Brandspeak

Samsonite factory opened
Luc Van Nevel, president World-Wide Samsonite Corporation recently inaugurated the Samsonite factory, the 13th worldwide, at Nashik.

The state-of-the-art factory with a capital investment of Rs. 80 crore has been set up to manufacture world class luggage.

The fully integrated plant at Nashik has been already producing international quality luggage. Some of the Samsonite models introduced so far are the Oyster range of suitcases, the Focus, Focus Deluxe and Trophy range of attache cases as well as the 445 series of the men’s bags and purses.

A joint venture between Dr. Ramesh Tainwala and Samsonite was signed in November 1995 to manufacture international quality luggage in India.

New Philips products
Philips India recently launched two products – Philips Super Grinder and Philips Spray Iron in the market.

The Philips Super Grinder, priced at Rs 2,995 with a powerful 500 W motor, is a 3-jar mixer grinder designed for faster and finer grinding. It has five detachable blades uniquely angled for better grinding performance.

It can perform applications like wet grinding, chutney grinding, liquidising, blending, shaking, mixing, pureeing, whipping, beating, whisking, grating and mincing.

The Philips Spray Iron, priced at Rs. 895 is aimed at assisting consumers in their daily ironing chores to give their clothes be it linen, cotton, wool, silk, satin or synthetics, a crisp look. The spray feature of the product allows for a fine uniform spray with no water patches.

Centurion Bank revises PLR
Effective from April 20, 1998, Centurion Bank Ltd has revised its prime lending rate and interest rate structure. The prime lending rate of the bank has been revised to 16 per cent against prior 16.5 per cent, exclusive of interest tax.

Centurion Bank, promoted as a joint venture between 20th Century Finance Corporation Ltd and the Keppel Group of Singapore, has the trust of Asian Development Bank, Manila and the International Finance Corporation, Washington in terms of sizeable equity participation.

New scheme by G-Mart
G-Mart supermarket has launched a special offers coupon scheme’ at their two outlets at Boat Club and Kalyani Nagar. The scheme provides savings on a wide range of products including food stuff, toiletries, drinks and even meat and vegetables. The scheme has been launched in cooperation with the product suppliers.

Net Page launched
Max Page recently announced the launch of Net Page’ paging through the internet services to its customers in Pune.

All Max Page subscribers who register for this service can now be paged from by any one at any time from anywhere in the world.The user has to type in the pager number and the message. This is then conveyed to the paging system that identifies the number and then pages the message. These messages are received almost instantly. The facility is available to Max Page subscribers in Pune, Bangalore and Hyderabad and the company plans to extend it to all other locations of its operations.

Exhibition on real estate
Libra Marketers and Organisers are organising Town in Ground,’ an exclusive three-day exhibition of real estate market and interior designers in the city from May 8 to 10. New English School Tilak Road will be the venue of the exhibition which will remain open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Nearly 150 builders from Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad are expected to participate in the exhibition in which the builders will put forth their various housing schemes before the visitors. Five financial organisations will also take part in the exhibition.

The exhibition will be divided into stalls of three category viz. A, B and C with the area of the stall being 240, 160 and 80 square feet respectively. GMAC-TCFC auto finance n GMAC-20th Century Finance Corporation Limited, which recently commenced its operations in India, has introduced an assortment of exciting auto finance schemes. GMAC-TCFC’s financial services are on offer throughout TCFC’s branch network which currently numbers around 50. The four financing options are security deposit options, 100 per cent finance options, down payment options and customised options.

Yamaha distributorship
Yamaha of Japan has appointed Michael Music as one of their authorised Indian distributors.

In a press release issued by the Michael Music, the company has said that it will be marketing Yamaha’s full range of musical instruments like electronic keyboards, pianos, digital musical instruments, electronic guitars and a whole range of concert percussion drums and audio and video eqiupment.

Seminar held
Component manufactures will have to strengthen their capabilities to absorb imported technologies and to continuously upgrade these through in-house efforts, said Dines Munot, vice president, Automotive Component Manufacturers Association (ACMA) of India at a seminar on automotive environment held at Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) in the city recently.

Saying that the design capabilities of Indian component industry was low, Munot said,“The automobile industry in the country is being shaped by forces of change, influencing the auto industry world wide. This means that the component supplier too, will have to have high technical capability in addition to being efficient.”

The seminar was organised and sponsored by Indo-British Partnership, SMMT (UK), All Indian Automobile Manufacturers Association (AIAM), ACMA and supported by ARAI.

Emco-Enron bid for Orissa project
Emco Transformers Ltd has tied up with Enron to jointly bid for Orissa’s power distribution privatisation programme.

A separate joint venture is proposed to be formed wherein the Emco-Enron consortium will hold 51 per cent of the equity and the Grid Corporation of Orissa (GRIDCO) 49 per cent. Emco Transformers Ltd, is a Rs 100 crore company.