Free Business GK 2011 – April Update

Last updated: May 13, 2011 by Sarbjit+

• ‘Spinners by Shane Warne' launched in India: Apparel brand ‘Spinners by Shane Warne' promoted by former Australian spinner and IPL team Rajasthan Royals’ captain Shane Warne was launched in India in an exclusive retail partnership with Reliance Trends in April 2011. ‘Spinners by Warne’ — a partnership between Warne and an Australian brand development company Lime Door Brands — was launched in November 2009 in Australia and has sold a million units since then.

 

• Mahindra Satyam joins GENIVI Alliance: Mahindra Satyam has joined the GENIVI Alliance, an automotive and consumer electronics industry association which works for development and adoption of an open In-vehicle Infotainment (IVI) reference platform. This platform supports vehicle infotainment applications such as music, news and multimedia, navigation and location services, telephony and Internet services.

 

• Dr Reddy's completes 10 years on NYSE: Hyderabad-based Dr Reddy's Laboratories completed 10 years of NYSE listing in April 2011, becoming the first Indian company to achieve this distinction.

 

• ASCI bags European ad award: Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI), the self-regulatory body for advertising content in India, has won the Best Practice Bronze Award at the eighth edition of the European Advertising Standards Alliance (EASA) Awards in Vienna on April 20, 2011. ASCI received this award for its work in the field of education, specifically for its guidelines to ensure trustworthy advertising for educational services. The EASA Best Practice Award is presented annually to the self-regulatory organisation that has most effectively implemented an element of the EASA Best Practice Model – a set of operational standards for advertising standards bodies.

 

• ONGC lowers ‘time capsule' in Ahmedabad: Twenty-five years from now, anyone keen on finding out how an Independent India realised its hydrocarbon dreams will only have to dig out a ‘time capsule' lowered for 25 years in the earth of this sleepy village under Kalol taluka of Gandhinagar district, where oil was first struck on April 18, 1961. Commemorating the Golden Jubilee of its Ahmedabad Asset, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd (ONGC), on April 18, 2011 lowered the ‘time capsule' that encapsulates the achievements of Kalol-01, the largest onshore oilfield after Bombay High and Heera. It was spread over 300 sq km, producing an average 1,100 tonnes of crude oil daily, with revenues of Rs 1,000 crore a year. The Ahmedabad Asset has 35 oilfields. Interestingly, ONGC abandoned Kalol-01 in March, just a month before lowering the time capsule! Oil was first struck in Independent India at Lunej in the Cambay Basin, off the Gulf of Cambay, also in Gujarat, in 1958. ONGC commemorated its first oil discovery at well number Lunej-01 on October 5, 2008.

 

• Garware Motors to introduce Hyosung bikes in India: Pune-based Garware Motors announced on April 20, 2011 a tie-up with South Korean two-wheeler maker S&T Motors Co to assemble and market motorbikes in the country. The company has launched the first two products in the country from the S&T-owned Hyosung range – the 650cc GT650 R sports bike starting at Rs 4.75 lakh and the 700cc ST 7 cruiser at Rs 5.69 lakh. Garware claims to be the first Indian company to launch superbikes in the 650-700 cc segments. Incidentally, this is the second time Hyosung is entering India. In 2004, while under a different ownership, it had partnered with Kinetic Motors and launched the Comet and Aquila bikes. However, it had subsequently pulled out leading to an acute shortage of spare parts and a large lot of unsatisfied customers. S&T, which acquired the brand in 2007, is expected to extend service support to the older customers as well.

 

• Tata Steel, Rio Tinto sign tech pact: Tata Steel and British-Australian mining major Rio Tinto have signed a licensing agreement for the technological and commercial development of the environmentally friendly direct iron smelting process called HIsarna. The agreement signed in April 2011 also decides how benefits from future marketing of the technology will be made available to both parties. Funded jointly by ULCOS, the European Commission and the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, a 60,000 tonnes a year HIsarna pilot plant is being commissioned at Tata Steel's IJmuiden steelworks in the Netherlands.

