L&T to acquire Komatsu stake in joint venture

Mumbai: Larsen and Toubro will acquire the 50 per cent stake held by Komatsu Asia & Pacific in L&T-Komatsu Ltd (LTK).

Komatsu Asia & Pacific is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Komatsu Ltd, Japan.

L&T declined to furnish details of the transaction and said the value was insignificant. L&T holds the balance stake.

Komatsu is the largest manufacturer of hydraulic excavators and has manufacturing and marketing facilities worldwide.

With this buy-out, LTK will become a wholly owned subsidiary of L&T.

L&T Komatsu will continue to manufacture construction equipment and hydraulic components. Komatsu will be responsible for the production of Komatsu equipment including hydraulic excavators, L&T said.

L&T will continue to extend marketing, sales and product support in India for the Komatsu range of products.

L&T started the Bangalore unit to make hydraulic excavators in 1975. It inked the joint venture in 1998.

The Bangalore facility comprises machinery and hydraulic works. The products manufactured at L&T-Komatsu are supplied to domestic and overseas customers.

Mahindra Insurance Brokers ties up with LeapFrog

Mahindra Insurance Brokers (MIBL), a subsidiary of Mahindra Finance, on Thursday signed a strategic partnership with LeapFrog Investments, one of the world’s largest investors in insurance to under-served consumers. Under the agreement, LeapFrog’s subsidiary, Inclusion Resources Singa-pore, would invest Rs 80.41 crore for a 15 per cent stake in MIBL.

Bharat Doshi, executive director & group chief financial officer of Mahindra & Mahindra and chairman of Mahindra Finance, said despite substantial growth in rural areas, markets in rural India were still under-served. “Considering our large network and LeapFrog Investments’ experience in regions like Africa and Asia, we believe we would be able to have a different approach to serve that market,” he said.

“The goal of the new partnership would be to introduce new suites of products for people who don’t have any access to insurance services. The first product in the offing would be health insurance. A pilot study has already been initiated by the two parties for health insurance,” said Andrew Kuper, president and founder of LeapFrog.

Through this initiative, MIBL aims to be India’s leading insurance broker by 2015. Doshi said the partnership was a step towards MIBL’s expansion in the insurance sector. Ramesh G Iyer, managing director, Mahindra Fina-nce, said as a non-banking financial company, MIBL already knew the cash flow of its customers. Now, it would focus on increasing its presence using customer insights.
“Now, our focus, through MIBL, would be on offering additional rural and livelihood products at affordable prices. The key is to make people understand insurance is a security product, not an investment product,” Iyer said.

This is LeapFrog’s second investment in the Indian market in a year. In September 2011, it had invested Rs 67 crore in Shriram Credit. As an impact investment fund, LeapFrog targets both robust financial returns and significant social impact. Currently, about eight million people across six countries in Africa and Asia have access to LeapFrog products.

HCL Tech signs five-year deal with Freescale

New Delhi: HCL Technologies on Wednesday entered into a five-year deal with Freescale Semiconductor, manufacturer of embedded processing solutions. The companies declined to give the deal value but sources said that it was a multi-million dollar deal.

HCL will be managing desktop support, computer, storage, database, telecom (network and security) and process automation. It will deliver services to Freescale across 20 countries, handling a user base of 19,000 employees spread across 80 locations.

Freescale will also leverage HCL’s global delivery centres in Poland and Shanghai for multilingual helpdesk support. It will develop more resilient systems, optimise its operational costs, increase visibility into IT operations, experience reduced technology complexity and drive innovation to existing and new initiatives.

“HCL will be sharing our vision of building a robust and agile IT environment required to keep pace with the growing technological innovation demands of the business and creating new ideas and technologies for the next generation opportunities,” Hal Yarbrough, Director of IT Infrastructure at Freescale Semiconductor, said.

HCL Technologies infrastructure services division (ISD) manages mission critical environments and handles over three million devices for over 1.7 million end users.

The ISD business contributes 26 per cent to the overall revenue of $4.2 billion as of June 30.

