Zeno Tech Labsssssssssssssss....................
Trading around :119rs in Bse
Y it will increase...
1. B'coz it is Pharma company(not a cyclic business & day/day diseases increase)
2. Ranbaxy holds 6.94% of the equity...(5 years back ranbay holds 10% in Matrix labs which is a winner now)
3.It is promoted by chigurupati jayaram (who is award padmasri)
4. Rakesh Jhunjhunwala holds some stake in this company(holds 3.12%).....
5. B'coz...Ram k Kodali..like this stock (:
6.Entering to us marker
Visit this site to know more www.zenotechlabs.com
Disclosure: holds just 200 shares @ 117.20
Total Equity : 288.11
Gross Sales : 22.81
Net Profit : -9.21
In Million Rs /quater
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
India's Richest Lady
There must have been a time when Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw was neither wealthy nor famous, but it is difficult now to imagine that period. She has been one of Bangalore’s icons for at least a decade. Kiran was famous in Bangalore well before she was wealthy, and she was wealthy well before she became famous elsewhere. Bangalore had felt her future long before the rest of the country did.
In those days, even a few years ago, you could bump into her at important occasions in the city. She was present during cricket matches, big concerts, conferences, charity runs…
Kiran made news by her sheer presence. You could spot her photograph in the newspapers the next day, cheering the Indian cricket team or attending an Elton John concert. The parties at her Koramangala residence those days were events in themselves. Then she became the wealthiest woman in India.
After Biocon was listed in the stock exchange, Kiran began to slowly move away from the public scene in Bangalore. She began attending fewer public functions. She started throwing fewer parties. Even at Bangalore Bio, an annual biotech conference originally conceived and nurtured by her, Kiran is no longer the presence she once was. She was Bangalore’s most visible corporate figure before Biocon went public, even more visible than Azim Premji or Narayana Murthy. But it seemed that her wealth, even if only in stockmarket terms, drew her away from public life. She became shy.
We are joking of course. This is a true joke. Call it a coincidence, but as her wealth grew, Kiran had less and less time to spend it. This is true of most entrepreneurs, but with Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw this trend took a special significance. She enjoyed running her business, but she enjoyed her public life too. She also enjoyed the fine things in life. Her reputation in Bangalore was not just as an entrepreneur. She is known as an art collector, a socialite, the voice of the biotech industry, civic activist and even an event manager par excellence. Yet she has been dropping all these hats one by one. Why?
As a young woman, Kiran had not dreamt of becoming an entrepreneur. She was persuaded by Leslie Auchincloss, founder of Biocon Biochemicals, Ireland, to start a business in Bangalore in 1978. It was a difficult period financially for her family. “I had no money at that time,” says Kiran, “because my father had lost all his savings in a bad investment.” She hesitated long before taking the plunge, and that too only after Auchincloss assured her security.
Kiran has had an upper-middle class upbringing. Her father was a brew master at the UB Group and was wealthy enough for Kiran to get an all round education. “She had always had strong values,” says Neelima Roshan, her long-time friend. She developed fine tastes too. Kiran knew her Bangalore and people living there well. Her business went through tough times, but she hung on. “Over the years, I have been very impressed with her ability to remain focused,” says R.A. Mashelkar, director general, CSIR. It was well over a decade before Biocon showed signs of becoming a large company.
Focused as she was, Kiran also took a healthy interest in life around her. She organised public marches, worked with the police to create traffic awareness, threw parties, regularly spoke at public forums. She came to be known as an art collector. Kiran was also an equitable employer and looked after her employees well. “Kiran was a pioneer in Bangalore to introduce an egalitarian culture at the workplace,” says Vijay Chandru, CEO, Strand Genomics and a thoroughbred Bangalorean himself. Kiran was developing into a complete all rounder.
In those days, Kiran’s reputation in the city grew faster than her wealth. It was impossible not to notice her if you were in a position of some influence. A company like Biocon would always run into problems — finances, import restrictions, the tax regime, environment regulations — that were not easily solved. Kiran would push hard at the system, refusing to budge till she got what she wanted. It was difficult to wish her away. She was tough even to the point of arrogance, but her arrogance grew from her passion for business rather than a sense of superiority. “She was incredibly persevering,” says Nitin Deshmukh, head of Kotak Mahindra Private Equity.
Her wealth began to grow by the end of the 1980s, and by the early 1990s, she was rich by upper-middle class standards. She built a large house in Koramangala, an upmarket locality in the city. She had had an aristocratic upbringing. Now she could create a matching lifestyle on her own. Her connections grew as her business expanded. Her social circle, already quite wide, expanded further. People noticed her style, her growing wealth, and they began to take her seriously. There was no woman like her in the city. She was becoming a celebrity.
In business, Kiran was known as a careful spender, she spotted opportunities well before others. But she invested carefully, shunning business fashion. Kiran seemed to be less frugal with her private wealth. She lived well, began driving a Mercedes and travelling often in first class. She was seen sporting a Cartier watch. She was holidaying in Maldives. She donated large sums of money to good causes, including Rs 1 crore once to improve Bangalore.
