we would like to expand from being present in Antibiotics to drugs in the lifestyle related illness.

What makes you different from other players?

Small size for Flexibility.
Multi product capability
Strong F R and D
Focused Markets
Competitive pricing
Efficient, prompt and friendly customer service

Brief us on your financials. What is the outlook?

Bafna Pharmaceuticals reported a net profit of Rs1.24 crore in the quarter ended September 2009 as against a net loss of Rs 0.24 crore during the quarter ended September 2008. Sales rose 81.51% to Rs 16.88 crore in the quarter ended September 2009 as against Rs 9.30 crore during the previous quarter ended September 2008.

The company posted a profit after tax (PAT) growth of 10.55% amounting to Rs 107 Lakhs in the FY 2008-09, as against a net profit of Rs 120 Lakhs in the previous fiscal year. The company recorded sales amounting to Rs 4525 lakhs during FY09 as against net sales of Rs 4038 lakhs during FY08.

The company aims to achieve a turnover of Rs500 crores by 2013 by focusing on prescription drugs in the ROW market. We also plan to target Contract Manufacturing opportunities and intend to file dossiers in regulated markets.

What will be your future business strategy?

The trend is changing; today the global pharma companies are looking forward to join hands with smaller pharma companies who are quality conscious and have the required approvals. At Bafna, we believe that quality is the road to success and foreseeing that we have got the required GMP certification.

We have also managed to get the MHRA certification for the European markets. Going forward, our strategy would be to maintain and deliver World Class Quality products with competitive pricing coupled with efficient, prompt and friendly customer service.

Which are the countries you export your products to?

At present, we export our products to Sri Lanka, CIS and Africa. We have plans to introduce our own branded generic products in Sri Lankan by early 2010. We hope this will boost our revenues.

What is the promoters' stake?

Any plans of adding or diluting stake?The promoter group is holding close to 60% shareholding and 40% is with the public.

In India medical facilities are still out of reach for many. What suggestions would you give to improve this situation?Rural marketing to the nano level, health cover for all and health literacy are some of the ideas that can improve this situation.

Tell us about your domestic-international mix?

Where do you see more growth?Currently, the revenues from domestic and exports are equal. Going ahead we intend to penetrate deeper into the European markets. We have already acquired six clients in Europe for contract manufacturing and have applied for seven variations. We also plan to introduce more branded products in Sri Lanka and other Asian countries.

What advice would you give those who wish to join this industry/company?

Typically what kind of people would you look for from the B-Schools? Ultra specialization with a good knowledge about all the departments- A task force type. AND EVER WILLING TO LEARN.

What do you think B-Schools need to do to make their students ready for the job?

Compulsory Practice School Training along with the curriculum.

What are your hiring plans etc.?In R&D and other dept we will add more recourse. People are our asset.

Ref: http://www.indiainfoline.com/Research/Recommendations/Default.aspx?ReportNo=878

Google India announces Search Zeitgeist for 2009

Google India announces Search Zeitgeist for 2009

The 2009 year- end India Zeitgeist gives us a glimpse of events, moments and trends that shaped the year that was.

Google India has announced its year end Google Zeitgeist for 2009 -- a reflection of what Indians were searching through the year. The 2009 year- end India Zeitgeist gives us a glimpse of events, moments and trends that shaped the year that was.

“The end of the year is a time when most of us look back in retrospect on moments and patterns that defined our year. The Google India Zeitgeist provides a reflection of what was on people's minds in 2009. Besides serving as a great indicator of what made news through the year, Zeitgeist 2009 also provides a unique perspective on what clicked with people and the way they consumed information on the Internet. Considering our mobile search traffic for 2009 has quadrupled as compared to the last two years put together, this year we have put additional focus on users who access Internet through their mobile phones,” said Vinay Goel, Head of Products, Google India.

To compile the 2009 Year-End Zeitgeist, Google studied the aggregation of billions of queries people typed into Google search in 2009. We used data from multiple sources, including Insights for Search, Google Trends and internal data tools. We also filtered out spam and repeat queries to build out lists that best reflect "the spirit of the times." All of the search queries we studied are anonymous - no personal information was used. Except where noted, all of these search terms are most popular for 2009 - ranked in order of the queries with the largest volume of searches this year. In some cases, we list the "fastest rising" queries, which means we found the most popular searches conducted in 2009 and then ranked them based on how much their popularity increased compared to 2008.

A look at Google Zeitgeist 2009 shows that global economic downturn and local implications were clearly on India's mind as Budget 2009 and Satyam share price emerged as the fastest rising queries. Connecting with friends continued to be top priority for Indians as social networking sites attracted significant interest on the mobile as well as the web. Young politicians such as Rahul Gandhi and Sachin Pilot were hailed as the new face of political leadership in the country. With corporate woes and recession news, more people looked for ways to meditate and concentrate. Romance scored over action, fantasy and drama - with Love Aaj Kal emerging as the most searched movie of the year. Katrina Kaif ruled the minds of Indians for the second straight year while 'mobile' Indians keyed in queries on cricket to stay abreast with their favourite sport.

Google Zeitgeist 2009 is a real reflection of the spirit of the nation which saw all the ups and downs and yet remained true to its love for entertainment, peace and hope!

Ref: http://www.indiainfoline.com/Markets/News/News.aspx?NewsId=20622

Bharti Airtel rings on acquisition reports

Bharti Airtel rings on acquisition reports

Bharti Airtel gained 1.88% to Rs 322.75 at 13:09 IST on BSE on reports the company is set to buy a 70% stake for $900 million in Bangladesh's fourth-biggest telecom company Warid Telecom.

Meanwhile, the BSE Sensex was up 22.42 points, or 0.13%, to 16,899.58 On BSE, 7.71 lakh shares were traded in the counter as against an average daily volume of 26.81 lakh shares in the past one quarter.

The stock had hit a high of Rs 323.80 and a low of Rs 315.20 so far during the day. The stock had hit a 52-week high of Rs 495 on 19 May 2009 and a 52-week low of Rs 229.50 on 27 November 2009.

