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A commendable performance by Force India & Bangalore Royal Challengers and now this milestone of United Spirits clocking a sales volume of 100 million cases for the year.  Vijay Mallya and his companies are on a roll.  The only bleeding part being the airlines business.

United Spirits’ brands include

Dalmore
Jura
Whyte & Mackay
Black Dog
Antiquity
Signature
Royal Challenge
McDowell’s No.1
Celebration Rum
Bouvet Ladubay
Pinky
Romanov
White Mischief
Kingfisher

United Spirits Limited (USL), the flagship company of The UB Group, today announced that it has crossed the milestone of clocking a sales volume of 100 million cases for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2010. This achievement makes United Spirits the world’s second-largest spirits company by volumes, dislodging Paris-headquartered Pernod Ricard.

Key Highlights:

• The retail sales value of the spirits portfolio sales of United Spirits for the 100 million cases sold is Rs. 30,000 Crores

• USL’s 100 million cases contributed Government revenue of Rs. 18,000 Crores through excise and other levies

• USL has dominant market share and the fastest growing brands in most key segments

• USL has outperformed global competitors with USL brands growing 14% while the world’s top 100 spirits brands collectively grew only 1% and this when 18 of the top 25 global premium brands lost ground

• In the last 25 years, USL has sold a total of 740 million cases

• United Spirits launched Black Dog 18 YO in the super premium Bottled — In-India (BII) scotch category to further ramp up its market share

• The company upped the ante in the premium IMFL segment with the introduction of 100% pure grain-based McDowell’s Platinum whisky.

Full article here

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The next 7 years (2010 – 2017) of infrastructure investments in India would see an investment of almost a trillion dollars (approx 50 lakh crore rupees). Lots of money to be made for all the corrupt fellas as well as for the ones who want to earn legally.

And the infrastructure push just for the next one year is $140 billion (approx 7 lakh crores). Once in the lifetime of the growth of a country you can see such an explosive growth.  If you can identify the correct companies and make investments, it will give you the kind of returns which you would have never imagined.

India is roaring towards an infrastructure boom and plenty of jobs will be created like never before as capital expenditure in the next financial year is expected to surge up to a whopping Rs 700,000 crore or about 10 per cent of the expected gross domestic product of about Rs 70,00,000 crore. Companies in auto, power, railways, irrigation, airports and ports sectors are on a major expansion spree and Indian banks and financial institutions are pooling in massive resources.

But this may not be enough and some bankers expect companies to access other financing avenues such as capital market and overseas borrowing. Yet others feel that financial closure of many projects might have already been achieved and the implementation might not lead to fresh sanctions.

There is an overall economic recovery, thanks to improving operating profits and favourable equity market conditions this year. Almost every infrastructure sector is witnessing investments driven largely due to government support.

Both Crisil and the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) have nearly doubled their capital expenditure (capex) estimates for the next fiscal year to a whopping Rs 6,60,000 crore and Rs 7,00,000 crore, respectively.

“Every capacity addition activity leads to job creation, it cannot be a jobless growth. I cannot put a number on how many jobs would be created from the projected Rs 7,00,000 crore capex spending during 2010-11, but for every industrial job created, the multiplier effect in form of other jobs like contracts, etc, is 1:4,” says Ajit Ranade, chief economist of Aditya Birla group.

Some of these investments include

NTPC – 16,400 crore investment to expand coal based electricity production by 4100 MW
Mahindra & Mahindra – 2500 crores at Chakan near Pune to make 3 lakh vehicles annually
Tata Motors – 1500 crores at Sanand in Gujarat to make the Nano car
Renault Nissan – $990 million (approx 4500 crores) in Chennai to make 4 lakh cars annually
Maruti Suzuki – 2500 crores investment in Rohtak, Haryana
JSW Energy – 4200 crores
GVK Power – 3200 crores
Tata realty – 1370 for highways
IRB – 1824 crores for highways
Jindal – 47,000 crores for coal to liquid fuel plant & thermal power plant in Orissa
Tata -  21,000 crores project in Kalinganagar, Orissa

“There would be huge money coming as foreign direct investment in the next fiscal while the external commercial borrowing norms are expected to be relaxed further. Besides, India’s savings rate is 34-35 per cent of GDP, which translates into huge savings at the projected Rs 70,00,000 crore GDP for fiscal 2010-11. Hence I think, despite having high borrowing plans from the India Inc, capex spending by private and public sectors could be easily absorbed,” says Ranade of Aditya Birla.