• Aditya Birla Chemicals buys Kanoria Chemicals unit: Aditya Birla Chemicals (ABCIL), a subsidiary of Hindalco Industries, in April 2011 acquired the Chloro Chemical Division of Kanoria Chemicals and Industries for Rs 830 crore. The chemical division comprises manufacturing facility for chlor-alkalis, chlorine derivatives and water treatment at Renukoot in Uttar Pradesh and Salt Works in Gujarat. The deal will more than double the caustic soda capacity of ABCIL to 220,000 tonnes a year (tpa) from 105,000 tpa. ABCIL produces chlor-alkali at its Rehla plant in Jharkhand.

 

• Dabur enters hand sanitiser market: FMCG player Dabur on April 17, 2011 said it is entering into the hand sanitiser market under its 'Fem Care' brand to take on the likes of Reckitt Benckiser and Hindustan Unilever, which are currently dominating the market. The company said it is looking at a double digit market share in the estimated Rs 20 crore hand sanitiser market within the next three years.

• MMTC to launch gold jewellery brand: Public sector MMTC on April 19, 2011 announced plans to launch a new gold jewellery brand, aimed at expanding its footprint in the domestic retail market. Of the company's estimated turnover of Rs 67,500 crore in 2010-11, precious metals are expected to contribute Rs 50,000 crore. The company also plans to set up more over 30 more retail outlets to sell the branded jewellery. At present, it has about 15 outlets across the country. Currently, the company has a silverware brand named 'Sanchi.' At present, the PSU has a joint venture with Gitanjali Group for gold and diamond jewellery retail.

 

• Maruti trains 98,000 under National Road Safety Mission: India’s largest car maker Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) on April 20, 2011 said it has given training to 98,000 people from the underprivileged section of the society in the last two years. Under its National Road Safety Mission, launched in December, 2008, the company has trained a total of 3.58 lakh people so far. MSI currently operates 4 Institute of Driving Training & Research (IDTR) and 166 Maruti Driving Schools in the country.

 

• CIBIL launches credit score for consumers: The country's oldest credit information bureau, CIBIL, launched its ‘CIBIL TransUnion Score’ for retail consumers, on April 20, 2011. This score will be available for a fee of Rs 450, will take into consideration factors such as the loan amount, the nature of loan (secured or unsecured), the tenure, delinquencies (repayment history or defaults if any), number of loans, among others. The final score is arrived at based on the weightage assigned to each of these aspects. It ranges between 300 and 900 and provides a snapshot of a consumer's credit history. CIBIL provides the score along with the Credit Information Report, which is available separately for a fee of Rs 142. While the report is an analysis of 36 months of the consumer's repayment history, the score uses that history and other information to indicate the likelihood of default in future. While lenders have been using the score for the past two years, now individual borrowers can also access it.

 

• Chocolate tycoon Ferrero passes away: Italian chocolate tycoon Pietro Ferrero passed away at the age of 48 in April 2011. He was joint chief executive - along with his brother - of the Ferrero group, which owns Nutella and Kinder. Ferrero's grandfather, also Pietro, started the company in 1942 in the northern Italian town of Alba, where the firm is still based. Because of wartime shortages, chocolate was difficult to obtain. The elder Pietro Ferrero hit upon a recipe which combined cocoa with locally abundant hazelnuts. That concoction - Nutella spread - became an international success. The business is still family-owned.

 

• Naturals, Trends Invogue salons merge: C K Ranganathan, who introduced the idea of selling shampoos in sachets in the early 1980s, and his brother C K Kumaravel have integrated their beauty salon chains Naturals and Green Trends on April 23, 2011. According to Ranganathan, this will be an acquisition model and his brother will continue to run the business. Trend Invogue, a group company of Rs 1,000-crore CavinKare, came into being in July 2002 with a focus on providing personal styling and beauty solutions to everyone in the family. It offers hair and skin care at 55 beauty salons across India under its Limelite and Green Trends brands.