The large-cap stock outperformed the market over the past one month till 15 December 2009, rising 5.11% as compared to the Sensex's 0.17% rise. However it had underperformed the market in the past one quarter, falling 23.86% as compared to the Sensex's return of 2.57%

The company's equity capital is Rs 1898.42 crore. Face value per share is Rs 5.

The current price of Rs 322.75 discounts the company's Q2 September 2009 annualized EPS of Rs 24.20, by a PE multiple of 13.33

Meanwhile, a Bharti Airtel spokesperson, speaking to a news agency, declined to comment on a possible deal to buy Bangladesh's Warid Telecom adding that the company will keep evaluating international opportunities from time to time. He added that Bharti Airtel it is looking at acquisitions in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) region, especially in Bangladesh. The eight-member SAARC region includes Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan.

Cellular Operators Association of India data showed that Bharti Airtel retained the numero uno position adding 28 lakh users in November 2009 to reach a total of over 11.6 crore users. The company had added 27 lakh users in October 2009.

In late October 2009, Bharti Airtel unveiled its per second billing plan, 'Freedom Plan'. The subscribers of this plan will be charged one paise per second for all local and STD calls on Airtel networks while for other networks local and STD call charges will be 1.20 paise per second.

Meanwhile, the auction of radio bandwidth for third generation, or 3G, mobile phone services is on schedule, the union minister for telecommunications said recently. Earlier, the government had missed an 8 December 2009 deadline for inviting applications or inviting prospective bidders to participate in the proposed bandwidth auction for 3G mobile telephony services.

The department of telecom (DoT) is scheduled to launch electronic auctions on 14 January 2010 to allot four slots of bandwidth for 3G mobile phone services in most parts of the country, and three slots of bandwidth for broadband wireless Internet--or WiMax-- services.

On 10 December 2009, the Reserve Bank of India made a concession in the foreign borrowings policy for telecom companies seeking to fund their acquisition of 3G spectrum.

In November 2009, Singapore Telecommunications, or SingTel through its wholly owned subsidiary, Pastel, executed a conditional share purchase agreement with the Bharti Group to hike its stake in Bharti Telecom, promoter company of Bharti Airtel.

Under this agreement, SingTel will acquire additional 7.30 lakh shares in Bharti Telecom, which holds 45.30% stake in Bharti Airtel as at end September 2009.

Following this deal, SingTel's effective stake in Bharti Telecom will stand increased to 36.16% from the current level of 32.81% while its effective stake in Bharti Airtel will go up by 1.52% to 31.95%.

SingTel will make an estimated payment between Rs 1,807.3 crore and Rs 3,008.4 crore over a period of more than a year for this acquisition. The move will enable SingTel to maximize value of its existing businesses.

Bharti Airtel's net profit surged 43.1% to Rs 2296.94 crore on 7.6% rise in net sales to Rs 8901.66 crore in Q2 September 2009 over Q2 September 2008.

Bharti Airtel provides mobile telecommunication services in India. It also provides fixed-line, VSAT, Internet and broadband services.

Ref: http://www.indiainfoline.com/Markets/News/News.aspx?NewsId=360409

Salman Khan Foundation -Being Human: Salman Khan Helps Poor Villagers

Salman Khan Foundation -Being Human: Salman Khan Helps Poor Villagers

Salman Khan Helps Poor Villagers

Mumbai: Trust Salman Khan to lend a helping hand to the needy. DNA found out that the large hearted actor recently helped out a couple of unemployed villagers by providing them with decent jobs. These men were desperate to feed themselves as well as their families and happened to come into contact with Salman.

A friend of the actor reveals: "Salman arrived on the sets to shoot for his forthcoming film Veer when he spotted a couple of villagers who were trying to approach and talk to him. When he asked what the fuss was about, he was told that they desperately needed help as they were unemployed and hungry with families to feed. Salman was very disturbed after hearing their plight and immediately decided to speak to them. He told them that he would help them but offered to find them employment because he thought that they'd get offended if he simply offered them money."

So Salman came up with a wonderful idea. "He told them he was hiring them to act alongside junior artistes for few days and that they would be paid the same amount the others got. They did not have any dialogues in those scenes and were basically part of a group of soldiers. So overwhelmed were they by Salman's gesture that they started crying."

Eros International's Vijay Galani confirms: "They were paid between around Rs 1000 a day for their work, in keeping with the rates of the Junior Artistes Association. Salman also gave away footwear, saris and clothes for their families. It was a wonderful gesture that touched us all. Even in Rajasthan, where we were initially shooting, he helped many people with money, food and clothes."

DNA managed to speak to Salman about the episode and he said, "There is no bigger joy than seeing people who have a smile on their face. I always try to help the really needy and hate to make a show out of it. We (Bollywood stars) should all try to lend a helping hand whenever possible to those who need it the most. It is a great feeling to see people satisfied -- I feel complete as a human being."

Wipro on an expansion drive: Looks at new verticals

Wipro on an expansion drive: Looks at new verticals

Wipro is keen on breaking its shackles and establishing a presence in new regions. This, of course, means expansion of not just existing facilities and special economic zones, but new verticals as well. CNBC-TV18’s Kritika Saxena reports.

Expansion—that's the buzz word driving the Wipro dynamo these days. While it is looking to expand into new verticals like hospitality, pharma and insurance, it is also keen on a bigger footprint in existing verticals, and also a presence in newer geographies.

For this last bit, it has earmarked about Rs 200 crore this year and special economic zones are high on the agenda.

Suresh Senapathy, Chief Financial Officer, Wipro, said, “All new investments that we are making are in special economic zones. That has been our approach for the last several years and that is what we will do going forward. So every new location that we are building on will be in SEZs. So that is the clear mantra that we will be looking at as far as our IT business is concerned.”

The plan is to set up shop on recently-acquired land in new cities like Rajasthan and Cochin. Wipro will build infrastructure at these sites, and developed them into a technological base.

“States, if you look at, we are sort of having land where we need to be building, in terms of Rajasthan, in greater Noida, we have Cochin as well as Coimbatore. We are still about to start building in some of those places,” Senapathy said.