Tommy Hilfiger on expansion spree in India; other retailers entering the market through joint ventures

New Delhi/Bangalore: American apparel-maker Tommy Hilfiger plans to add 500 stores in India over the next five years to capitalize on the brand's surging popularity, the company has told the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), the nodal agency that clears such foreign investments.

Tommy Hilfiger Arvind Fashion Pvt Ltd, a 50:50 joint venture between the US premium lifestyle brand and Ahmedabad-based Arvind Ltd, will invest Rs 60 crore in 45 company-owned stores; a significant number of the stores will be opened through franchisees, according to a foreign investment application filed by the company and reviewed by ET.

Currently, Tommy Hilfiger operates 58 franchisee outlets and over 60 shop-in-shops in other department stores. The expansion will take Tommy Hilfiger's presence to 631 points of sale by 2016-17.

Both partners will invest Rs 15 crore each, whilst Rs 30 crore will come from the company's internal accruals, the alliance said in its application to the DIPP.

"Engaging in retail operations directly would enable the applicant company to set up retail stores in locations all over the country including in those which at present are found commercially unfeasible by our franchisee partners," the application said.

"The company will announce its concrete plans in due course," Jayesh Shah, director & CFO of Arvind said, without commenting on specific queries.

A year ago, Tommy Hilfiger had bought out the 50% stake of the Murjani group in a joint venture called Arvind Murjani Brands, which owned the franchisee rights for the American brand in India. The Murjani group held the Tommy Hilfiger trademark licence in India.

In 2011 the JV applied to the Registrar of Companies for a change of name from Arvind Murjani Brands to Tommy Hilfiger Arvind Fashion with an authorized share capital of Rs 20 crores. Now, the alliance has filed an application with the DIPP seeking approval to open Tommy Hilfiger branded stores in India via the window for single-brand retailing.

Tommy Hilfiger Arvind Fashion is bullish on India as the brand has shown "robust financial performance" over the years and clocked total sales of Rs 80 crore for the fiscal year ending March 2011. Revenue is expected to have swelled four times to Rs 320 crores for the fiscal year ended March 2012, the documents filed by the company to the DIPP said.

Nearly 17 per cent of the $40-billion Indian apparel market is organised, management consulting firm Technopak Advisors estimates.

The $4.6-billion Tommy Hilfiger, a unit of PVH Corp, also owns brands such as Calvin Klein, Van Heusen (the Indian rights are owned by Madura Fashion & Lifestyle), and operates more than 1,000 stores in over 90 countries in North and South America, Europe, Asia Pacific among others.

Tommy Hilfiger has been one of the early movers among international lifestyle brands, having entered India in 2003. "It has stayed away from much discounting and created a loyal following across metro cities," Arun Sirdeshmukh, former CEO of Reliance Trends and co-founder of portal Fashionara, says. "But given their premium positioning it remains to be seen if there is a market for an additional 500 stores," he adds.

Meantime, in a separate DIPP application, French fashion brand Promod SAS has filed for a 51 per cent stake in a joint venture with local Modex Trading Pvt. Ltd. Modex is co-owned by Tushar Ved, the promoter of Major Brands, which currently owns Promod's franchisee rights in India.

Retail analysts say the brand had low recall value before it launched in India and a limited footprint, which is slated to change with the JV. "Promod has done fairly well in India also on the back of its mall locations, being a part of Major Brands' portfolio that includes Mango, Charles & Keith and Aldo," a rival retailer, said seeking anonymity.

The four-decade old brand, which claims to refresh its collection with 100 new products every two weeks, competes with women-centric, trendy brands such as Zara, s.Oliver and Esprit.

Incidentally, Madura Fashion & Lifestyle (MF&L) too is in the process of converting the distribution agreement it signed with Esprit in 2005 into a joint venture. "We have been in talks with Esprit and are trying to fine-tune things," Ashish Dikshit, CEO of MF&L said, without divulging details. "Our approach is to look for deep and long-term alignments," he added.

A study by management consulting firm Booz & Co revealed that around 100 multinational retail & consumer companies had entered India between 1990 and 2010. As many as 86 companies entered before 2009, and a little over a fifth of this lot (or 18 companies) changed their partnership model.

