Streamlining

Sudhir Dhingra’s Orient Craft, one of our biggie garment exporters, has just taken over Levi’s plant in Spain. Levi’s decision to sell the plant because of high labour and maintenance costs could not have come at a better time for the tycoon. Valued at a mere Rs 60 crore, the machinery from Spain will be shipped back to India to be installed at Manesar near Gurgaon. The state-of-the-art equipment will surely fit into Dhingra’s scheme of things, who already exports to premier world labels like Ralph Lauren, Banana Republic, Gap, Nike, Levi’s and Dockers. And the tycoon knows quality and therefore top-end equipment is going to be the key differentiator in the coming days. Dhingra, who exports 30 lakh units per month today, is looking to expand capacity to 40 lakh per month. No wonder he is looking at a 25 per cent turnover growth over that of last year.

Funny Money

Ronnie Screwvala’s UTV has entered into a joint venture with Malaysia-based Astro, a DTH and pay TV operator to launch two new channels targeted at the age group between 4-14 years in South East Asia region. Ronnie’s successful format for Hungama TV, the leading innovative kid’s channel, is what appears to have caught the eye of the Malaysian company. Specifically targeted to kids, the channels will be a mixture of animation and live action content incorporating Asian cultural values and entertaining educational elements. Ronnie, of course, will be charging royalty from Astro for taking the formats from UTV and Hungama TV over and above the annual fee of $1 million that he is to receive under the agreement.

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