03-FEB-2011

Asian Paints temporarily shuts two Egypt plants

Asian Paints has temporarily shut down operations at its two production units in Egypt in the wake of the ongoing political crisis in the country. "Due to the unprecedented situation and prolonged curfew in Egypt, the company's subsidiary, SCIB Chemicals SAE has temporarily shut operations of its two plants from January 29, 2011," Asian Paints said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange. (Source: Money Control)

L&T Infra prices retail bond issue

L&T Infrastructure Finance, a fully owned unit of Larsen & Toubro has priced its retail bond issue at 8.2% annually, and 8.3 % for the cumulative option. The 10-year bonds will have a buy back option at the end of fifth and seventh years .The sale will open on 14 February and close on 4 March. The company will raise a maximum of Rs. 400 crore through the sale. The proceeds will be used for ongoing lending to infrastructure projects in Asia’s third-largest economy. (Source: liveMint)

Nestle buys medical start-up CM&D Pharma

Nestle SA has acquired CM&D Pharma, a UK-based drug-maker start-up testing a chewing gum to help kidney-disease sufferers, the first move in the company’s effort to build business selling food products that targets diseases. CM&D was started in 2007 by former Sinclair Pharma PLC executive Danilo Massari. Though the company has yet to fully launch any products, it has a number of medical foods in trials. (Source: liveMint)

Mercator Lines to invest Rs 200-250 crore on coal mine in Indonesia

Mercator Lines will invest about 200-250 crore in developing a coal mine in Indonesia as part of its strategy to increase its presence in the high-margin mining industry. The company will invest via a JV with an Indonesian firm PT United Coal to develop the infrastructure for the mining project. Total reserves in the Indonesian mines owned by Mercator Lines are about 70 million tonnes and the company plans to raise the total deposits to 100 million tonnes. (Source: Economic Times)