"Over the past few years, consumer brands that had followed the low-risk and low-return model through franchisees and distribution agreements, have gained confidence in the market and increased commitment," Raghav Gupta, principal at Booz & Co, says. Take for instance, UK-based retailers Clarks, and Marks & Spencer, which extended their distribution or franchise agreements into joint ventures with Future Group and Reliance Retail respectively.

Microsoft gets the Indian developer community ready for Windows 8

umbai: Over 200 hundred developers from across India have camped up for two days at a hotel in south Mumbai for a Windows 8 hackathon. This is the first time that the Indian developer community is getting into the hack mode for Microsoft Windows.

Hackathon, or codefest, is an event in which computer programmers and others in the field of software development, like graphic designers, interface designers and project managers, collaborate intensively on software-related projects.

With Microsoft Corp geared to launch its cloud-connected Windows 8 later this year, the US-based software developer is making sure that the developer community is ready with applications (apps) for the platform.

“India is an incredible bastion of software developers. On a global scale about 25-30 per cent of all the software codes written in the world are written by Indian developers (based out in India and abroad). Certainly galvanising the developer community in India to see the possibility and re-imagine Windows 8 and build next generation businesses is important,” said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer (CEO) of Microsoft, via a video conference at the Microsoft India Technology Summit.

Atul Gupta, an individual application developer who has been coding for the last 16-17 hours, is elated with his experience on Windows 8. “This is my first time that I have attended a hackathon and the experience was awesome. The application that I developed is consumer oriented,” said Gupta.

But some of the app developers, who are active on the Android and Apple platforms, are yet to test the Windows 8 platform. “We do not see any immediate reason to be part of the Windows 8 environment. What matters is the actual number of people using handset on that platform, as of now they are very small. Besides the Android base is just growing fast,” said Sagar Bedmutha, founder CEO of Optinno Mobitech.

The company has been developing apps for Research in Motion’s (RIM) BlackBerry smartphones and the Android platform.

Noida based OnGraph Technologies is yet another app developer that is staying away from the Windows 8 platform. “Our issue with Windows is that it is not an open source system. Hence, we prefer Android,” said Nikhil Verma, business development manager, OnGraph.

For Microsoft, getting the developer support from India and APAC (Asia Pacific region) will be significant as the region has several hundreds of companies creating application for the Android, Apple and RIM platforms. “For Microsoft, this is crucial as they need to create a market. There is no dispute that Windows has a huge base in the enterprise segment but that’s not the case in the handset and tablet segments. And these are two areas that are growing exponentially,” said an analyst who did not want to be identified.

Ballmer also reiterated that the launch of Windows 8 is a “rebirth” of the company. “While Windows 7 was one of the best products, with Windows 8 we are re-imagining Windows from ground up,” he said.

Agrees Alok Shende, principal analyst, Ascentius Consulting: “For Microsoft Windows 8 is one of the most important product. The company has a dominant position in the desktop environment, the challenge will be in the mobile category. With Blackberry losing sheen in the enterprise segment perhaps Microsoft can address that market too. But consumers already have too much to choose from,” added Shende.

Vishal Tripathi, principal research analyst, Gartner, believes that Windows 8 has its benefits as security, application store and delivery models and app contracts. It will also support broader devices where users can have same seamless experience on tablet, Phone and PC. “But one of the challenges for Windows 8 is the Metro UI. While they have developed plenty of desktop applications but the catalogue of Metro is limited. Though Microsoft is encouraging developers to build applications and apps acquired through the app store are free for a limited time. In India Windows 8 adoption will face some resistance enterprise who have recently migrated to Windows7 so moving to to a new platform is a huge cost in terms of license, manpower, application testing etc. The change in OS in the enterprise environment happens every three to four years in India and in case of small businesses perhaps up to five to years. It might make sense of companies who are still on XP to move to Windows 8,” said Tripathi.

IIFT signs MOU with Singapore Management University on training and research programs

Kolkata: The Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) and Singapore Management University ( SMU) have signed an MoU to collaborate on conducting training programs and research relating to international trade and business from an Asian perspective.

Under the partnership, the two institutions will jointly design and launch management development programs as well as offer postgraduate certificate programs in areas related to international trade, business and management.