 

• Samsung sells HDD to Seagate: Samsung Electronics Co is selling its hard-disk-drive (HDD) business to Seagate Technology for $1.4 billion in cash and stock as it seeks to exit from the cut-rate industry and focus on its bread-and-butter memory-chip business. The deal comes as the HDD industry is set to become even more competitive with Western Digital Corp’s plan to buy Hitachi Ltd’s hard-disk-drive unit for $4.3 billion.

 

• Wipro Tech ranked 2^nd in Top 25 US diversity councils: Wipro Technologies, the global IT, Consulting and Outsourcing business of Wipro Ltd, on April 20, 2011 announced it has been ranked second in the list of Top 25 US diversity councils, by The Association of Diversity Councils. The association is a practice group of diversity and inclusion consulting and training firm PRISM International, Inc. The rankings were announced recently. The first rank went to the US Navy. Wipro has an employee base of about 120,000 includes people from 74 nationalities, spread across 54 countries.

 

• Aditya Birla Group acquires Domsjo Fabriker: Aditya Birla Group on April 18, 2011 acquired Sweden-based speciality pulp and bio-refinery company Domsjo Fabriker for about Rs 1,500 crore ($340 million) through its international subsidiaries Thai Rayon Public Company and Indo Bharat Rayon (Indonesia) from a consortium of six individual investors. This is the second acquisition being made by the Aditya Birla Group in less than two days. On April 17, 2011, Aditya Birla Chemicals, a subsidiary of Hindalco Industries, had bought over the Chloro Chemical Division of Kanoria Chemicals and Industries for a cash consideration Rs 830 crore.

 

• Continental to buy out Modi Tyres: The world's fourth largest tyre maker Germany's Continental said on April 18, 2011 that it will buy Modi Tyres Company, a subsidiary of the listed Modi Rubber. Continental said it has signed an agreement with Modi Rubber to acquire 100 per cent shareholding in Modi Tyres Company Ltd (MTCL). Modi Tyres already has a licensing arrangement with the German company to make Continental branded truck and bus tyres for the Indian market. After completion of the transaction, MTCL will become a fully owned subsidiary of Continental Corporation and will focus on local production and distribution of bias and radial truck/bus as well as radial passenger car tyres for the Indian market. With sales of €26 billion in 2010, Continental is also among the leading automotive suppliers worldwide.

 

• Norio Ohga, former Sony president, passes away: The former president and chairman of Sony, Norio Ohga, who was credited with developing the compact disc, passed away at the age of 81 on April 23, 2011. In 1953, Sony's co-founders recruited Ohga while he was still studying at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music and hoping to pursue a career as an opera singer. From the start, he recognised the potential of the compact disc, and personally drove Sony's initiatives to introduce the format. During the development of the CD, it was Ohga who pushed for a disc that was 12cm in diameter, because it provided sufficient capacity at 75 minutes to store all of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Sony sold the world's first CD in 1982 and CDs overtook LP record sales in Japan five years later. Ohga's specifications are still used today, and have shaped formats developed since, including MiniDisc and DVD. In 1989, he oversaw the $3.4bn purchase of Hollywood studios Columbia Pictures, which was criticised as unwise and costly at the time. Ohga, who led the company from 1982 to 1995, also presided over the launch of Sony's game business, which went on to develop the successful "PlayStation" console.

 

• ‘handygo,Tata Indicom tie up for rural services: Called ‘Ek Behtar Zindagi’, this product is specially designed to provide information on a range of issues of day-to-day relevance to rural subscribers of a communication service provider. A larger rollout of 3G services and deeper penetration of smart phones would help expedite this project since handygo intends to go ‘mostly visual and data-centric' to the rural customers. Interactive Voice Response (IVR) services would also go a long way communicating with the rural audience.