She was the pre-eminent spokesman of the biotechnology industry. Her world was never limited to herself or her company or even her city. “Kiran could always see the larger picture,” says Narayan Vaghul, former chairman, ICICI. She got involved with the conference Bangalore Bio, got other biotech entrepreneurs together to form an association and became a vocal spokesperson of the industry at the Centre. Then came the IPO. Life and business took a sharp turn.
The house in which Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw now lives was built by her husband John Shaw. It is a 17,000-sq. ft, sprawling bungalow designed by architect Sandip Khosla. People tend to associate this house with Kiran’s new-found wealth, but there is no connection. “If I had not married John, I could not have afforded this place,” Kiran had once told us. All his life, Shaw had nurtured dreams of living in such a place. He is the director (international business), Biocon.
Such close associations at home and office make personal and professional boundaries fuzzy. Your office moves into your home, and your home into the office. Shaw is also Kiran’s business partner, confidante, advisor, and even mentor (he brings 30 years of professional experience into his mentoring). Their house is a home, a resort, an office, a getaway, a meeting venue, a place of celebration, all within easy reach of the Biocon corporate office. The opulence of the house, called Glenmore, is striking even after several visits. Even more striking is the contrast between business prudence and personal extravagance. Glenmore is the venue of many parties and celebrations. Those who know her well know that Kiran does not waste money. Virtually all meetings, with one possible exception on New Year’s Eve, have a connection with business. Kiran and Shaw don’t hire a hotel to host a business party. She often brings her corporate guests home, and they inevitably go away impressed. She saves valuable time by not driving into the city. She also saves, paradoxically, valuable money by not hiring a hotel. What seems as indulgence turns into wisdom on closer examination. Kiran drives a Mercedes, but does not buy expensive jewellery. Mercedes is a business need. Jewellery is not.
Glenmore is a home, but it could be seen as an allegory to the company strategy by being a cluster of units with intimate connections. Visitors tend to linger at the connections, long passages decorated with paintings. Both Kiran and Shaw are art connoisseurs. “It is art that brought us together,” says Kiran. Even Glenmore is not big enough to display all the paintings. They are there in the passages, drawing and family rooms, courtyard and even in the bedrooms. They are stacked in some corners also. Kiran had been collecting religiously, even when she did not have enough money to spend. “I once paid for a Husain in three instalments,” she says. Her taste and caution reflects in her collection. She does not buy expensive paintings. An average purchase is worth Rs 15,000. She has also never sold a painting she has bought. Kiran is not an art investor; she just enjoys art.
Kiran loves to show you around the house, and takes particular care to show you the paintings. Yet, her most proud possession is not a painting but a drawing, done with no pretence to being art. It is a drawing of the double helix by James Watson, which she once found with her driver. Watson had sketched it casually, as an answer to a query from the driver —who had been asked to take special care of the Nobel Prize winner — about what he did for a living. Kiran has it beautifully framed and it looks almost surreal on her walls. Much as she has achieved, Kiran bows to genius, to achievement that she can only admire from a distance.
For years, Kiran managed her busy public life and her business with ease. Things began to change as Biocon grew as a large company. The two years after IPO also coincided with an inflection point in Biocon’s growth. She had to focus more on company strategies and less on other matters. The wider world, it seemed, was becoming distant. Over the years, Kiran had not just built a company. She had also built a set of companies and a team of entrepreneurs. All the business heads in Biocon functioned as surrogate entrepreneurs enjoying full freedom to do what they wanted, while Kiran formulated the broad strategy and functioned as the ambassador. Biocon was now being reborn. Kiran has to oversee it closely.
Life also changed when Kiran and Shaw moved to Glenmore. They were now away from the city, which made it difficult for her to attend functions in the city regularly. The biotech industry was still close to her heart. Over the last few years, Kiran had been trying hard to solve the biotech industry’s problems. “All the years I have known Kiran, she has talked to me only about the industry’s issues,” M.K. Bhan, secretary, Department of Biotechnology, had told BW recently. Kiran had impelled the biotech industry as far as it could go. Now that Biocon is entering a different league of companies, it is time to turn around and push it with all her strength.
In those days, even a few years ago, you could bump into her at important occasions in the city. She was present during cricket matches, big concerts, conferences, charity runs…
Kiran made news by her sheer presence. You could spot her photograph in the newspapers the next day, cheering the Indian cricket team or attending an Elton John concert. The parties at her Koramangala residence those days were events in themselves. Then she became the wealthiest woman in India.
After Biocon was listed in the stock exchange, Kiran began to slowly move away from the public scene in Bangalore. She began attending fewer public functions. She started throwing fewer parties. Even at Bangalore Bio, an annual biotech conference originally conceived and nurtured by her, Kiran is no longer the presence she once was. She was Bangalore’s most visible corporate figure before Biocon went public, even more visible than Azim Premji or Narayana Murthy. But it seemed that her wealth, even if only in stockmarket terms, drew her away from public life. She became shy.
