HYDERABAD, India, Dec 16, 2008—Satyam Computer Services Ltd. (NYSE:SAY), a leading business and information technology services provider, today announced that its Board of Directors has approved the proposals to acquire 100% stake in Maytas Properties and 51% in Maytas Infra.  
 
Maytas Infra, a 23-year old company, is engaged in the business of infrastructure construction and asset development encompassing core areas of India’s economic growth viz., highways, metro/railways, ports, transport management systems, airports, power, oil & gas, irrigation, water treatment, etc. The company’s track record of delivering excellence has created a niche for itself with innovative business models capturing a strategic and significant share of the action in the infrastructure space.      
Maytas Properties Ltd is a scale player in development of urban space infrastructure such as master planned integrated townships, special economic zones, hospitality, retail and entertainment spaces meeting the enormous and rapidly growing need for high quality spaces in tier 1 and tier 2 cities of India. Maytas Properties is uniquely positioned in this sector to create value based on its own large and strategically located landbanks, brand and technology alliances.
Maytas Properties, along with Maytas Infra completely addresses the developmental infrastructure space which continues to be a high growth area in the current scenario.  
 
“The two acquisitions pave the way for accelerated growth in additional geographies and market segments such as transportation, energy and several infrastructure sectors for the core IT business.” said Satyam Chairman and Founder B. Ramalinga Raju “This would de-risk the core business by bootstrapping a new business vertical in infrastructure. This market segment can mitigate the risks attributed to developed markets and traditional verticals that are likely to be impacted by the recessionary economy. The established brand of Satyam can further enhance the penetration into emerging markets and within the infrastructure industry. The two companies being acquired in a challenging market offer potential for upside in future.”
 
The total outflow for both the acquisitions is expected to be US$ 1.6 bn comprising of US$ 1.3 bn for the 100% stake in Maytas Properties and US$ 0.3 bn for the 51% stake in Maytas Infra. The acquisition of Maytas Properties would be immediate. In the case of Maytas Infra, Satyam will acquire 31% from the promoters and make an open offer for an additional 20% from the public given that the company is a listed entity on the domestic stock exchanges. While the price proposed to be paid to promoters is Rs. 475 per share, the price for the open offer has been approved to be Rs.525 per share and is subject to change in line with SEBI regulations..
 
Satyam reiterates its continued thrust and emphasis in the global IT and IT enabled services. The company will continue to invest in strengthening the global partnerships with elite customers.
 
Mr.Raju added, “We are confident that the combined entity will deliver greater shareholder value in an otherwise challenging environment. We are also convinced that the integrated organization would be stronger and more diversified to deal with the uncertainty of the market.”
-Satyam Release.

New Delhi, 10th December, 2008: GMR Group’s Ambala-Chandigarh highway project was inaugurated at Chandigarh today. This 35 km stretch on NH21 & NH22 was executed on a BOT Toll model at an investment of Rs. 500 Crore. The concession period for this project is 20 years and it took two and a half years to complete. The project has been completed within the time schedule agreed under the Concession Agreement and received its provisional completion certificate on 14th November, 2008.

GMR Group won this project through an international competitive bid from the NHAI in November, 2005. The scope of the project included widening of the existing 2-lanes to 4-lanes and improvement, operation and maintenance, rehabilitation and strengthening of the existing road. This project was GMR Group’s first highway project in North India.

The Ambala – Chandigarh stretch has one of the highest traffic densities in the country, catering to vehicular traffic between Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and New Delhi. Four laning of this road will ease the traffic congestion and provide a tremendous boost to trade and commerce in the region. Apart from reduction in travel time, this road is also expected to improve safety levels for travelers since it has been built as per world-class specifications. There is a 12-lane state of the art toll plaza for toll collection.

Speaking at the occasion Mr. P B Vanchi, Group Advisor and Director said: “We are very upbeat on the future of Highway development in the country and are interested in the new projects which are being awarded by NHAI in phase III and V of NHDP. We have been shortlisted for a number of these projects and are currently evaluating them.”