Both parties also agreed to conduct joint research, case writing in the area of international trade and business, especially related to the Asian region. The MoU also covers student exchanges between the two institutions.

"With the shift in growth and centre of economic gravity towards emerging economies in Asia, it is becoming increasingly important for international trade professionals to be trained both inside and outside India to take full advantage of India's business opportunities. That Singapore is a trading and logistics hub, as well as a major financial centre in the region makes the SMU-IIFT or Singapore-Delhi educational axis a good mechanism for fostering both education and trade," said Professor Srivastava, SMU's provost and deputy president (academic affairs) in a statement.

IIFT director K. T. Chacko said, "The joining of hands between Singapore Management University and the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, India would go a long way in enriching the research and collaborative educational programmes. SMU's academic strength and in depth understanding of South East Asia and IIFT's core strength in International Business will prove a win-win situation for both."

India's first solar Renewable Energy Certificates issued, to MandB Switchgear

Chennai: The country’s first solar ‘Renewable Energy Certificates’ were issued today.

NSE and BSE-listed M and B Switchgear Ltd was issued 249 RECs by the National Load Despatch Centre in New Delhi.

RECs are generation-based ‘certificates’ awarded (electronically, in demat form) to those generating electricity from renewable sources such as wind, biomass, hydro and solar, if they opt not to sell the electricity at a preferentially higher tariff.

These certificates are tradeable on the power exchanges and are bought by ‘obligated entities’ that are either specified consumers or electricity distribution companies. These obligated entities may be required to purchase a certain quantum of either green power or RECs.

The obligations are split into non-solar and solar — which means the obligated entities have to purchase either power from solar power projects or RECs generated by them.

M and B Switchgear, headquartered in Indore, is a manufacturer of transformers. In 2010-11, the company’s turnover was Rs 37 crore on which it made a net profit of Rs 77 lakh. For the first nine months of 2011-12, its turnover was Rs 18 crore, and net profit, Rs 32 lakh. M and B’s shares closed on the CSE on Wednesday at Rs 76.85.

The company also has a 2 MW solar photovoltaic power plant. In 2012-13, this plant is expected to generate close to 3,250 RECs, says Mr Vishal Pandya, Director, REConnect, M and B Switchgear’s consultants for REC-related matters.

The government fixes the floor and ceiling prices of RECs for a specified period. The minimum and maximum prices for solar RECs for 2012-17 are Rs 9,300 and Rs 13,400 respectively. Therefore, if M and B’s solar plant generates 3,250 RECs, the company could be richer by anywhere between Rs 3 crore and Rs 4.35 crore.

Getting the certificates is a two-step process — first ‘registration’ with the state load despatch centre and then ‘accreditation’ by NLDC. While M and B Switchgear is the only one to be accredited so far, four other solar power developers have been registered for RECs. They are: Jain Irrigation – 8.5 MW Maharashtra; Kanoria Chemicals – 5 MW, Rajasthan; Gupta Suns – 0.5 MW, Madhya Pradesh; and Numeric Power Systems – 1.0555 MW, Tamil Nadu, according to information provided by REConnect.

Japan likes to be a partner in national manufacturing policy: JETRO India chief

New Delhi: Japan wants to be a partner while rolling out India's national manufacturing policy which aims at creating 100 million jobs and enhancing the country's share in the GDP to 25 per cent in 10 years.

Japan External Trade Organization ( JETRO), an arm of the ministry of economy, trade and commerce is likely to propose to Indian government that Japan should be declared a partner country while promoting India's manufacturing policy.

N Noguchi, JETRO's chief director general in India told ET that most of 820 Japanese companies which are active in India are in manufacturing sector, and many more such companies are willing to shift their bases to India. Hit by economic downturn, the Japanese market is shrinking every day and most of the Japanese companies want to shift bases outside the country.

"After the disastrous flood in Thailand last year, many Japanese companies realized they should not concentrate their manufacturing centers only in one place. They want to set up manufacturing facilities in India so as to minimize risks", Noguchi said.

