Air India veut faire des vols vers Europe et Etats Unis moins chère

With Malaysia-based Air Asia proposing to start a low-cost global airline, Air India may look at the long-haul budget carrier business following the success of its subsidiary, Air India Express, in the segment.

"We are open to the idea of flying a low-cost airline to Europe and the US. Who knows, it might catch on in future and we would like to gear up to meet such a demand," V Thulasidas, chairman, Air India told PTI.

Air Asia, which offers fares equivalent to Rs 700 between two south-Asian destinations, proposes to offer flights to Europe from Asia for $100, seeking to revolutionise long-haul travel.

Taking a cue from this, Air India is now mulling a budget airline to Europe and the US, Thulasidas said, adding that the national carrier now has low-cost flights to several destinations in the Middle-East from a number of cities in India and between Chennai and Singapore.

Barring Dubai, where Air India operates both budget flights and regular ones with business and first class categories, the airline does not operate regular flights to other destinations in the Middle-East which have low-cost flights.

With Europe and the US requiring at least 8-10 hours of air travel, Air India could consider even a budget, first-and- business-class travel in such long-haul sectors, he said.

"But as of now, there are no concrete plans in this regard," Thulasidas said.

Carrefour se dépêche de rentrer en Inde

Source : Economic Times

French supermarket giant Carrefour , the world's second biggest retailer, will sign a deal to enter India in the next two weeks, India's Trade Minister Kamal Nath said on Thursday.

Nath, at a conference in London, said Carrefour was in talks with India's Wadia Group and its Britannia unit, which is India's top biscuit maker and part owned by French food giant Danone .

Cracking the Indian market, with its 1.1 billion population, remains a key target for the world's biggest retailers.

Any deal would give Carrefour a foothold in the booming subcontinent, where world leader Wal-Mart last year secured a retail venture with Bharti Enterprises, owner of Bharti Airtel.

"Carrefour is looking at India very closely," Nath told reporters on the margins of a conference held by The Economist.

"They said they are very close to closing up a retail deal in the next two weeks, that's what they told me."

A Carrefour spokeswoman said the group was not immediately available for comment. Wadia's group spokesman declined to
comment.

To offset slowing consumption at home, global retailers Wal-Mart, Carrefour, Germany's Metro and Britain's Tesco are pushing to enter India's $300 billion retail industry, which is forecast to grow to $637 billion by 2015.

Yet their access is slowed by legislation banning these multi-brand retailers from entering India's front-end retailing, only allowing them access through cash-and-carry, licence and franchise operations.

Nath signalled however that India's stance could be changing, saying it would explore liberalising foreign direct investment to its retail sector in the next two to three months.

GAMBLE

Competition among world retailers for Indian partners is tough, with Wal-Mart late last year beating Tesco to the deal with Bharti. Metro has entered via the cash-and-carry route.

They are also pitted against home grown brands like Indian giant Reliance Industries, which is investing $5.6 billion in the rollout of hundreds of stores across the country.

Should Carrefour net a partner, pressure will mount on Tesco, Britain's biggest retailer, to strike a deal or be left behind in the global land grab by the world's biggest supermarket owners.

Ira Kalish, director of consumer business at Deloitte Research, said retailers had to take the gamble and enter India, although it was still uncertain whether it would echo the rapid growth of the Chinese retail market.

"It is worth it for retailers and other foreign companies to make a bet on India because this could be the real thing and if they don't bet on it ... they will lose out," he said in a telephone interview.

Carrefour, after a successful expansion into China, the world's fastest growing consumer market, has set its sights on entering India and Russia's booming consumer economies.

It has pulled out of countries where it failed to rank as among the top three retailers and wants to up its share of foreign sales to make up for its tough home market. France accounted for about 54 percent of operating profit in 2005 against 63 percent before, with some of that shifting to Asia.

TCS avec la Palme d'Or 2006 dans le monde informatique

Source : PTI news

topped the list of top 10 best performing IT Services providers worldwide rated by Global Services, a specialized publication for IT businesses.