And this expansion, of course, means that Wipro will soon go on a hiring spree to staff the new centres. This expansion plan does not leave out existing facilities in Pune, Nagpur, Hyderabad and Bangalore. These will also be given their due, and will see expansion-oriented investments.

Ref: http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/cnbc-tv18-comments/wipro-onexpansion-drive-looks-at-new-verticals_430433.html

Volkswagen, Suzuki plan small car for India

Volkswagen, Suzuki plan small car for India


BANGALORE (Reuters) - Germany's Volkswagen and Suzuki Motor plan to develop a new small car that would cost between $4,300 and $5,400 for the Indian market, following this week's tie-up between the firms, the Economic Times reported on Friday.

Suzuki is the parent of Maruti Suzuki, India's leading passenger car maker, and the new car could replace the best-selling Alto model, the Indian firm's chairman told the newspaper.

"At some point we will need a replacement for the Alto. That price range is the entry level for Indian customers today, so we can't leave that segment open," R.C. Bhargava told the business daily.

The paper said the car would be priced between 200,000 and 250,000 rupees, about double the price of Tata Motor's Nano, the world's cheapest car which was launched earlier this year.

Under a deal announced this week, Volkswagen will buy a one-fifth stake in Suzuki for $2.5 billion, tapping the Japanese firm's expertise in small cars and dominance in India as VW seeks to become the No. 1 automaker.

Officials at Volkswagen and Suzuki Motor could not immediately be reached for a comment on the newspaper report. A spokesman for Maruti Suzuki in India did not respond to phone calls when contacted by Reuters for a comment.

The Economic Times said the planned new car would be priced at $4,000-$5,000 in the European market, well below the $8,800 price tag for the Up, the cheapest car in Volkswagen's stable.

"Volkswagen will be greatly interested in a car below the price segment of the Up ... and that is something we will need to check in our future together with Suzuki," Fabian Mannecke, the spokesman for Volkswagen, told the newspaper.

Mannecke said Volkswagen was not targeting the Nano segment.

Ref: http://in.biz.yahoo.com/091211/137/bauqna.html

Jet's November passenger traffic up by 33%

Jet's November passenger traffic up by 33%

Mumbai, Dec. 8 -- With a slew of restructuring measures paying off and the economy rebounding, Jet Airways has reported a 33 per cent increase in its domestic passenger traffic for the month of November 2009, as compared to the same period last year.

The airlines' international passenger traffic has also registered a growth of 19 per cent on a seat factor of 81.9 per cent in November 2009, the airline said.

JetLite, the wholly owned subsidiary of Jet Airways has also done well in increasing its passenger traffic by 22 per cent and a seat factor of 76.7 per cent in the month of November 2009.

"Our improved performance in November 2009 is largely due rise in domestic and international travel following the recovery in the economy and a series of restructuring exercise undertaken recently," Nikos Kardassis, CEO, Jet Airways told Hindustan Times.

"We have also seen rise in the yields. For December and January we have seen encouraging bookings and expect these months to be better than November," he said.

Ref: http://in.biz.yahoo.com/091209/32/bauq60.html

Google Makes a Second Real-Time Search Announcement

Google Makes a Second Real-Time Search Announcement

By Chris Crum
This may be the year of real-time search, but this week alone has captured much of the attention related to the subject. Yahoo is rolling out something close to real-time search today, and of course the big news is that Google has begun incorporating real-time search results right into its regular SERPs.

Google has now made another real-time search-related announcement in that they are now offering Twitter integration with the Google Search Appliance. Google Search Appliance can now show users tweets next to their internal Search Appliance results.

"Social information is important for businesses: employees searching for information needed to do their jobs benefit from real-time news too," says Cyrus Mistry, Product Manager, Google Enterprise Search. "They might be developing a new breakfast cereal, or designing a marketing plan for a clothing line, or writing strategy report for a political campaign. In all of these cases, understanding what is being said just as Twitter users are saying it can be invaluable."

"Customers have told us that placing web results next to intranet ones often allows employees to think differently about a particular topic and approach it in new ways," says Mistry. "By integrating enterprise search with more of the information that exists in the cloud, like tweets, employees can more easily leverage the wisdom of the crowd."

Google says it should take no more than fifteen minutes to get the Twitter box up and running on Google Search Appliance. The option is available to enable it for only some users, or you can set up to let all users have access. You can also set it up to let users choose for themselves whether or not they want Twitter results.

Ref: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/12/10/google-makes-a-second-real-time-search-announcement?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+WebpronewsTopNewsRssFeed+%28Top+News+Items+-+WebProNews%29&utm_content=Twitter

India to create new state

India to create new state

AFP - India announced on Thursday that it planned to create the country's 29th state, after a hunger strike by a regional leader and escalating protests from supporters.

Home Minister P. Chidambaram said the government would begin work to found the separate state of Telangana, which will be carved out of Andhra Pradesh in the southeast.

"The process of forming the state of Telangana will be initiated," Chidambaram told reporters.

Since the partition of British-ruled India in 1947, various separatist and state movements have raged across the vast nation.

Three new states were created in 2000, when Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh were divided to give rise to Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand.

Violent separatist insurgencies also cause regular unrest in Kashmir, Assam and Nagaland.

The proposed birth of Telangana, which covers much of Andhra Pradesh's poor tribal belt, follows an 11-day hunger strike by K. Chandrasekhar Rao, chief of the main party campaigning for the new state.

His deteriorating health sparked violent student protests in the region over the past week.

"We are concerned about the health of K. Chandrasekhar Rao. We request him to withdraw his fast immediately. We also appeal to all students to withdraw their agitation to help restore normalcy," Chidambaram said.

In the Andhra Pradesh state capital Hyderabad -- which may become part of Telangana -- Rao expressed thanks from his hospital bed.

A separate Telangana state has been a long-standing demand of many locals who allege government neglect of the drought-prone, deprived region.

But its creation is expected to take years with approval required from both the Andhra Pradesh state assembly and India's national parliament.

Formed in 1956, Andhra Pradesh is India's fifth largest state in terms of territory and sends 42 MPs to India's 543-member parliament.