Other highway projects of GMR Group
The GMR Group has three more BOT projects under construction which are expected to be commissioned within the current financial year. These are:
§ Four laning of the 107 km stretch between Adloor and Pochanpalli on NH-7 in Andhra Pradesh at a cost of Rs 690 Crore.
§ The 58 km stretch between Shivrampalli / Faruknagar and Jadcherla, at a project cost of Rs. 490 Crore. This road will be the main corridor for people commuting between Hyderabad city and the new Greenfield Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, also developed by GMR Group.
§ The 71 km stretch between Tindivanam and Ulundurpet on NH45 in Tamil Nadu, at a project cost of Rs. 820 Crore.
GMR Group already has two highways under operation – the 93 km Tambaram-Tindivanam stretch on NH45 in Tamil Nadu and the 60 km Tuni-Anakapalli stretch on NH5 in Andhra Pradesh. Both are annuity projects. With the commissioning of four new highways, the Group will have a balanced mix of toll and annuity based assets, totaling 420 Km in length.

Offers India’s largest online portfolio of financial products

Mumbai, November, 2008: Reliance Money, part of the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, today announced the launch of its e-commerce web portal www.RelianceMoneyMall.com, offering India’s largest online range of financial products to its customers. 

The announcement was made by Mr. Sudip Bandyopadhyay, Director and CEO, Reliance Money here today. 

The portal is a strategic initiative by Reliance Money to strengthen its distribution network currently spread across over 10,000 physical outlets and more than 20,000 touchpoints by leveraging the online medium. 

“To address the requirements of Reliance Money’s rapidly expanding consumer base in India, we realized the need to develop a comprehensive online shopping solution that would deliver financial and related products for all asset classes – ranging from insurance, mutual funds to bullion,” said Mr. Bandyopadhyay.

He further added, “India has around 60 million Internet users today.  We strongly believe that our e-commerce foray will play a pivotal role in strengthening our customer outreach by opening new avenues for existing customers in the online environment, and also by driving reach of our products to new customers.”

Reliance Money Mall.com offers a unique browsing experience of Power tool developed using Silverlight 2.0 technology.  It has been powered by Microsoft’s latest technologies including Commerce Server 2007, Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2005.

Besides financial products, customers will be also be allowed to purchase, at attractive prices a wide variety of non-financial products such as Apparel, Accessories, Books/ Magazines, Music CDs and DVDs, Home Appliances, Gifts, Flowers etc on the Shopping Portal. 

The portal will also be a host of subscription-based products such as technical charts, SMS Packs, Newsletters and research reports.

Krishnan to Oversee Strategy and Operations in India for the World’s Premier Social Network

 MUMBAI, November 21, 2008 – MySpace, the world’s premier social network, today announced the appointment of Hari V. Krishnan to the post of Country Manager for MySpace India. In his new role, Krishnan is responsible for overseeing strategy and operations for the MySpace India business, which has grown 36% since MySpace India launched in April 2007.

At MySpace India, Krishnan will lead the development of content, product and marketing programs, create innovative advertising solutions for brand partners, and build out strategies for driving user engagement and strengthening brand awareness of MySpace India. Krishnan is based at MySpace India headquarters in Mumbai and will report to Sung Lee, Vice President of Asian Operations for MySpace.

“Hari’s impressive background in the internet space, his keen business sense and his tremendous leadership qualities make him the ideal fit for this important role,” said Lee. “Driving growth in India is a top priority for MySpace internationally and it was crucial that we find someone with his depth of experience in the Indian marketplace. We know Hari’s passion and talents will be a tremendous addition to our global team – we are thrilled to welcome him.”

Krishnan has more than 8 years of experience in the online space and most recently served as the vice president for corporate planning and marketing for Travelguru, India’s top travel website. As a senior member of the company’s management team, he was responsible for all of the company’s brand marketing activities and product development.

Before joining Travelguru, Krishnan was the manager of business development and strategy and Yahoo! India. There he helped build a number of successful strategic alliances, conceived and implemented strategic business models and plans for a new entertainment service, provided financial analysis that steered the growth for his business unit, negotiated deals with local content providers and led initiatives for the company’s largest business unit. Before joining Yahoo! India, Krishnan worked at Cisco in the United States for 4 years. There he served as a product manager and was responsible for managing an international team of product marketing specialists.

ICRA has reaffirmed the LAAA (pronounced L triple A) rating with stable outlook for the Subordinated Debt Programme and the existing Long-Term Bonds Programme of ICICI Bank Limited (IBL), indicating highest credit quality. The rated instruments carry lowest credit risk. ICRA has also reaffirmed the MAAA (pronounced M triple A) rating, indicating highest credit quality for the bank‘s Term Deposit Programme and the A1+ (pronounced A one plus) rating, also indicating highest safety in the short term, for the Rs. 500 billion Certificates of Deposit Programme of IBL.

