A 22kms de Pondicherry, un chantier naval va bientôt voir le jour

Source : Economic Times

A world class Ship Building yard is set to come up at Cuddalore in Tamil Nadu. Good Earth Maritime, a Korean company, plans to invest Rs 1,000 crore to establishing the project.

The Tamil Nadu government and the Korean company entered into a formal MoU, here on Thursday, to pave the way for works to start for the project. The MoU was signed in the presence of Tamil Nadu chief minister, Mr M Karunanidhi, besides state Electricity minister, Mr Arcot N Veerasamy and state chief secretary, Mr L K Tripathy and other officials.

In fact, a delegation from Korea had earlier met the chief minister on November 7, 2006 and sought the government's support for establishing the ship building project in the state. Mr Karunanidhi had directed the authorities to extend all possible support to enable the project to come up in Tamil Nadu.

According to a statement, issued by the government, the project is to be completed in two phases over three years, attracting an investment of Rs 500 crore for each phase. Once completed, the project will provide direct and in-direct employment to 5,000 and 20,000 people respectively.

L'Oréal veut s'agrandir avec des produits ayurvediques

Source : Reuters et Yahoo India

L'Oreal, the world's largest cosmetics group, is looking to buy an Indian skin-care brand to tap the growing consumer appetite worldwide for exotic beauty products, the Wall Street Journal said on Thursday.

"We would be interested in buying an Indian ayurvedic brand to bring the Indian vision of beauty to the world," Chief Executive Jean-Paul Agon told the paper in an interview.

Agon said L'Oreal had not identified what brand it would like to buy and was exploring a range of options, the Journal reported. The next three to five years would be a period of major growth for the French firm in India, he added.

L'indien Kanbay racheté par CapGemini

Source : Boursorama et AOF

Capgemini a finalisé l'acquisition de Kanbay International. Les actionnaires de la société indienne de services informatiques spécialisée dans les services financiers, ont approuvé jeudi dernier le rachat de leur groupe à un prix de 29 dollars l'action en numéraire, valorisant Kanbay à 1,25 milliard de dollars. Avec l'accord des actionnaires de Kanbay et la levée de toutes les autres conditions suspensives, l'opération annoncée le 26 octobre a été clôturée vendredi.

La société résultant de l'intégration de Kanbay et Capgemini, se classe parmi les cinq premières entreprises de conseil en informatique dans le monde et propose à ses clients une offre globale qui s'étend des Etats-Unis à l'Europe et jusqu'en Asie-Pacifique. Avec un effectif de 7 600 collaborateurs aux USA, au Royaume Uni, en Inde et dans la région Asie-Pacifique, Kanbay vient augmenter le réseau mondial de professionnels opérant dans le secteur Service Financier chez Capgemini à plus de 15 000 personnes, et porter les effectifs du groupe en Inde à près de 12 000 collaborateurs.

Grâce à cette acquisition, l'Inde devient le deuxième pays du groupe (18 % des effectifs) et Capgemini est présent dans six grandes villes en Inde : Mumbai, Kolkata, Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai et Bangalore.

Pour en savoir plus lisez l'article.

C'est le tour d'Infosys de faire l "€uro shopping"

Source : Economic Times

Bangalore-based IT major Infosys Technologies is scouting for acquisitions of mid-sized BPO companies in Europe. Sources in the industry said the company is looking at deals valued at over Rs 400 crore. Infosys, which has been on the look-out for a deal for some time now, plans to increase the scale of its BPO outfit through an acquisition.

“We are looking at acquisition in various geographies, including Europe in both IT services and BPO. In case of BPOs, the driver for Europe would be local language capability, client-base and platform,” a company source told ET.

Sources close to the development said the company is already in discussions with a few players for an acquisition. The company, however, did not confirm this.

Infosys BPO started as a joint venture between Infosys and Citibank Investments in 2002. During the first quarter of the current fiscal, Infosys bought Citi’s 23% stake in the company for Rs 530 crore. The company’s name was also changed from Progeon, after the BPO became Infosys’ wholly-owned subsidiary.

The company has operations in India, the Czech Republic, China and Philippines, through a partner. Infosys has provided a FY07 revenue guidance of $125 million for its BPO outfit.

Infosys BPO recently won a contract from one of the largest integrated oil companies in the world to deliver a wide range of indirect procurement services, including third-party hiring, commodity sourcing, indirect services sourcing, and supplier performance management. Recent wins include one of the best known US media companies.

Expanding its delivery footprint, Infosys BPO recently opened a 900-seat centre in Jaipur and announced plans to increase its capacity significantly over a 3-5 year period. The company also opened a centre in Delhi.

In December last year, the shareholders of Infosys BPO approved a buy-back of up to 12,79,963 equity shares at a market value of Rs 604 per equity share. Pursuant to the buy-back offer, Infosys BPO bought back 11,39,469 equity shares, which were subsequently cancelled on December 29, 2006. As of December 31 2006, Infosys holds 99.91% of the outstanding equity shares of Infosys BPO.

Accord de libre-échange entre l'Inde et 4 pays Européens

Source : PTI

India is in talks with four European countries -- Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein -- to strike a comprehensive economic agreement that would facilitate free trade relations, Swiss officials said here. A joint study group has been established by India and the four countries (EFTA States) to explore the feasibility of such an agreement, they said.

"We hope that draft of that agreement could be finished by November this year", Swiss Ambassador to India, Dominique Dreyer, told PTI here. "Then, draft has to be ratified by the five countries concerned".

Earlier, addressing an investment conference here today organised by "Location Switzerland", Ambassdor Monika Ruhl-Burzi, Head of Berne-based Bilateral Economic Relations Division, State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, said conclusion of such an agreement establishing free trade relations would be a major milestone in economic ties between the countries and provide a fresh impetus in this direction.

Dreyer said Switzerland was trying to set up a working group with India on intellectual property rights and also seeking to enhance cooperation in science and technology fields.

'LOCATION Switzerland' is the official programme of the Swiss government for the promotion of investments into that country.

Swiss officials said "access to European markets, a highly specialised and multinational workforce and a modest corporate tax rate are just some of the many attributes Switzerland provides foreign companies".