Agriculture has been the state's economic mainstay but in recent years Hyderabad has emerged as an information-technology hub, earning it the nickname "Cyberabad".

India comprises 28 states and seven federally administered territories, which include the capital region New Delhi.

Ref: http://www.france24.com/en/node/4945142

Daimler says 37,000 jobs are safe until 2020

Daimler says 37,000 jobs are safe until 2020

AFP - German luxury car maker Daimler has told 37,000 workers that their jobs are safe until 2020 and that the group will create about 2,000 new ones.

An accord reached with workers' representatives rules out firings for economic reasons at the Mercedes-Benz site in Singelfingen, southwestern Germany for the next 10 years, a Daimler statement said.

Earlier this month, Daimler decided to shift production of its new C-Class cars to northern Bremen and to plants in the US state of Alabama, China and South Africa from 2014 to lessen negative foreign exchange effects on profits.

Sindelfingen is to continue making more expensive Mercedes' E- and S-Class models, along with the SL sport coupes and hybrid motors, Daimler said.

The move "is the best way to conserve sustainable jobs in Germany," Daimler boss Dieter Zetsche explained.

The group has been hit by a slump in the market for premium automobiles and drew up a cost-cutting plan aimed at saving four billion euros (billion dollars), an amount that will likely be surpassed before the end of 2009.

Workers at Daimler and some parts suppliers were angered by the decision and staged several protests to express their views.

On Thursday, the head of Daimler's works committee, Erich Klemm, said: "We are happy that despite the decision, which is a poor one in our opinion, jobs have been guaranteed for such a long period."

Ref: http://www.france24.com/en/node/4945040

Volkswagen to buy up to 20% in Suzuki

Volkswagen to buy up to 20% in Suzuki

By Reuters
Volkswagen AG is close to announcing plans to take a stake of up to 20 per cent in Japan's Suzuki Motor Corp, three sources with direct knowledge of the negotiations said on Tuesday.

One of the sources, who asked not to be identified because the information is not public, said Volkswagen's stake could "easily" rise to a controlling stake of more than one-third down the line.

"An announcement could come as early as this week," the source said. "This is the first step."
A 20 per cent stake in Suzuki would be worth about 250 billion yen ($2.8 billion) at current prices.

Spokesmen at Volkswagen and Suzuki had no comment.

Ref: http://in.biz.yahoo.com/091209/50/bauq72.html

Essar arm buys Impact Retail

Essar arm buys Impact Retail

Mumbai, Dec. 8 -- Essar Group promoted The MobileStore (TMS) has acquired Impact Retail Private Ltd for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition will help the company enhance its business portfolio and it will now retail consumer durables and IT (CDIT) products too. Impact Retail runs seven retail stores selling CDIT products under the X-Cite brand.

The acquisition is aimed at expanding product portfolio and penetrating the estimated
Rs 80,000 crore strong CDIT market.

"Post the slowdown we are consolidating our operations," said Rajiv Agarwal, CEO and Director, The MobileStore. "The timing is good and CDIT is one area where we see an opportunity. We have just signed the deal and plan to use the entire TMS footprint to sell the consumer durable and the IT products to our customers."

TMS, when launched two years ago, had set a target of Rs 5,000 crore by 2010. It is now doing a business of Rs 125 core a month with a growth of 15 per cent year on year. It has 1,300 stores across 200 cities. TMS's strategy is to leverage the presence of large and medium format stores (large formats are 150 and medium are 500 in numbers) to sell the CDIT products along with its existing lineup. The other stores will promote the X-cite range. The product range would includes television and music system, cameras, home and kitchen appliances, mobiles, personal care and computers.

Ref: http://in.biz.yahoo.com/091209/32/bauq5n.html

Suzlon to supply 15 units of wind turbines to RSMML

Suzlon to supply 15 units of wind turbines to RSMML

By Agencies
Wind power turbine maker Suzlon Energy said it has bagged an order from Rajasthan State Mines and Minerals for suppling 15 units of wind turbines to be installed at the Tejuva site in Jaisalmer, for an undisclosed amount.

The company would supply 15 units of S88-2.1 MW wind turbines, which would generate 31.5 MW of energy, Suzlon said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange (^BSESN : 17150.24 -77.44).

This is the seventh order secured by the company from Rajasthan State Mines and Minerals Ltd (RSMML).

"We are pleased to continue our partnership with Suzlon.

Their turbines are reliable and they provide satisfactory service," RSMML Managing Director Sanjay Malhotra said.

Rajasthan State Mines and Minerals is a public-owned company involved in production and marketing of non-metallic minerals. The company entered the renewable energy sector to achieve 100 MW of wind power capacity by 2010.

Shares of Suzlon Energy were trading at Rs 86.05 on the BSE, up 1.24 per cent from its previous close.

Yahoo Deepens Integration With Facebook

Yahoo Deepens Integration With Facebook

By Mike Sachoff
Yahoo said it is expanding its integration with Facebook to allow users of both sites to share more content.

Yahoo said its deeper integration with Facebook will roll out in the first half of 2010. Users will be able to connect with Facebook friends on Yahoo, view a feed of their friends' activity on Yahoo, and share content such as photos from Flickr or comments on news stories.

"With this integration, we are opening the door for two of the Internet's largest online communities to make it easier for people to stay connected," said Jim Stoneham, vice president of Communities for Yahoo!.

"It also enables us to further the Yahoo! Open Strategy, which is aimed at making experiences dramatically more open, social and personally relevant for the more than 500 million people that visit Yahoo! each month."

The partnership moves beyond Yahoo's current Facebook Connect integration which allows Facebook users to access their stream and update their status from the Yahoo homepage, along with a "Share on Facebook" option across Yahoo, and allows Facebook to access Yahoo Contacts.

People using both Yahoo and Facebook will be able to share updates on both networks, creating an improved social experience by connecting a variety of Yahoo content and services with their friends on Facebook.

"As one of the largest sites on the Web, Yahoo! is an ideal partner to integrate with Facebook Connect, enabling users to share meaningful content with their friends on Facebook from Yahoo's wide range of category-leading properties," said Ethan Beard, director of Facebook Developer Network.