The ratings for the debts taken over by IBL from the erstwhile ICICI Limited have also been retained at LAAA with stable outlook and MAAA, respectively. The highest credit quality ratings are supported by IBL‘s position in the Indian financial system as the second largest commercial bank, its sound capitalization levels (Tier 1 capital 11.03%, Rs. 425.91 billion) as on September 30, 2008) and its extensive corporate relationships, besides the bank‘s retail franchise. ICRA has taken note of the pressure on the profitability of the bank as a result of deterioration in retail asset quality, increase in cost of funds and increase in provisions on its investment book (mostly on account of international operations). IBL has taken several steps to improve its asset quality like shifting away from higher loss retail segments (such as small ticket personal loans and two wheeler loans), reducing the pace of fresh asset creation and tightening credit norms and processes. In ICRA‘s opinion these steps are likely to help the bank in improving the asset quality over longer term; however their efficacy would be linked to the operating environment.

In ICRA‘s view IBL‘s large net worth (as a result of which NPAs as % of Net worth at a moderate 8.70%) would give protection to debt holders. IBL‘s efforts to increase the retail deposits and CASA (current and saving accounts) deposits could help it arrest the increase in cost of funds. As for the provisions / losses on investment book, closure / pre closure of ?non India linked derivative book‘ undertaken by the bank, reduction in positions in certain markets and improvement in market conditions could reduce the eventual losses for the bank. ICRA has also taken note of the increase in the asset liability mismatch as on September 30, 2008 vis a vis March, 2008. Steps taken by RBI to address the liquidity at systemic level and IBL‘s own efforts would be important to improve its liquidity profile. ICRA would continue to monitor the liquidity of the bank closely and expects it to reduce the dependence on bulk deposits and borrowings to improve its ALM profile over the medium term. Overall, it would be critical for the bank to maintain capitalization levels and net NPAs as % of net worth at an acceptable level and improve its liquidity profile.

BANK PROFILE – IBL is the largest private sector bank and the second largest commercial bank in India. For the year ended March 31, 2008, ICICI Bank reported net profits of Rs. 41.57 billion on assets of Rs. 3,998 billion and a regulatory capital adequacy of 13.97% (Tier I:11.76%). For the six months period ended September 2008, ICICI bank reported net profits of Rs. 17.42 billion on total assets of Rs. 3850 billion and a regulatory capital adequacy of 14.01 % (Tier1: 11.03%). With a presence in the banking, insurance, asset management, investment banking and private equity sectors, the ICICI Group is an important and large player in the Indian financial system

Mumbai, November 18, 2008: Axis Bank, India’s leading private sector bank, with a substantial NRI customer base, has tied up with TimesofMoney, India’s number one non-bank e-payments service provider to launch AxisRemit, the Bank’s own branded online remittance service. With AxisRemit the Bank will provide high-speed online money transfer services for NRIs belonging to major geographies viz.  USA, UK, Euro Zone (Euro Currency Area), Canada, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and UAE using Times-of-Money’s white-labeled state of the art remittance platform & know-how.

TimesofMoney’s white-labeled ‘hosted on demand’ solutions will provide the technology platform for AxisRemit. The back-office functions relating to remittances would also be handled by TimesofMoney. This alliance integrates Axis Bank’s core strengths in NRI Banking and service delivery with TimesofMoney’s domain knowledge and technical expertise in cross border remittances, creating a smooth and satisfying remittance experience to NRIs situated across the globe.

Speaking on the launch, Mr. Hemant Kaul, Executive Director for Retail Banking, Axis Bank said, “AxisRemit is the new online Remittance service from Axis Bank, representing a significant entry of the Bank into the fast growing remittance business. Under this service, NRI customers in USA, UK, Europe, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and UAE would be able to use AxisRemit to transfer money online from their local bank account to the receiver’s account anywhere in India. In recent years there has been a large-scale migration of NRIs to online remittance channels from traditional remittance routes and we intend to be a major player in this arena. The key strengths of AxisRemit will be our transparent pricing policy, superior customer service and faster Turn-Around-Time.”

Speaking on the initiative, Avijit Nanda, President, TimesofMoney, said, “We are proud to partner with Axis Bank to launch this very significant service for NRIs and be an enabler of the cross border flows that make India the world’s largest destination of inward remittances. With the extension of our white labeled solutions, our partners will be able to conduct their business with a high level of security and more convenience.”

