Month: August 2008

Pharmaceutical major Lupin Laboratories has entered into a multi-year promotion and marketing agreement for the AeroChamber Plus line of products with Forest Laboratories. The company will be promoting and marketing the AeroChamber Plus line of products

Under the terms of the agreement, Lupin Pharmaceuticals Inc, USA, will use its 50-person sales force to promote the product to pediatricians.

AeroChamber Plus is a Valved Holding Chamber (VHC) device that is used with metered dose inhalers to improve the delivery of medication to the lungs in the treatment of asthma and COPD. It also reduces the deposition of medication in the mouth and throat and makes metered dose inhalers easier for patients to use by reducing the need to coordinate actuation of the inhaler with inhalation.

Fearing decline in revenue, telecom companies are set to oppose TRAI’s recommendation on net telephony within India.

Telecom regulator TRAI’s recommendation regarding allowing the net telephony has brought the ISPs and telcos on a battle field. Cellular Operator’s Association of India (COAI) has said that the telecom companies have paid hefty amounts to get telecom licenses and some of the new players are waiting for allocation of spectrum to roll out their services. In such wake it will be unfair to allow ISPs to start net telephony without paying any fees. COAI has further said that the assumption of little effect on account of low penetration of broadband is faulty. It fears that as the broadband users will increase, the concept of level playing field will become even bigger issue.

However, countering the arguments of COAI, the ISPs association has said that level playing field should not be used as an agreement to prevent technological advancement. The association further said that instead of taking ISPs as competitors, telecom companies should see it as an opportunity to cash in on untapped areas as the ISPs will depend on telcos for interconnectivity.

TRAI has also rubbished the resentment of telecom companies, saying that telcos have not provided net telephony in spite of having the license to do so. Therefore the move of allowing ISPs to offer the same was essential to provide consumers with advantages of latest technology.

Public city gas companies protest the expression of interest by RIL in cities where the government companies have interests.

Government-controlled city gas companies including Indraprastha Gas, Avantika Gas and Maharashtra Natural Gas have protested against the expression of interest submitted by Reliance Industries (RIL) for cities where these companies have interest (EOI). These include Gurgaon, Noida, Indore, Faridabad, Gwalior, and Pune.

RIL had earlier submitted EOI for 54 cities including the above mentioned. The public sector gas companies are now demanding that they should be given exclusivity of operations in these cities.

Indraprastha Gas for example, has been providing piped natural gas in Delhi since 1999. The company has been expanding its operations into the national capital region. As such, it has asked the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board to stop its proceedings towards inviting private companies for Noida, Gurgaon and Faridabad. Indraprastha feels that it has been given the right to supply piped gas exclusively in the region by the oil ministry.

EIH, the owner of India’s second most popular and oldest brand of Oberoi Hotels reported a topline growth of 10%, which is in line with the industry. The 15% rise in salary cost has been the primary reason for lower operating margin of 30%. Q1 FY09 PAT was at Rs 380 mn a 4% growth YoY.

Mumbai continue to be healthy. We expect revenues to get a boost once the Trident, BKC at Mumbai starts operations by the beginning of Q4FY09. The opening of the Trident BKC will be the primary trigger for the company as nearly Rs. 8 bn has been spent as capex on this 440 key property.

For the full year, EIH is expected to report an EPS of Rs 5.8 almost flat growth compared to previous year.