Ref: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/12/02/yahoo-deepens-integration-with-facebook

Google Shares Search Predictions

Google Shares Search Predictions

By Chris Crum
This time of year everybody likes to start making predictions about where industries are heading. This is especially true in the search industry. My guess is that we will see quite a few pieces this month regarding where search is going in 2010. These can make for entertaining reads and get the mind going with regards to how we are going to have to plan for an ever-changing future of search engine marketing.

When Google itself comes out with predictions for where search is headed, things get even more interesting. This is obviously because Google is such a huge and critical part of the search landscape. Google's Matt Cutts discussed some of his own predictions for search in a recent upload to Google's Webmaster Central YouTube channel.

One thing Matt stressed is that Google is always looking for new types of data to search. He gave examples of searching email with Gmail, books with Google Book Search, and patents with Google Patent search. He predicts Google will continue this trend and find more data sources to provide search functionality for.

Another prediction he gave was that Google will continue to improve search over harder problems. Specifically, he noted things like determining what is really going on with the words in documents and in queries - semantic search if you will.

"A lot of people think that if you type in 'A B C,' all Google does is crawl the web and return pages that match 'A,' 'B,' and 'C'. And that's not it," says Cutts. "We do a lot of sophisticated stuff. Think about synonyms, morphology...all sorts of ways where we can kind of find out, 'oh, this is really related to them conceptually.' Whether you want to call it semantic stuff or statistical processing, we do a lot of stuff to try and return relevant documents."

As part of this prediction, Cutts says Google will continue trying to find new ways to extract "good data" from the web. He mentions Google Squared (which is still in an experimental stage) as an example of doing so. Google Squared, in Google's words, takes a category and creates a starter 'square' of information, automatically fetching and organizing facts from across the web.

Cutts also predicts that people will get more comfortable with storing their data in the cloud. He expects more people will migrate their data from their hard drives to different cloud services, and that this will make it easier and better for search, and contribute to the delivery of more relevant results.

He also mentions real-time and mobile as playing significant roles in the future or search. No surprise there.

"It's going to be a lot of fun. Search is nowhere near done, and every time we make search better, people ask us harder and harder questions, " he says. "So the nice thing is knowing that we'll pretty much always have more to do to make search better."

Cutts recently discussed the possibility that page speed could play a role in search engine rankings. He made no mention of this in this set of predictions, but that is another thing to consider as we get ready to move into 2010.

Ref: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/12/05/google-shares-search-predictions?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+WebpronewsTopNewsRssFeed+%28Top+News+Items+-+WebProNews%29

Burger King opens unit No. 12,000

Burger King opens unit No. 12,000

By: Ron Ruggless
BEIJING (Dec. 4, 2009) Burger King reached a milestone this week with the grand opening of the chain’s 12,000th restaurant, the first in downtown Beijing.

Peter Tan, president of Burger King’s Asia-Pacific division, said the opening of the 25th Burger King in China “demonstrates our commitment to expanding our presence in China and throughout the entire Asia-Pacific region.”

The latest restaurant is in Beijing’s Joy City and is the first Burger King in the busy downtown Xidan area. Burger King has units in Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Xiamen and Suzhou.

“We opened more restaurants in the region in 2009 than during the last four years combined, and we plan to open even more new restaurants this year,” Tan said, adding that “we have significant growth potential for our brand in this particular market.”

Burger King in November opened a Whopper Bar BK spin-off in Singapore and plans to open another there in the next few months. China is a well known strong hold of quick-service competitor Yum! Brands Inc.

The new Beijing BK restaurant features an MP3 music corner that offers the latest music hits from the West and a gallery wall to display works by Sino-American artists and local arts groups. The franchised unit is operated by Burger King (Beijing) Restaurant Co. Ltd.

Burger King has units in 74 nations.

REF:http://www.nrn.com/article.aspx?id=376676&menu_id=1368

Kraft Expected to Post Cadbury Bid Friday

Kraft Expected to Post Cadbury Bid Friday

Kraft Foods (KFT) will post its offer document to Cadbury Plc (CBRY) shareholders on Friday, triggering a two-month 9.8 billion pound takeover fight, sources with knowledge of the situation said on Thursday.

The American food giant has until December 7 to publish its offer document, but the sources said it was expected on Friday, and would be at the same cash and shares terms Kraft first unveiled to the British confectioner back in early September.

"Kraft is ready to go so sees no reason to wait until Monday, and is expected to publish late morning on Friday," said one source with knowledge of the situation.

Cadbury rejected Kraft's bid, forcing the U.S. group to turn hostile in early November and prepare to go directly to Cadbury shareholders in its aim to create the world's largest confectionery group.

The current terms of 300 pence in cash and 0.2589 new Kraft shares for each Cadbury share value the British group at 715 pence, compared Cadbury's closing share price in London of 800p.
"They see no reason to change the terms as Kraft will have 46 days to consider a higher bid," said another source.

If Kraft does post the offer document on Friday that will become day 1 in a 60-day timetable under UK takeover rules. It will have until day 46, the middle of January, to raise its bid for the Dairy Milk chocolate maker. Cadbury will have until day 14 to publish its defence document.

Cadbury shares have been boosted by hopes of a higher Kraft offer and potential bids from rivals such as Italy's Ferrero and Hershey Co (HSY) of the U.S., and possible interest from Nestle (NESN) in a joint bid with Hershey, analysts said.

"The deadline is Monday. I can assure you we'll meet that deadline," said a Kraft spokeswoman.
Cadbury declined to comment.

(Reporting by David Jones, additional reporting by Brad Dorfman, editing by Will Waterman)
REF: BNET, LONDON (Reuters UK)

Walmart's Web Site Has a Smooth Black Friday: Q&A With Keynote

Walmart's Web Site Has a Smooth Black Friday: Q&A With Keynote

On Black Friday consumers weren’t just packed into shopping centers at early hours looking for deals. They sat behind their computers looking for bargains. One Internet testing and management firm Keynote Systems (KEYN), tracked the performance of many major retailers’ Web sites to see how they held up during the cyber rush. A report the firm put out on Black Friday found that Walmart operated the most stable site, and other strong performers were Best Buy and Sears Holdings. As a sector, apparel stores performed the most poorly. Though the industry’s Web sites held up better than last year, Keynote found that issues still came up in the early morning, when stores were featuring their “doorbuster” deals. Ben Rushlo, Keynote’s director of competitive research, spoke with BNET Retail about the retail experience online during Black Friday.

