Bizbits

PNB to restructure operations

NEW DELHI: Public sector Punjab National Bank (PNB) has appointed Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Boston Consultancy forrestructuring its operations. As part of the exercise, TCS would advise PNB on the information technology areas and Boston Consultancy on the overall banking operations. The two firms were selected last month by the bank after representations from five management consultancy firms including KPMG Petemaverik, Arthur Anderson and McKinsey were received. The bank had planned restructuring in the late 1997 and had initially received presentation from eight firms. The meeting of these two firms with top officials of PNB is likely to place on April 5, they said.

IDBI’s Rs 6,000 crore issue

MUMBAI: The Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI) will launch a Rs 6,000 crore umbrella issue in FY 2000 to meet a part of its resource requirements. The financial institution has already moved the Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) with a prospectus submitted on March 31, 1999. This is the second year in running that the FI is going in for an umbrella issue. In FY 1998, the IDBI received permission fromSebi for the first time to raise Rs 5000 crore and in FY 1999 it has hiked its resource mobilisation through this route by Rs 1000 crore. SBI Capital Markets is likely to be appointed the lead managers to the umbrella issue.

Computer server market falls

NEW DELHI: Indian market for high-end computer servers declined significantly in 1998 along with other markets in Asia-Pacific (AP), a survey has shown. Since with the exception of China and Australia, the decline was all-pervasive in the AP region, India managed to hold on to its overall market share. There was only an insignificant fall in its share, a well-known survey of the International Data Corporation (IDC) said. The end-user revenue in the Indian server market saw a shrinkage from $ 211.9 million in 1997 to $ 180.3 million in 1998. Its market share slightly declined from 5.4 per cent to 5.3%.

Caparo-MUL in joint venture talks

NEW DELHI: Caparo group of Britain has approached automobile leader Maruti Udyog (MUL) for increasinginvestment by about Rs 40 crore in their joint venture Caparo-Maruti for production of sheet metal components as part of its ongoing expansion programme. "We want to put another line of production at our joint venture to cater to Maruti’s expansion programme and we are discussing it with MUL," Caparo group chairman Swaraj Paul said.