HYDERABAD: Gujarat Machinery Manufacturers Ltd (GMML) in concert with two of its subsidiaries -- Karamsad Holdings Ltd (KHL) and Karamsad Securities Pvt Ltd -- has made an open offer to pick up 20 per cent stake in Nile Ltd, a glass-lined equipment manufacturer, at Rs 40 per share. The offer is to acquire 6,00,380 fully paid-up shares in the company.

KHL has also deposited Rs 60.10 lakh in an escrow account with Banque De Paris, as part of the 25 per cent of the total offered consideration. The remaining 75 per cent, amounting to Rs 181 lakh, is proposed to be augmented through inter-corporate deposits. If Nile promoters are inclined to give a counter offer, this takeover bid can be termed as hostile. They say that the core promoters are busy working out strategies to neutralise the raiders actions.

GMML is engaged in the business of glass-lined equipment and wiped film evaporators under licence from Pfaudler Inc, USA. Chairman and managing director Ashok J Patel holds26 per cent equity in GMML, says the offer document. According to analysts, once the takeover bid materialises, GMML will become the sole manufacturer of glass-lined equipment in the country. Both these companies are sharing the existing business in the ratio of GMML 70 per cent and Nile 30 per cent.

MSRDC plans Rs 1,000 crore issue

MUMBAI: Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC), buoyed by the oversubscription of its recent Rs 500-crore bond issue, will approach the market again in 1999 to raise Rs 1,000 crore for carrying out various road and bridges projects. The 500-crore bond issue garnered Rs 1,171 crore last year.

"The decision to float the issue in 1999 will be taken only after considering the market conditions. We plan to take up projects worth Rs 3,000 crore in the next two years,'' MSRDC MD R C Sinha said at a seminar on "Infrastructure financing options and strategies," organised by the BCCI. Sinha said that work on the Mumbai-Pune expresway, launched on January1 this year, was progressing as per schedule. It will be thrown open to traffic on January 26, 2000, he added. MSRDC has already been awarded contracts worth Rs 629 crore for five sectors while the one for tunnel construction has been awarded to the Konkan Railway Corporation.

MasterCard, Visa plan joint ATMs

MUMBAI: MasterCard and Visa are planning to join hands to introduce a shared payment facility which operates across the automatic teller machine (ATM) network. Once introduced, it will lead to a revenue sharing agreement among card issuing banks and lead to an exponential growth in ATMs, lowering the break-even point on such investments.

The move by both MasterCard and Visa will enable credit card holders to access cash via the ATM network of any bank against their sanctioned credit card limits. Sources in the credit card industry said a possible hooking of the shared payment network system (SPNS) of the Indian Banks' Association (IBA) to that of MasterCard-Visa common network acrossATMs may be on the cards.

As of today, customers can access cash through ATMs only if they are account holders of the bank or via the ATM of a particular card issuing bank against their sanctioned card limits. In either case, such access is restricted to the ATM of the bank they have an account with or the particular credit card issuing bank.