BNET: How did retail sites perform in general during Black Friday?
Ben Rushlo: The similar conditions we see every Black Friday were present in this period as well. We saw a few sites that had some major meltdown issues, sites where users wouldn’t have been able to get on the site successfully or would have had performance issues that were very significant. By meltdowns, we mean that users would be able to understand the site was having major problems. It could be that there were error pages coming up saying to try back later or the site was very slow compared to others on the Internet. There were a few of those, and there always seems to be a few of those every Black Friday. It surprises us because the sites that we measure are all major retailers, and Black Friday doesn’t surprise anyone. It’s always the same every year. It’s surprising, though it’s becoming less and less surprising.

As a whole — and we measure 30 sites on this index — I would say Black Friday was pretty average. I think people did O.K. Most sites slowed down somewhat, but those sites didn’t melt down, they just slowed down and had periods of errors. There was one apparel site when they posted their deals that day at 5:30 a.m. Eastern when the doors opened, and they were down for about a half hour, and then the rest of the day they were O.K. It was a mixed bag overall. On whole, it was probably better than last year and the year before. Previously we had seen Walmart and Best Buy have issues, but this year they did very well.

BNET: Since Black Friday happens every year at the same time, why are there still these hiccups? Is there just too much traffic for tech departments?
BR: That’s the excuse you’ll hear from these retailers. You’ll hear that the volume was greater than they anticipated. Right, now, in 2009, that’s just fundamentally false. Some of the retailers that failed, it’s not like they were offering deals on Xbox’s or products that were very limited. These were your normal retail sites, so I don’t think you could say it’s related to special products. Fundamentally, what is happening at these retailers is poor planning, execution and process. It’s all the things you think about that go into any sort of meltdown, even outside of the industry. They probably didn’t do enough load testing, stress their architecture or had some gaps in their monitoring and measuring. All the things that make these sites successful are probably lacking at some of these other sites.

BNET: Why did Walmart do so well compared to years past?
BR: Walmart is one of our customers. They do plan very well. They do load testing where they actually do synthetic volume on their site to make sure that when these big volumes come up on Black Friday they can handle that. They do very aggressive external monitoring with our company as well. They have a culture that’s shifted and really now cares dramatically about the performance and quality of their site. I’m not saying that wasn’t the case three years ago, but they’re very obsessed with quality, and I think that’s made a difference. Other retailers that didn’t do so well, we’ve talked to them, and they’re still figuring out the baby steps of measuring performance from the Internet and had a homegrown monitoring solution that showed everything was up. If you have that sort of thing, it’s good, but it’s sort of like 1990 technology, trying to manage sites that are clearly 2009.

BNET: Why do apparel sites tend to lag in performance?
BR: You tend to have less of a technical process. A lot of these folks are coming from the brick and mortar and putting their sites on the Internet, and I think there’s less expertise there than there would be on the electronics side. Obviously, there are a few in apparel, like Zappos.com, that did very well. Their whole business is online, but for a lot of these other ones, their business is probably still focused on the stores that are in the malls, and they’re probably not as online savvy.

BNET: For years there was an opinion that brick and mortar e-commerce was way behind the online-only retailers. Has that changed?
BR: Apparel is lagging in that area, but overall, retailers are treating their online channel as a full channel, so they manage it just as they would their brick and mortar channel. The sites like Amazon that had a competitive advantage because they started out virtual, that advantage is gone. I think there are sites that are actually outperforming Amazon. Walmart is a good example, and Best Buy is in there is well. They had better quality on Black Friday than Amazon. Maybe the advantage that Amazon had five years ago in terms of their expertise has shrunk or is nonexistent.

BNET: What were the differences between Black Friday and Cyber Monday?
BR: Interestingly enough, we saw many more issues on Cyber Monday. Instead of being at the malls, people are shopping at home, and you’d expect there’d be some additional pressure on sites. We saw a total of six sites that we would classify as meltdown, and on Black Friday we had two. We also had nine sites with major slowdowns. It was worse. There were many more issues, and apparel was again lagging.

Ref: BNET

Telenor to launch mobile operations in India on Thursday

Norwegian telecom firm Telenor will become the 12th operator in the Indian market when it launches its operations on Thursday, a company statement said.

Intense competition has been a hallmark of the telecommunications industry in the world's second-most populous country, where it is driving drastic cuts in call charges.

Last year Telenor bought into a nascent telecom firm floated by Indian realty Unitech Ltd, and it will launch its services under the Uninor brand in different parts of Asia's third-largest economy.
Telenor's move into India is likely to be followed by new launches by United Arab Emirate's Etisalat and Bahrain's Batelco, as existing firms scramble to sign up users by drastically dropping call charges.

Tata Teleservices, the No 6 operator, was the first to launch per-second billing earlier this year, deviating from the industry norm of per-minute billing. The offer was a roaring success.

Mobile services leaders Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications and Vodafone Essar have all followed suit and launched the per-second billing that, analysts said, will significantly dent profit margins of the operators.

Last month, Telenor CEO Jon Fredrik Baksaas said the company would price its call charges in India competitively but would not be the most aggressive. The company is aiming for an 8% share within five years of the India launch.

India has more than 480 million wireless subscribers and the market is growing rapidly with an average 14 million new users a month this year.

Google Rejects Awesome People So It Doesn't Hog All Of Them

How selflessly cool is Google? Every now and then the company removes from consideration one of its superhuman job candidates, to avoid an over-concentration of brilliance. Google, you see, doesn't want to become a black hole of awesome.

Google VP Bradley Horowitz (pictured) explained things at the annual Supernova conference in San Francisco the other day. He said the company intentionally (and selflessly!) leaves some brainpower outside its walls, according to the Register.

"I recently had a discussion with an engineer at Google and I pointed out a handful of people that I thought were fruitful in the industry and I proposed that we should hire these people...