Noguchi who had an earlier innings in India between 2005 and 2010, said many Japanese companies were also enthused by the success story of the newly developed Neemrana industrial area in Rajasthan. Over 30 Japanese companies including Daikin Air-conditioning, Nissin Brake, Mitsui Chemical etc. are setting up their plants in Neemrana area.

"Japanese companies are already contributing to manufacturing sector in India. But if we officially partner with India's national manufacturing policy, the process will get a momentum," said Noguchi.

World Economic Forum plans to establish India office

New Delhi: World economic forum plans to establish permanent physical presence in India by setting up an office in the next twelve months.

“We haven’t finalized the location but this is to underline increasing importance of India on the global stage. Today, India is amongst the most important G-20 economies and this underscores Forum’s commitment to the country as a partner,” said Mr Sushant Palakurthi Rao, Senior Director, World Economic Forum.

This would be Forum’s fourth office in the world, besides China, Japan and United States. It has its head quarters in Geneva, Switzerland.

Earlier known as ‘India Economic Summit’, henceforth World Economic Forum's annual gathering in India will convene as the World Economic Forum on India. “This is to reflect India’s position vis a vis the rest of the world,” he added.

This year, the meeting will take place in National Capital Region, Gurgaon, on November 6-8, under the theme From Deliberation to Transformation.

“This year, our focus would be on governance issues to influence the positive policy framework in India, human capital formation, food security, global talent pool and India’s contribution to it, Indo-Pak relationship and also a whole track would be on the South Asia’s women and girls,” said Ms Sarita Nayyar, Managing Director, World Economic Forum.

Last year, the forum had its meet in Mumbai in collaboration with the industry body CII. “This year our relationship has gone beyond event-based partnership. They continue to be our strategic partners,” Mr Rao added.

Amongst the Indian industry names, who have confirmed participation this year include, Mr Kris Gopalakrishnan (Co-Chairman of Infosys Technologies) and Mr Siddhartha Lal (CEO of Eicher Motors).

India, Qatar sign pact on co-operation in energy

New Delhi: India signed an initial pact for cooperation in the energy sector with Qatar today. The country is looking at Qatar for sourcing more crude oil and gas to meet its domestic energy demand.

The objective of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) is to establish a co-operative framework to facilitate and enhance bilateral co-operation in the sector, a statement issued by the Foreign Ministry here on Monday said.

The pact envisages co-operation in the areas of upstream (exploration) and downstream (refining) oil and gas activities.

The MoU was signed by Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister, Mr S. Jaipal Reddy, and Qatar's Energy and Industry Minister, Mohammed Bin Saleh al-Sada, after Qatar's Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani met the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, earlier in the day.

On April 2, at an event where Qatar's Energy Minister was present, the Petroleum Minister said India was looking at larger quantities of liquefied natural gas (LNG), crude oil and liquefied petroleum gas imports from Qatar.

In 2010-11, India imported 5.6 million tonne oil from Qatar. India also buys 7.5 million tonne a year LNG from that country based on a long-term contract.

Currently, Petronet LNG gets 7.5 million tonne of LNG from Qatar.

India is looking at additional volume of at least three million tonne at an affordable price.

Apart from co-operation in the energy sector, an agreement was also signed between the Reserve Bank of India and Qatar Central Bank for sharing supervisory information and enhancing co-operation.

Agreements on education exchange programmes, co-operation in the field of legal affairs, culture, and trade promotion in the field of organising exhibitions were also signed.

Apollo Tyres leases 10,000 hectares in Laos for rubber plantation

KOCHI: With the domestic tyre industry facing a crisis due to the global shortage of natural rubber, Apollo Tyres Ltd has taken on lease about 10,000 hectares of land in Laos, in South-East Asia, for rubber plantation, a top company official said.

ATL (rpt) ATL is the first Indian company to acquire a property for growing rubber. It would take 2-7 years for the yield to be tapped, ATL (rpt) ATL Chairman and Managing Director Onkar S Kanwar told reporters here last night after a meeting of the company's board of directors.

Apollo's largest unit is situated at Limda, in Gujarat, and its two other units are at Perambra and Kalamassery, Kerala. Its latest next generation plant is near Chennai and the four together have a combined production capacity of around 1,180 tonnes of tyres a day in India.

