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Infosys Technologies said on Monday it had agreed to buy British consultancy Axon Group Plc for £407m (US$753m) as India’s second-biggest software services exporter looks for growth beyond an uncertain U.S. market.

The cash deal values Axon at £6 per share, a 19.4 per cent premium over Friday’s close of £5.025 and 33 per cent over the average price of the last six months, Infosys CEO Kris Gopalakrishnan said.

The offer price included any interim dividend that Axon, which has a market value of almost US$600m, may announce when it releases results on Tuesday, Infosys said. The Axon board has already ”unanimously recommended” the offer, with its large shareholders and some key employees also supporting the deal, Infosys CFO V. Balakrishnan said.

”They wanted to enter Europe in a big way, and probably this is the reason why they have paid a higher premium,” said R. K. Gupta, managing director of Taurus Mutual Fund in New Delhi.

”It’s a positive sign for the company because they were sitting on a huge cash pile, and it was not generating any return.”

Subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals, Nasdaq-listed Infosys expects to complete the deal in November. Axon, which provides services to companies using products of German business software maker SAP, would be delisted, Infosys said.

Rest of the news here.

Above picture of Infosys Mysore courtesy: Karthik

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Hyderabadi beer guzzlers have a reason to smile. Now they need not experience beer shortages anymore because the Nizam city is fast becoming the hub of MNC breweries. Hyderabad is indeed becoming the emerging beer capital of India. Hyderabad is famous for its Biryani, and the city is now brewing lots of beer to gulp. Foreign breweries are rushing to Hyderabad to claim a pint of the most lucrative beer market in the country.

In the last two years, four brewing giants like South African-based Sab-Miller, US-based Anheuser-Busch, UK-based Cobra and recently Singapore-based Asia-Pacific Breweries have set up shop in Hyderabad. CNBC TV18 learns that Belgian-based InBev and Danish-Carlsberg may also well be on their way .

Full article here

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I dont really fancy CNN. I have always been a BBC person. Maybe its because of my affinity to anything British. But sometimes, i just switch to CNN and wait to see if Monita Rajpal comes online.

And ya, she is quite yummy

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• February 2000 – Tata Tea Ltd acquires UK’s Tetley for $432 million, becoming the world’s No. 2 packaged tea company.

• August 2004 – Tata Motors signs a deal to buy the commercial vehicle unit of South Korea’s Daewoo Group for $102 million.

• June 2005 – Tata Steel Ltd buys Singapore’s lone steel miller, NatSteel Ltd, for $286 million.

• July 2005 – Tata Coffee buys US-based Eight O’Clock Coffee Co for $220 million from Gryphon Investors.

• August 2006 – Telecom firm Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd buys US-based Teleglobe International Holdings Ltd for $239 million and completes the $130 million purchase of Tyco International’s global undersea fibre optic cable network unit.

• January 2007 – Tata Tea buys 30 per cent of US enhanced water firm Energy Brands Inc for $677 million. It sells the stake less than a year later to Coca-Cola for $1.2 billion.

• March 2007 – Tata Steel acquires Anglo-Dutch steelmaker Corus Group for $13 billion, India’s biggest overseas takeover yet.

• January 2008 – Tata Power buys stakes in Indonesian PT Bumi Resources Tbk’s two coal mines for $1.3 billion.

• February 2008 – Tata Chemicals buys US soda-ash producer General Chemical Industrial Products Inc for $1.01 billion.

Above information courtesy: Economic Times

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Its official. India’s Tata Motors has finally bought Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford Motors. The exact pricing is to be unveiled today. But estimates are around 1 billion pounds. Finally after months of intense negotiations, Tata Motors will lay hands on two of the world’s most iconic automobile brands. The product profile of Tata Motors will now include the world’s cheapest car, Nano to expensive products like the Jaguar and Land Rover.

Earlier, there was news that Ratan Tata was interested in taking a stake in Ferrari. With this deal, the Tata group now holds on to some of the most iconic brands in the world which include Corus Steel, Tetley Tea, Ritz Carlton hotel in Boston, Jaguar and Land Rover.

Thousands of workers at Jaguar and Land Rover plants are expected to be told today that the marques have been sold to the Indian conglomerate Tata.

It is understood that a deal between Tata and Ford over the sale of two of the best known names in British car making was concluded last night after months of painstaking negotiations.

Ford refused to confirm a deal had been signed last night, saying any significant development had to be communicated to employees first. However, formal confirmation that the two sides have reached agreement is expected via simultaneous announcements in India, Britain and the US at around noon GMT today.

The companies have been in detailed negotiations for almost three months after Tata emerged as the leading bidder, ahead of rivals One Equity, a private equity concern, and automotive group Mahindra and Mahindra.

Yesterday the two sides were refusing to be drawn on reports from India that Tata had agreed to pay $2.65bn (£1.3bn) for the marques. The Reuters news agency quoted a source close to the deal as saying: “That figure of $2.65bn is highly unlikely. You have to come south from that by quite a bit.”

Full article here

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