Read the full articles here and here

Above picture courtesy: Abhijitkar

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Seriously, its high time the government of India paid proper heed to push up the manufacturing industry in the country.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh dropped a bombshell at the meeting of the full planning commission on Tuesday when he disclosed that the US computer hardware giant Dell was looking at shifting out of China, and hinted that the company may be looking at India as its sourcing base. Dell, he quoted the company’s chairman as saying, buys $25 billion from China. China’s loss could mean a huge gain for India, he added.

The news comes on the heels of software giant Google shutting down its search engine in mainland China and redirecting Chinese language search traffic to Hong Kong.

The prime minister, in his closing remarks at the plan panel meet, said: “A very important point has been raised regarding development of the hardware sector of information technology. This morning I met the chairman of Dell Corporation. He informed me that they are buying equipment and parts worth $25 billion from China. They would like to shift to safer environment with climate conducive to enterprise with security of legal system. So I think this is an area where there are immense opportunities. I urge the Planning Commission to apply their mind about development of hardware and parts of computer industry.”

Full article here

Google picture courtesy:  Apple Investor

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Indian hospital chain Fortis Healthcare will buy 23.9 percent of Singapore’s Parkway Holdings  from U.S. buyout firm TPG Capital in an expansion drive into Asia and the Middle East.

The $685 million deal will give Fortis a foothold in Singapore and Malaysia and make it the biggest private hospital network in Asia, it said.

The move continues an overseas acquisition push by Indian companies looking for new markets and know-how. Top Indian mobile carrier Bharti Airtel is in talks to buy the African operations of Kuwait’s Zain for $9 billion.

Fortis intends to move into other parts of Asia and the Middle East, Chairman Malvinder Mohan Singh told reporters.

“Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand are markets we would like to evaluate,” Singh told Reuters in Singapore.

Fortis has no immediate plans to raise its stake in Parkway and planned to work with the Singapore firm in expanding across the region, added Singh, who will be nominated Parkway chairman.

Fortis will be the largest shareholder in Parkway, with a stake slightly higher than the 23.32 percent held by Malaysian state fund Khazanah Nasional Bhd, according to Parkway’s website.

Fortis’ purchase follows its $187 million acquisition in August of 10 hospitals from unlisted Wockhardt Hospitals.

“It makes more sense for Fortis to acquire a strategic stake in Parkway than to go for a full-fledged acquisition as it would mean lower risk as well as lower cost,” said Sapna Jhawar, a healthcare analyst with Mumbai-based Sharekhan.

Full news here

Above picture of Fortis hospital, Noida courtesy: Neytri

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The Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) at Hyderabad built and operated by the GMR group has been declared the 5th best airport in the world and the Number 1 in the 5-15 million passengers category.

Approach road to the airport

Another example why the Government of India has no business running any critical infrastructure in the country.  Look at the shabby airports run by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) and then pass through the Hyderabad airport.

The airport air traffic control tower

You will never realise that its situated somewhere in India.  Top class infrastructure with top class service has resulted in RGIA gatecrashing into the hallowed group of airports worldwide. To be even talked in the same breath as Changi, Incheon, Hong Kong etc is an honour and GMR must be roundly applauded for bringing up RGIA to international standards.

This is how the Airports Council International (ACI), an autonomous body representing world airports, adjudged the airports

1.  Incheon, South Korea

2. Changi, Singapore

3. Hong Kong International Airport

4. Beijing International Airport, China

5. Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, Hyderabad, India

News source: Economic Times

Pictures source: Blacknwhite, Marie, Vincent Tulio, Bert Roos

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