In South Africa, the Ladysmith and Durban plants account for a combined capacity of around 180 tonnes and the Enschede plant in the Netherlands adds another 180 tonnes a day, taking its total current production capacity to around 1,550 tonnes a day.

Kanwar said Apollo will invest Rs 500 crore this fiscal on its units in India and abroad. Of this, 6 million euros would be invested in Europe, USD 30 million in South Africa and the rest in India, he said.

The company will pump Rs 40 crore into its Perambra unit, in Chalakudy, and Premier Tyre facility, at nearby Kalamassery.

The rest would be utilised for capacity augmentation at the Chennai plant, which manufacturers tyres for trucks and cars.

The plant capacity would be enhanced to produce 6,000 tyres per day for trucks, compared to 3,000 at present, and 16,000 cars tyres per day, as against 8000 at present, Apollo Tyres Vice Chairman and Managing Director Neeraj Kanwar said.

The company aims to become one of the top 10 global tyre companies in the next five years.

On the industrial climate in Kerala, where Apollo declared a lockout some months ago at its Perambra unit, he said both plants are doing well. By and large, labour was good. But in Chennai and Gujarat, there was very a different environment, he said.

He denied reports that the company had plans to shift one of its units in Kerala to Gujarat due to the labour troubles.

India is Apollo Tyres' largest market, accounting for 62 per cent of revenues, while Europe contributes 25 per cent and South Africa 13 per cent. The company exports tyres to over 70 countries from India, Europe and South Africa, Apollo Tyres Chief - India Operations Satish Sharma said.

Edcucomp ties up with Kanchi mutt to set up 100 schools

CHENNAI: Educomp Solutions, a leading education company, today announced its joint venture with Sri Kanchi Kamakoti Peetam to set up a 100 schools across the country.

To be set up under the patronage of Kanchi Sankaracharya Jayendra Saraswathi, the schools will be known as Sri Kanchi Sankara Universal Academy, a company release said.

Kanchi Mutt was interested in providing affordable education and has already set up over 50 schools, 10 colleges and a deemed university over the years.

This tie-up is a result of the common vision of both partners to aid capacity building in school education space and provide affordable value-based education to the masses. Under this tie-up, around 100 schools will come up across the country in the next few years.

The mutt would provide the land and philosophical learnings while Educomp will set-up and manage the schools.

Alta-Xintong offers DC solar power for telecom towers

Chennai: Alta-Xintong Solar Tech Pvt Ltd, a joint venture between Bangalore-based Alta Energy Technologies Pvt Ltd and Chinese solar system solution provider XinTong, has launched DC solar power systems for power telecom towers in India. The company has tied up with an international financial institution to finance deployment of solar power systems.

The system would support the operators to run their new towers through solar power, reducing dependency on diesel powered systems which are currently under use, said E M Abdul Manaf, managing director, Alta Energy Technologies Pvt Ltd. The company is expecting to sell around 2,000 solar power systems by end of 2011, he added.

"We are in advanced stages of finalising 2,000 solar power systems for leading tower companies in India under the zero investment plan. We are in talks with major tower operators like Indus and GTL to provide the new system for their upcoming projects and shifting some of the existing towers from diesel system to solar system," he added.

Around 30,000 towers out of the total 300,000 telecom sites in the country are in off-grid rural locations, where it is run round the clock on diesel power. Besides, estimates are that around 36,000 sites are expected to come up in every year in India, with a market value of $ 2.16 billion.

The company has entered into tie-up with an international financial institution to provide an investment plan to the tower operators, zero investment plan. Under the plan, the financial institution would provide loan for investment, through which the tower operators could avail the system without making up-front investment.

Alta holds 65 per cent and XinTong holds 35 per cent of shares in the joint venture firm.

Renault to up parts sourcing from India

Chennai: French carmaker Renault will source 80 million euros worth components this year from India to feed its overseas plants. The company sourced 35 million Euro worth parts last year.

Renault is gearing up for its re-entry after severing ties with Mahindra & Mahindra. The first car will be its sedan Fluence which will be assembled at the company's plant in Oragadam, Chennai. The plant is set up in alliance with Nissan with a capacity to produce 4 lakh cars a year.

