Stemcor, an UK-based trading company is said to have signed an MoU with Essar to buy a 51 per cent stake in Essar Minerals. Now, Stemcor has an Indian office which we contacted for some details, and got an amazing response. After attempting to get a telephonic response, a set of questions were faxed to its Mumbai office. A foreign-accented voice said the office would get back with answers. Two days later, on calling once again for a reply, there was another surprise. The only person who could answer the questions was the foreigner and he had gone on a holiday (but he had seen the fax) and was not expected for a fortnight, said one Mr Agarwal. But the fax clearly anticipated that possibility and had asked for the query to be forwarded to the appropriate person at its communications division in the international office, or for the contact numbers of such a person. Agarwal refused to oblige. On attempting to reason with him he simply disconnected the telephone. Isn't that astrange way for a potential foreign collaborator in a highly-publicised deal to behave? Essar officials, however, confirmed the deal and said a public announcement would be made soon.

Enron's first billo

The whopping Rs 230-crore first bill presented by Enron's Dabhol Power Company has finally knocked the stuffing out of Maharashtra's brave insistence that the Enron deal was properly negotiated. If deputy chief minister, Gopinath Munde told industrialists that he was ``shocked'', then industry probably has reason to panic. This is the first admission that Dabhol may have been badly negotiated. According to sources, all the legal brains and accountants that Maharashtra may employ will only come to one conclusion that all the charges that Enron has billed have been written into the agreement, probably in fine print and in complicated legalese. The bill includes innumerable costs, taxes and duties incurred prior to commissioning the project. The actual cost of power produced by Enron has still to hitthe state the deal was negotiated at the exchange rate of Rs 24 to the $, it is already at the Rs 43.39 spot. The fact that inflation is lower than the 4 per cent escalation provided in the agreement does not help. Consumers better be prepared for higher electricity tariffs or stock up on candles.

Prudential arrest and vanished companies

AS this column had reported earlier, Binod Baid, the chairman of Prudential Capital Markets (PCM), once the top merchant banking outfit in the country who had helped companies pick up public money during the primary market boom, is in trouble. Baid floated several companies of his own including a sugar company and also acquired Sikkim bank. Last week, he was arrested and released, based on 10 cases filed against him; an RBI action in connection with loans by Sikkim Bank to the promoter's company is also in the offing. In fact, Baid's problems are set to worsen. Last week, the SEBI chief gave Investor Associations various statistics on the 80 clearly vanishedcompanies on its list. Of these, as many as 43 have no investor complaints; one-third were finance companies; and, the highest number of vanished companies in that list managed by a single merchant banker is yes, PCM 10 firms that it brought to the market have disappeared. We now hear that Baid's financial problems are compounded by the massive speculation in the run up to the June payment crisis, which was hushed up by the BSE. Baid wasn't the speculator. He has run up losses in his books exceeding Rs 20 crore.

For want of a car

SEBI Chairman D R Mehta almost missed the NSE's five-year celebration. Scheduled to be out of Mumbai, he had conveyed his regrets through a senior executive director, but he later changed his mind, but his driver had been sent away. A SEBI ED's car was then dispatched to fetch him but it could not locate the house. Mehta finally hopped into a cab and made it to the dinner -- putting and end to all pointed speculation and suspicion about his absence and spared his hostsa lot of embarrassing explanations.

Author's email: suchetadalal@yahoo.com