Indian companies dominated the list with

occupying second position followed by

Technologies, Technologies, and

Computer System.

The 7th spot was occupied by

followed by Computers Services and Technolgies.

The top ranking for both Leaders in Human Capital Development and Best Performing BPO providers went to

,

and (Hinduja TMT)

was selected as the Best Performing Global Call Center Provider.

The honour for the best performing Managed Services Providers went to

(Affiliated Computer Services) of the US.

While Software Labs with delivery centers in India led the list of the Top 10 Specialty Application Development Providers,

the Top Engineering Services Provider slot went to Computer Systems.

India accounts for the largest number of companies among the top 100 with 36 finding the coveted slots and is followed closely United States with 32 outfits. Together India and the United States corner 68 of the 100 slots.

Expert from Global Services, a CMP-CyberMedia publication and outsourcing experts at neoIT, a consulting firm that specializes in servicing globalization, identified top service providers on the basis of survey conducted by the publication.

CMP-CyberMedia LLC is a 50-50 joint venture between CMP Media in the U.S.A. And CyberMedia in India.

Corus dans la poche de Tata

Corus cost a premium, but worth it, says Ratan Tata

Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata today asserted that the Corus takeover cost would prove to be worthwhile, even though the group paid much higher than what it had started with.

Prices went up when investors came in and increased the price after Tata's preliminary bid of 455 pence a share and before it was challenged by Brazil's CSN, he told reporters here.

"But we have to pay for getting the company... As a prudent management, we had taken a view that we would not go beyond a point... We did not reach that point... Had we reached, we would have walked away," Tata said.

He dismissed suggestions that the group had overbid for the acquisition of Corus, saying: "Overbidding or not is subjective when it comes to a judgement call." Giving an analogy of real estate prices, he said what could have been considered a fair price two years back for a flat may not be the same now and added that steel company prices were only going up.

Tata Steel Vice President (Finance) Koushik Chatterjee said that the offer puts an equity value of 12.1 billion dollars and enterprise value of 13.65 dollars.

Tata Steel's contribution to the bid would be around 4.1 billion dollars, he said, adding that financiers remain the same.

Après Wal-Mart c'est Carrefour qui cherche son partenaire en Inde

Source: Sify Business

After the Bharti-Wal-Mart alliance, talks for another retail joint venture seem to be nearing conclusion. If industry sources are to be believed, Nulsi Wadia-owned Bombay Dyeing group is said to be firmly moving towards finalising a pact with the French retail behemoth, Carrefour.

"They have been engaged in serious talks for some time now and should be able to close the deal soon," said an industry source.

The development, though, could not be confirmed with the Wadia group spokesperson. It is, however, not being denied by company sources either.

"Speculations on Carrefour's foray into India have gone haywire. At the moment, all the moves on our retailing initiative are being closely guarded, so obviously, I wouldn't be able to comment on it," said a Wadia group spokesperson.

Nusli Wadia's elder son Ness Wadia, who is heading the group's real estate business comprising of shopping complex and other retail initiatives, is expected to take charge of the business.

"This business will fall in his lap by default as he is already looking after the real estate business of the company," said a company source.

The world's second largest retailer, $74 billion Carrefour, which is keen on tapping the emerging opportunity in the retail space in India, has been scouting for the right partner for some time now.

Europe's largest retailer was reportedly earlier in talks with Sunil Mittal's Bharti Enterprise, which decided to go with US-based Wal-Mart, which offered better terms and conditions. It has also had talks with Dubai's lifestyle departmental stores chain - the Landmark group.

Anil Ambani's Anil Dhirubhai Ambani group (ADAG) is also reported to be in talks with the French retailer to mark its foray into retailing.

Lately, Carrefour, which is present in 29 countries with over 7,000 stores, has been expanding in markets outside France and Europe. At present, Asia (7.7%) and Americas (6.8%) constitute only 14.5% of its business, as compared to Europe, which accounts for the rest. France alone accounts for 47.8% of its business.