 

• Titan launches Swivel Saga: Titan has launched Swivel Saga from Purple Spring Summer Collection 2011. The timepieces doubles up as a leather bracelet or as a gaming dial when wheeled to the other side. It has been priced between Rs 4,995 and Rs 7,995.

 

• InterGlobe unveils new logo: InterGlobe, owner of domestic low-cost airline IndiGo, on April 17, 2011 announced an image makeover unveiling a new logo to project a fresh brand identity. The new logo was created by Circus, a London-based brand consultancy group and Grandmother India. It has six spokes of varying lengths and colours held together by an unchanging centre.

 

• Captain Nair to step down as Chairman of Hotel Leelaventure: Captain CP Krishnan Nair said he will step down as the chairman of luxury hospitality firm Hotel Leelaventure by June this year, handing over the active management of the hotel company to his two sons. The 90-year old hospitality sector veteran announced on April 18, 2011 that his son Vivek will take over as the chairman, while younger son Dinesh will be the vice-chairman.

 

• Philips to give up control of TV business: Royal Philips Electronics will cede control of its 80-year-old television unit to an Asian contract manufacturer, joining European conglomerates including Siemens to scale back consumer electronics as prices decline. Philips will bundle its TVs, which the Amsterdam-based company first produced in 1928, into a partnership that will be 70% owned by Hong-Kong-based TPV Technology, it said on April 18, 2011. Philips will retain the rest and will receive royalty payments of at least €50 million ($72 million) annually from 2013 onwards. Moving TVs into a venture accelerates a transformation of the Dutch company in the past decade from a diversified conglomerate into manufacturer of lighting, health-care products and consumer electronics including tooth brushes and electric shavers. Philips sold its semiconductor business in 2006, got out of mobile phones and sold a majority stake in a personal computer monitor business to TPV for about $358 million in 2004.

 

• Nerolac launches ‘Champions Blue’: Kansai Nerolac Paints has dedicated a special shade ‘Champions Blue' to the Indian cricket team. In addition, Kansai Nerolac, keeping with its green philosophy, has introduced a new range of lead free premium exterior emulsions called ‘Nerolac Excel' and ‘Excel Total' that have been upgraded from low volatile organic compound (VOC) to almost zero VOC. The new shades were introduced in April 2011.

 

• Akshay Kumar to endorse Eveready batteries: The Eveready brand, after a hiatus of five years, will once again have an ambassador. Eveready Industries India Ltd, the owner of the Eveready brand in India, on April 18, 2011 announced that it has signed up Akshay Kumar to endorse the brand for an undisclosed timeframe. The company primarily promotes dry cell batteries under the Eveready brand umbrella. Amitabh Bachchan was its ambassador for a two-year period between 2004 and 2006. According to Deepak Khaitan, Vice-Chairman, the packet teas, which are currently under the Eveready brand, is likely to have a different brand name.

 

• JK Tyres to launch footwear: JK Tyres on April 19, 2011 launched ‘Soles with Souls’, a tyre recycling initiative, which plans to make shoes and bags made out of discarded tyres. JK Tyre launched its tyre recycling initiative in association with the Footwear Design and Development Institute.

 

• Dhingras of Berger Paints start succession initiative: Dhingras, the promoters of Berger Paints India Ltd, have taken a succession initiative in the listed, but family-controlled management of the company. Rishma Kaur, daughter of Kuldip Singh Dhingra, who is continuing as the non-executive chairman of the company since 1994, was appointed as the Alternate Director to the Chairman in April 2011.

 

• MCX unveils one gram ‘Gold Petal' future contracts: MCX launched Gold Petal, a future contract for trading in one gm gold on April 18, 2011. The trading unit of the gold contract is one gram and price quote for the contract is ex-Mumbai (inclusive of all taxes and levies relating to import duty, customs duty but excluding sales tax /VAT, any other additional tax or surcharge on sales tax, local taxes and octroi). Besides physical delivery in multiple of eight grams, investors can take delivery in dematerialised form.

Category: General Knowledge
Tags: General Knowledge