But [the engineer] stopped me and said: 'These people are actually important to have outside of Google. They're very Google people that have the right philosophies around these things, and it's important that we not hire these guys. It's better for the ecosystem to have an honest industry, as opposed to aggregating all this talent at Google.'"

This is very generous of Google, given that it hires "the world's best engineers" via a grueling interview process, complete with quizzes. Some of its best employees had to short-circuit the system, but that only makes it more perfect, right?

Thankfully, Google is using this system for good, rather than evil, by turning down job prospects, for being too awesome. Now that's Christmas spirit: It's a sort of gift to the world. Not to the possible hires, of course, but in this economy they'll be working for an awesome company like Google in no time, right??

Ref: http://www.businessinsider.com/google-rejects-awesome-people-so-it-doesnt-hog-all-of-them-repost-2009-12

Yahoo Outsources All That Social Nonsense To Facebook

Yahoo Outsources All That Social Nonsense To Facebook

Yahoo continues their strategic defeat from the front lines of innovation. Earlier today they announced that they’d be “deeply integrating” with Facebook Connect, allowing Yahoo users “to see your Facebook friends’ activities on Yahoo! and share Yahoo! content – ratings, photos, article comments, and more – directly on your Facebook stream.”


In other words, they’ve given up on their idea of leveraging all the known social connections among Yahoo email, address book and messenger users. Instead, they’ve outsourced all that social nonsense to Facebook.

In April 2008 Yahoo unveiled it’s plans to “re-wire Yahoo from the inside out…as part of this, we are going to make the consumer experience at Yahoo social throughout, and provide hooks for that for developers to do the same.” This was the centerpiece of Yahoo’s go-forward strategy. The company boasted 10 billion social connections among users, and they’d leverage that in the new Yahoo.

As recently as two months ago Yahoo confirmed to me that they were still behind this social strategy, and would be making announcements soon. And their recent re-hire of Daniel Raffel convinced us they were being sincere:

Since returning in late August, Raffel has been serving as a senior product manager under Cody Simms, the senior director of product management for Yahoo Open Source (Y!OS), we hear. He’s apparently working on mainly off-network projects such as making the Yahoo authentication platform more seamless. That might not sound sexy, but the bigger picture may be involve Yahoo building out its own platform product to better connect Yahoo with the rest of the web. Yes, think Facebook Connect, Google Friend Connect, and the like. The chance to get into this hot space and play a critical role in building a “Yahoo Connect,” may have also enticed Raffel to come back, but that’s pure speculation at this point.

Little did we know that Yahoo had already decided to give up on social in the same way they gave up on search – by outsourcing it to someone else.

Sure, search may be the most lucrative advertising platform ever imaged, but it was just too capital intensive for Yahoo to continue to compete. They wanted to focus their resources on their core business, which they said, still centered around turning Yahoo into a social platform that leveraged all those 10 billion mail/messenger connections.

Which makes some sense, sorta. Social seems to be the future, and Facebook just may do to Google what Google is doing to Microsoft (ripping apart their core business), if they ever find the right way to monetize it. Social graph monetization may be the next huge wave of revenue growth on the Internet.

But it sure won’t be Yahoo monetizing it. Because they just gave all that away to Facebook.

More and more Yahoo, still with half a billion monthly unique visitors, looks to be a site that cares little for technology. All that hard stuff can just be outsourced, obviously. And Yahoo seems very inclined to do it. They were 0-4 on social network tries until today. By my count, they’re now 0-5.

This company has no fight left in it.

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Dubai crisis: Which Indian companies may be affected

Dubai crisis: Which Indian companies may be affected

With dark clouds gathering around the global economy once again on concerns that two of Dubai-owned companies may default on their debt obligations, fledgling corporate India, which has begun spreading its wings globally in recent years, is feeling some impact here. India infrastructure companies especially have exposure to the Dubai economy and its once-booming real estate business.

Let’s run a status-check on which companies, especially in the infrastructure sector, are exposed to Dubai and how it may impact their businesses.

Nagarjuna Construction

YD Murthy, Executive VP - Finance of Nagarjuna Construction, said that the company has only one venture in Dubai, a 440-apartment project, and is going slow on it.

The company is also doing a Rs 100-crore water pipeline project at Dewa, Dubai. “There is no default payment problem at the Dewa project,” Murthy said. “The company’s Middle-East exposure is mostly to government-owned agencies,” he added.

Larsen & Toubro

Larsen & Toubro has exposure in multiple segments in Middle East, R Shankar Raman, Executive VP - Finance told CNBC-TV18. “The company has exposure in the hydro-power segment. Our total exposure to the Middle-East over the last two years is to the tune of USD 200 million,” he added.

Punj Lloyd

The infrastructure player has no exposure to Dubai or real estate exposure in UAE, Luv Chhabra, Director of Corporate Affairs at Punj Lloyd said. “We are doing only oil & gas projects in Abu Dhabi where there are no concerns at all,” he said. “40% of our order book comes from West Asia. The crisis has particularly hit the real estate sector in Dubai. No impact is expected in other states like UAE capital, Abu Dhabi.”

Voltas

MM Miyajiwala, Executive VP and CFO at Voltas, said the company is executing a Rs 900-crore project in Dubai as part of a joint venture where Voltas has 37% stake. “We are executing the project for Emaar and the client has fully funded the project. Thus, we are not anticipating any delays,” he said. “Our order book is primarily from Abu Dhabi and Qatar. Dubai also has not defaulted on any of our payments.”

Bank of Baroda

Bank of Baroda has some real estate exposure to Dubai accounting to 5–6% of its loan book but CMD MD Mallya there won’t be any impact. “Interest on all loans in Dubai have been paid till last due,” he said. “Bank of Baroda has 10 branches in the Gulf region. It has small banking exposure, mainly for remittances in the region.”

Mallya added that the bank also has exposure in Abu Dhabi, Ras-Al-Khaimah and Bahrain.

Unitech

The company said it had not exposure to Dubai real estate.

DLF

DLF has no exposure to Dubai, it said.