"Increased sourcing of parts for our global operations demonstrates our determination to make India the hub for our activities in this region," Sudhir Rao, deputy managing director, Renault India, said. The company had announced plans to launch five cars over the next 18 months. "We will now launch five new models in the Indian market over the next 15 months instead of 18 months," Rao said. The company, he said, will have cars in every segment in 15 months.

Terming the Indian market as a challenge, Rao said Renault's success in India was crucial. "India entry is a litmus test for success. Only if we succeed here, some other markets will open up for Renault. It is a huge challenge," Rao said.

The company hopes to have 14 dealer outlets across 12 cities by June 2011 which will increase to 40 outlets by December. In the third phase the dealer footprint will increase to 100 outlets.

Component sourcing by Renault's alliance partner Nissan from India for its worldwide operations is also gaining momentum. The company had envisaged $10 million worth components to be sourced from Indian vendors for its plants Thailand, China, Japan and the UK. "For the last year we sourced components worth $40 million. For the current fiscal (ending March 2012), we will source $100 million worth parts," Kiminobu Tokuyama, MD of Nissan India, said.

SKS Microfinance to explore banks for funds

MUMBAI: SKS Microfinance today said it will raise additional funds from banks, a move likely to help it tide over liquidity shortage.

"The Board of the Company...decided against CDR route, instead will explore other possibilities of additional fund raising from various banks/financial institutions," SKS Microfinance said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).

The Board has decided against going for Corporate Debt Restructuring (CDR) route, it said.

Several banks are believed to have approached the CDR cell of RBI to restructure loans advanced by them to Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs).

Some major banks such as State Bank of India , ICICI Bank and Axis Bank are estimated to have lent over Rs 15,000 crore to MFIs. ICICI has lent around Rs 2,000 crore, SBI Rs 1,000 crore, while Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) has MFIs exposure to about Rs 4,000 crore.

The Reserve Bank had in January relaxed the debt restructuring norms for the micro finance sector to enable banks to provide liquidity support to the crisis-ridden MFIs.

With the clamp down on bank loans to MFIs, the business of these companies has slowed down considerably since October last year when a string of farmer suicide cases in Andhra Pradesh led to the introduction of an ordinance to regulate the MFIs' operations in the state.

The ordinance is now passed into an Act. SKS with over 2,400 branches has more than 77 lakh members. As on December 31, 2010 amount disbursed by SKS stood at Rs 21,431 crore.

Toyota Motors to invest in Rs 300 cr to enhance capacity of its Indian subsidiary

NEW DELHI: Toyota Motors Corp (TMC) will invest Rs 300 crore to enhance capacity of its Indian subsidiary by 60,000 units in the next one year.

Toyota Kirloskar Motors (TKM), the local subsidiary of the Japanese company, will take the cumulative capacity of its two plants in Bangalore to 2.1 lakh units to meet rising demand from the local market.

"We have plans to grow gradually as demand will justify our capacity additions. The major expansion will be for our Etios sedan and its yet-to-be-launched hatchback model Etios Liva. In case, the local demand outstrips our capacity projections in the domestic market, we may accelerate our expansion for the Indian customers," TKM's MD Hiroshi Nakagawa said.

These expansion plans comes after the parent TMC plans to have larger focus on emerging market including Asia and projects a larger chunk of sales from such markets. The world's largest car maker, by sales, Toyota is looking at 50% of its future sales coming from Brazil, Russia, China and India (commonly referred as BRIC) and other emerging markets.

"Fortunately we have a huge booking backlog for Etios and other cars that stretches up to six months in different cities and towns of India. But even after successive expansions in place to make deliveries faster to customers, we have not able able to bridge the demand-supply gap. We will expand in stage to narrow down the gap in next few months," Nakagawa added.

Toyota's India sales grew 31% to 74,362 units in the April-February months, which gives it around 3.5% market share of the 2.2 million Indian passenger car sold in the same period.

The company also plans to start exporting cars from India, primarily Etios to similar emerging market in near future, though is has not frozen any exact countries for shipment. Currently its entire production is targets Indian customers only.