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MOTLEY COLLECTION OF BUSINESS AND ECONOMIC NEWS |
 10 new Indian billionaires on Forbes list
Indian steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal is ranked the world’s fifth richest on the Forbes billionaires list. Ten new Indians are included this year. Microsoft’s Bill Gates leads the list with $50 billion while Mittal boasts of a net worth of $20 billion. India is home to 10 new billionaires, more than any other country besides the US. The total number of Indian billionaires is 27, including Wipro’s Azim Premji with $11 billion and the Ambani brothers, Mukesh ($7 billion) and Anil ($5.5 billion).
The newcomers include DLF’s K.P. Singh ($5 billion), Tulsi Tanti, who built Asia’s largest wind energy farm, with $3.7 billion, liquor baron Vijay Mallya ($0.95 billion) and online gaming mogul Anurag Dikshit ($3.1 billion).
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 Aircel to invest $500 million in India
Aircel Ltd, a unit of Malaysia’s Maxis Communications Bhd, will invest about $500 million in the next three years to expand coverage in India. Maxis chief executive officer Datuk Jamaludin Ibrahim, who also sits on the Aircel board, said the investment covers to some extent Aircel’s two current areas, namely Tamil Nadu and Chennai. "But a bulk of the investment is predominantly for the 10 new circles, five of which have been launched while the other five will be launched by the year-end," he said. Jamaludin said the significant investments are necessary to make Aircel a pan-Indian player. He said out of the $500 million to be raised by Aircel, $300 million is already in place as extended by 11 Indian banks.
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 Adobe to invest US$ 200 million in India over 5 years
The $2 billion Adobe Systems is bullish on India. In his first visit to India after the global takeover of $3.4 billion Macromedia in December 2005, Bruce Chizen, CEO, announced a slew of new initiatives for India. The company would be investing over $200m in the country over the next five years and will ramp up its India headcount to 900, up from the current 650, by the end of the year. India already accounts for 12% of Adobe’s total global employee strength, and almost a fourth of its global engineering strength. Adobe Systems was one of the first global software majors to realise India’s R&D potential when it set shop here in 1998 under Naresh Gupta. India is the second largest R&D centre after the US for Adobe Systems. “We figured out the higher level of engineering skill sets in India,” says Mr
Chizen.
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 Bosch to invest $225 million in India
Motor Industries Company Ltd, a subsidiary of the German auto ancillary giant Bosch said it is keen on enhancing its presence in India and planning an investment of close to $225 million in the country. Bosch, which had a growth-oriented view of India, plans to invest close to Rs 200 crore (Rs 2 billion) in the Bangalore plant and close to Rs 600 crore (Rs 6 billion) in Nasik in addition to investments in Bosch's other units, said MK Vishwanathan, joint managing director. Speaking on the issue of MICO's marginal decline in profit for the year ended December 2005, he attributed it to “high depreciation cost” arising out of higher investments in new technology. MICO reported a net profit of Rs 343 crore for year ended December 31, 2005, compared to Rs 374.76 crore in the year-ago period.
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 Honda to pump in $89.7 m into India
Japan’s Honda Motors has unveiled its second bike—the 125-cc Shine— in the Indian market and said it will invest $89.7 million over the next three years to more than double its production capacity to two million units by 2010 to corner a 20 per cent share of the two-wheeler market. Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India, the fully-owned Indian subsidiary of Honda, said it hoped to sell 1,70,000 units of the new bike by April 2007. The company has priced the bike, which will be competing with market leader Hero Honda’s models like ‘Super Splendor’ and ‘Glamour’, Bajaj Auto’s ‘Discover’ and TVS Motors’ ‘Victor GLX’, at Rs 45,120 (on-road Delhi) and Rs 47,065 (disk brakes version). “Our aim is to become one of India’s top three two-wheeler manufacturers by 2010, ” HMSI president Y. Aoshima said.
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 Government clears 38 FDI proposals
Cargill Holdings BV’s $50 million investment plan for starting commodities trading in India was among the 38 FDI proposals totalling $81 million have been cleared by the government. Following the recommendations of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board, Finance Minister P Chidambaram also approved French insurer AXA’s proposal to bring in its share of capital worth Rs 24.55 crore in the life insurance venture with telecom major Bharti. Pilkington Italy of UK has got the green signal to set up a wholly-owned subsidiary in Andhra Pradesh for an initial investment of Rs 58 crore to manufacture automotive glass products in India.
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April 2006
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