Indiabulls Real Estate

The company does not have any direct/indirect investment in Dubai and West Asia, it said. “Any of the Indiabulls Group companies and in particular Indiabulls Real Estate doesn’t have any direct or indirect investment in Dubai or Middle East,” the group stated in a release.

Hiranandani Group

The unlisted group is constructing a project in Dubai, 97% of which was already sold and 65% payment had been received, Chairman Niranjan Hiranandani said. “The Dubai market crash won’t have any negative impact on the company.”

Hiranandani added that Indian property prices should go up because of the Dubai market crash.

Omaxe

Omaxe is likely to exit its two real estate projects in Dubai. “We will soon decide on exiting the Dubai realty projects,” Dow Jones quoted Omaxe Chairman Rohtas Goel as saying.

“We had planned a Rs 2,850 crore investment in Dubai,” he said. “We have already paid Rs 50 crore to Nakheel as first instalment and may seek refund if we exit the Dubai project.” He added that Omaxe was yet to receive possession of any land from Nakheel.

HDIL

HDIL has no exposure to Dubai, it said.

SpiceJet

Dubai World’s investment arm, Istithmar, holds 13% stake in SpiceJet

Aban Offshore

The oil exploration company has deployed six rigs in West Asia.

Ref: http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/brokerage-recos-fo/dubai-debt-crisis-indian-companies-that-may-takehit_427638.html

Gail to Complete 11 Projects by 2010

Gail Ltd plans to complete 11 of its exploration and production program in 2010.

These projects are:

1. Dahej to Vijaipur pipeline
2. Vijaipur to Dadri pipeline
3. Chainsa-Jhajjar-Bamnoli pipeline
4. Chainsa to Jhajjar spurline (Sultanpur-Neemrana)
5. Jhajjar to Hissar pipeline
6. Dadri to Bhawana pipeline
7. Bhawana to Nangal pipeline
8. Compressor stations at Jhabua (phase I & II)
9. Compressor stations at Vijaipur (phase-I & II)
10. Compressor stations at Kalaras
11. Compressor stations at Chainsa

Sources said that Gail expects to complete all these projects by October 2010.

The details of some of these projects are as under:

1. With the additional R-LNG supplied from Petronet LNG terminal at Dahej, Gujarat and other sources like Reliance, the capacity upgradation of the Dahej to Vijaipur pipeline project will meet the additional demand of customers en route the existing DVPL and GREP pipelines.
2. The Vijaipur to Dadri pipeline project, on completion will enhance the capacity of the GREP pipeline system.
3. The Chainsa-Jhajjar-Bamnoli pipeline will supply natural gas from various sources to consumers in Haryana, Rajasthan and Delhi.
4. The Chainsa to Jhajjar spurline project will meet the gas demand of consumers in Haryana and Rajasthan, at various locations like Chopanki, Bhiwadi, Dharuhera, Khushkhera, Neemrana, Gurgaon, Khandsa, Manesar and Banmoli.
5. The Jhajjar to Hissar pipeline will supply natural gas or R-LNG will cater to Jhajjar and Hissar, again in Haryana. Feed to this pipeline will be made through the Chainsa to Jhajjar spurline which is connected to Vijaipur to Dadri at Chainsa near Faridabad.
6. The Dadri to Bhawana pipeline project will supply natural gas mainly to the PPCL-Bawana power plant to meet the power requirements of the NCR for the Commonwealth Games 2010.
7. The Bhawana to Nangal pipeline aims to supply R-LNG to Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.
8. The compressor station at Jhabua will cater to gas demand at desired pressure to various customers en route Dadri-Bawana-Nangal and Chainsa-Jhajjar-Hissar pipeline systems and upgrade the DVPL pipeline system.
9. Similarly, the compressor stations at Vijaipur, Kailaras and Chainsa will meet the gas demand of customers of the 2 pipeline systems and also upgrade the GREP pipeline.

(Sourced from Project Monitor)

Recession Reports - Alcoa Outlines Severe Measures

Following are the actions announced by Alcoa Inc to address the economic downturn:

• Primary aluminum smelting cuts to reduce output by more than 750,000 tonnes per year, or 18% of annualized output.
• Alumina production to be cut to a total of 1.5 million tonnes per year.
• Total headcount cut by more than 13,500, or 13 percent of Alcoa's worldwide workforce, by the end of 2009. An additional 1,700 contractor positions will be eliminated.
• A global salary and hiring freeze.
• Procurement action to lower costs for energy, coke, caustic soda and aluminum fluoride.
• Initiatives to secure raw materials from alternate suppliers.
• Divesting four non-core downstream businesses: Electrical and Electronic Systems; Global Foil; Cast Auto Wheels; and Transportation Products Europe.
• Cutting capital expenditures in 2009 by half to USD 1.8 billion.
• Cost reductions in global primary metals and alumina operations, affecting approximately 2,600 employee and contractor positions.
• Restructuring and downsizing of Mill Products businesses in Europe and North America resulting in reduction of 900 positions.
• Elimination of 235 positions in the US and Europe in Alcoa's global hard alloy extrusion production operations.
• Realignment of Russian operations affecting 18% of workforce.
• Planned sale of Electrical and Electronic Systems will reduce positions across North America and Europe by 6,500.
• Exiting the auto cast wheel business and consolidation of the Beloit, Wisconsin facility employing 265 by June 1, 2009.
• Alignment of Power and Propulsion business has resulted in the layoff of 1,100 people.
• Elimination of 260 corporate staff and contractor positions.

Source Steelguru

Neeraj Bhargava Resigns as CEO of WNS

Bhargava will remain in his current role until the board of directors has identified a successor. The board will conduct a global executive search to select the chief executive who will take WNS to the next stage of its development.


"I have been with WNS since its inception and have spent the last five years as the CEO. I have worked closely with the board of directors, employees, clients, advisors and partners to achieve tremendous growth during this time. However, at this point, I am ready to take on a less intensive role, transitioning from an operating executive to an advisor," said Bhargava


Starting his career with WNS as co-founder, president and CFO in 2002, Bhargava was appointed group chief executive in December 2003.

Source CXOtoday