Mumbai: NTT DOCOMO, INC. (DOCOMO), Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL) and Tata Sons Limited—the prime promoter for Tata companies including TTSL—today announced their agreement on a strategic alliance in India, under which DOCOMO will acquire 26 per cent of TTSL’s stock for approximately Rs 13,070 crore (US $2.7 billion).

In addition, DOCOMO, in accordance with regulations of the Securities and Exchange Board of India, expects to make an open offer to acquire up to 20% of outstanding equity shares of Tata Teleservices Maharashtra Limited (TTML), a Tata telecommunication company, through a joint tender offer along with Tata Sons.

As a result of the capital alliance, the partners expect to expand mobile communication operations in the fast-growing Indian mobile market, aiming to increase operating revenue and achieve steady business growth.

TTSL and TTML, both based in Mumbai, are telecommunications units of the Tata business, India’s largest conglomerate in terms of operating revenues. Both companies have high-quality wireless networks spanning the entire country and also have a large number of retail stores and customer-service outlets. TTSL & TTML have rapidly increased their combined share of the fast-growing Indian mobile market. They are rapidly expanding their subscriber bases, which currently stand at over 30 million combined.

Tokyo-based DOCOMO, the world’s leading mobile operator, has played a major role in the evolution of mobile telecommunications through its development of cutting-edge technologies and services. The company is a strong market leader used by over 50 per cent of Japan’s mobile phone users. DOCOMO will work closely with TTSL’s management and provide know-how to help the company develop its mobile business. TTSL expects to leverage DOCOMO’s expertise in the development and delivery of value-added services, where DOCOMO is a firmly established market leader.

November 14, 2008 – SanDisk Corporation India today announced a partnership with HCL Infosystems, India’s premier information enabler and country’s leading ICT system integrator and distribution company to be the distributors for SanDisk’s wide range of mobile phone memory cards in the Indian market.

Indian consumers are increasingly becoming reliant on their mobile phones and are using them to enjoy and share more content. In partnering with HCL, SanDisk will be able to leverage HCL’s expertise in ICT Distribution in India.

“The explosive growth of the mobile phone market in India has driven the need for SanDisk to increase its distribution capacity,” said Sanjay Mehrotra, president and chief operating officer, SanDisk Corporation. “Our partnership underlines the synergy with the mobile distribution capabilities of HCL and SanDisk’s exciting offering for mobile phones. With this partnership we aim to have a wider reach in one of the largest mobile markets in the world.”

Commenting on this new venture, Mr. J V Ramamurthy, chief operating officer, HCL Infosystems said, “About three decades back when we set up HCL and its support network across the country, we had the vision to take technologically advanced products to every doorstep. And having tied-up with SanDisk it gives us the opportunity to provide value added products to our customers.”

SanDisk’s offering for mobile phones includes mobile memory cards [microSD(HC) and M2] with capacities ranging from 2GB* to 16GB and also MobileMate™ USB readers (SDHC compatible) which provides users with a complete and versatile solution for transferring music, video, photos and other files between their mobile memory cards and computers. 

With a high capacity memory card in their mobile phone slots, consumers can do more with their mobile devices – be it storing more music, listening to more songs and/or saving more videos, photos, maps, ringtones and games.  For example, an 8GB mobile memory card can store 1,000 songs, 1,200 photos and 21 hours of video.[1]

“We see tremendous opportunity for our mobile storage products in India,” said Gavin Wu, Managing Director, SanDisk Corporation, Asia Pacific. “This alliance with HCL Infosystems will help us tap deeper into the fast-growing, digitally-savvy Indian marketplace.”

Vadodara: Pharma major, Vadodara based Alembic Limited, today announced that the company’s board of directors have approved a resolution to buy-back a minimum of 12,00,000 equity shares at a maximum buy back price of Rs 55/- per equity share.  The maximum amount of buy back shall be for an amount not exceeding Rs 3,300 lacs, constituting 9.69% of the paid-up capital & free reserves of the Company. The Board has appointed Edelweiss Capital Ltd as the Merchant Bankers for the buy-back program.

The buy-back proposal is being implemented in keeping with the Company’s desire to (a) to optimize returns to shareholders; and (b) enhance overall shareholder value. The buy-back would lead to reduction in outstanding number of equity shares, and consequent increase in earnings per equity share, improvement in return on net worth and other financial ratios.