What’s in a name!

Harsh Goenka is now busy on a new plant for his fermentation business. Two of his fermentation products — Doxorobucin, which is an anti...

Harsh Goenka is now busy on a new plant for his fermentation business. Two of his fermentation products — Doxorobucin, which is an anti-cancer product and Cyclosporin, which is an immuno suppressant used in organ transplants — have been doing quite successfully in the country as well as overseas. The new plant will be up to US FDA standards and will only manufacture Doxorobucin, his anti-cancer drug. The tycoon is obviously inspired by the success of Biocon and its fermentation business. If Shaw can take Biocon so far, why can’t RPG go the same way?

Away from his high touch world of science, Goenka seems to be getting low touch and superstitious in his hypermarket business — Giant. Since the original wasn’t really hitting it off too successfully in Andhra Pradesh, the tycoon decided to go in for a name change. So his hypermarket in Vizag will now be called ‘‘Spencer’s’’. If this is successful in gathering the crowds — that were till now not really storming the place — Goenka will rename his Giants in Mumbai and Hyderabad as well. Let’s hope he doesn’t get too inspired and renames RPG Life Sciences too!

Power Surge
Sudhir Mehta had increased his stake in Ahmedabad Electricity Company (AEC) by 5 per cent last year to 44.3 per cent, and now he’s working on taking it higher. The company will then be called Torrent Power AEC Ltd. It at present distributes power in Ahmedabad and has an installed capacity of 490 MW, and had recently also shown a leaning towards power generation too.

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The tycoon already has Rs 42.8 lakh worth of shares of Surat Electricity Company, which distributes electricity to the city of Surat. Apart from plans to set up a 1,000 MW capacity power plant on the outskirts of Surat by next year, the tycoon will have to think of more powerful ideas to keep his Torrent Group flowing ahead of those of more well-heeled rivals like NTPC, BSES and Tata Power. But for the time being he seems to be focussed on being most ‘‘powerful’’ in the state of Gujarat.

Beyond the big buy
Ratan Tata’s acquisition of NatSteel, has given him 2 million tonnes per annum of rebars, wire rods, pre-stressed concrete wires and strands. Through NatSteel, the tycoon will be well placed in Asia with manufacturing units in Singapore, China, Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, Vietnam and the Philippines.

This is also the country’s largest investment ever in Singapore. Tata believes are the future belongs to Singapore, at least as far as steel is concerned. Through NatSteel, Tata also aims to stand up to the tough competition from majors like the South Korea-based Posco, which has just introduced a new technology into its age-old plants, and Nippon, which just got into an alliance with Rio Tinto.

While Nippon has 29 million tonnes of capacity, and Posco has 26 million tonnes, the tycoon has very enthusiastically aimed for 7 million tonnes by the year 2007.

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While he thinks of plans of how this will happen, he is eagerly trying to win brownie points domestically.

Especially with those concerned with inflation, that is pretty much the entire government. It’s with this aim he took the lead in cutting Tata Steel prices, which led to Jindal, SAIL, Ispat and Essar also doing the same.

The tycoon may claim that he did this because of his realisation of his corporate social responsibility, but it had very much to do with the Finance Ministry’s prodding. Now all that’s left is to see how long this price cut will apply, though the tycoon has again taken the first step by declaring that Tata Steel will hold on only till March next year!

Dilip Cherian, runs a public affairs firm Perfect Relations. He is an economy watcher and tycoon tracker . None of the people he writes about are his clients.

Your insider tales are welcome at dilipcherian@hotmail.com