Sterlite sets 1 to 1 share swap ratio

Sterlite sets 1 to 1 share swap ratio
ENS ECONOMIC BUREAU

MUMBAI, APR 25: Sterlite Industries India Ltd (SIIL) on Tuesday fixed a 1:1 swap ratio for the demerger of the telecom division from itself. As per the scheme, shareholders of SIIL will receive one new fully paid up equity share of Rs 5 each in the new telecom company for every one equity share of the face value of Rs 10 each held by them in SIIL.

After the demerger of the telecom business, the face value of equity share of SILL will be slashed to Rs 5 subject to approval of the shareholders and confirmation of the court. The swap ratio has been fixed by the committee of independent directors following the recommendations of Arthur Andersen and Ernest & Young who have done the valuation.

Under the scheme of amalgamation of the Madras Aluminium (Malco) with SIIL, all existing shareholders of Malco will receive one fully paid up equity share of Rs 5 each of SIIL (after demerger of telecom business) for every two paid-up equity shares of Rs 10 each held by them in Malco, said the release.

HUGHES SOFTWARE STOCK SPLIT: The board of Hughes Software Systems would be meeting on May 4 to consider a split of the equity shares of the company. It has already informed stock exchanges about the stock split plan, a company statement said.

The statement added that the company has already applied for compulsory de-materialisation. Trading in the shares of the company has been madecompulsory in demat form for institutional investors with effect from May 15, 2000, the company said. The stock split is expected to help the company to take the acquisition route. It has already expressed interest in acquiring software and dotcom companies in the marketing and ASP space.

For the year 1999-2000, it has reported a 73 per cent growth in total income for the year 1999-2000 at Rs 120.75 crore up from Rs 69.82 crore (on an annualised basis for the previous accounting period of 15 months). The after-tax profit increased by 157 per cent for the same period -- to Rs 37.70 crore from Rs 14.66 crore (on an annualised basis).

ABB TURNS CORNER: ASEA Brown Boveri (ABB) has clocked a net profit of Rs 72 lakh for the first quarter of fiscal 2000 compared to a loss of Rs 2.86 crore for the corresponding period in 1999. The figures do not include income from the power generation business. Revenues during the period increased marginally to Rs 151.71 crore from Rs 149 crore for the corresponding period last year.

ABB has said that orders received during the first quarter shot up 57 per cent to Rs 352.03 crore. The figures for the corresponding period last year was Rs 223.80 crore. During the current fiscal, ABB expects 45 per cent of the orders to flow from automation process. Similar volumes are expected from its transmission and distribution business, while the building technology business is likely to generate around 10 per cent of its orders.

"We are in the process of shifting our focus focus to knowledge-based and service business. We expect this foray to notch decent orders in the coming years," a senior company official said.