We are joking of course. This is a true joke. Call it a coincidence, but as her wealth grew, Kiran had less and less time to spend it. This is true of most entrepreneurs, but with Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw this trend took a special significance. She enjoyed running her business, but she enjoyed her public life too. She also enjoyed the fine things in life. Her reputation in Bangalore was not just as an entrepreneur. She is known as an art collector, a socialite, the voice of the biotech industry, civic activist and even an event manager par excellence. Yet she has been dropping all these hats one by one. Why?
As a young woman, Kiran had not dreamt of becoming an entrepreneur. She was persuaded by Leslie Auchincloss, founder of Biocon Biochemicals, Ireland, to start a business in Bangalore in 1978. It was a difficult period financially for her family. “I had no money at that time,” says Kiran, “because my father had lost all his savings in a bad investment.” She hesitated long before taking the plunge, and that too only after Auchincloss assured her security.
Kiran has had an upper-middle class upbringing. Her father was a brew master at the UB Group and was wealthy enough for Kiran to get an all round education. “She had always had strong values,” says Neelima Roshan, her long-time friend. She developed fine tastes too. Kiran knew her Bangalore and people living there well. Her business went through tough times, but she hung on. “Over the years, I have been very impressed with her ability to remain focused,” says R.A. Mashelkar, director general, CSIR. It was well over a decade before Biocon showed signs of becoming a large company.
Focused as she was, Kiran also took a healthy interest in life around her. She organised public marches, worked with the police to create traffic awareness, threw parties, regularly spoke at public forums. She came to be known as an art collector. Kiran was also an equitable employer and looked after her employees well. “Kiran was a pioneer in Bangalore to introduce an egalitarian culture at the workplace,” says Vijay Chandru, CEO, Strand Genomics and a thoroughbred Bangalorean himself. Kiran was developing into a complete all rounder.
In those days, Kiran’s reputation in the city grew faster than her wealth. It was impossible not to notice her if you were in a position of some influence. A company like Biocon would always run into problems — finances, import restrictions, the tax regime, environment regulations — that were not easily solved. Kiran would push hard at the system, refusing to budge till she got what she wanted. It was difficult to wish her away. She was tough even to the point of arrogance, but her arrogance grew from her passion for business rather than a sense of superiority. “She was incredibly persevering,” says Nitin Deshmukh, head of Kotak Mahindra Private Equity.
Her wealth began to grow by the end of the 1980s, and by the early 1990s, she was rich by upper-middle class standards. She built a large house in Koramangala, an upmarket locality in the city. She had had an aristocratic upbringing. Now she could create a matching lifestyle on her own. Her connections grew as her business expanded. Her social circle, already quite wide, expanded further. People noticed her style, her growing wealth, and they began to take her seriously. There was no woman like her in the city. She was becoming a celebrity.
In business, Kiran was known as a careful spender, she spotted opportunities well before others. But she invested carefully, shunning business fashion. Kiran seemed to be less frugal with her private wealth. She lived well, began driving a Mercedes and travelling often in first class. She was seen sporting a Cartier watch. She was holidaying in Maldives. She donated large sums of money to good causes, including Rs 1 crore once to improve Bangalore.
She was the pre-eminent spokesman of the biotechnology industry. Her world was never limited to herself or her company or even her city. “Kiran could always see the larger picture,” says Narayan Vaghul, former chairman, ICICI. She got involved with the conference Bangalore Bio, got other biotech entrepreneurs together to form an association and became a vocal spokesperson of the industry at the Centre. Then came the IPO. Life and business took a sharp turn.
The house in which Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw now lives was built by her husband John Shaw. It is a 17,000-sq. ft, sprawling bungalow designed by architect Sandip Khosla. People tend to associate this house with Kiran’s new-found wealth, but there is no connection. “If I had not married John, I could not have afforded this place,” Kiran had once told us. All his life, Shaw had nurtured dreams of living in such a place. He is the director (international business), Biocon.
Such close associations at home and office make personal and professional boundaries fuzzy. Your office moves into your home, and your home into the office. Shaw is also Kiran’s business partner, confidante, advisor, and even mentor (he brings 30 years of professional experience into his mentoring). Their house is a home, a resort, an office, a getaway, a meeting venue, a place of celebration, all within easy reach of the Biocon corporate office. The opulence of the house, called Glenmore, is striking even after several visits. Even more striking is the contrast between business prudence and personal extravagance. Glenmore is the venue of many parties and celebrations. Those who know her well know that Kiran does not waste money. Virtually all meetings, with one possible exception on New Year’s Eve, have a connection with business. Kiran and Shaw don’t hire a hotel to host a business party. She often brings her corporate guests home, and they inevitably go away impressed. She saves valuable time by not driving into the city. She also saves, paradoxically, valuable money by not hiring a hotel. What seems as indulgence turns into wisdom on closer examination. Kiran drives a Mercedes, but does not buy expensive jewellery. Mercedes is a business need. Jewellery is not.
Glenmore is a home, but it could be seen as an allegory to the company strategy by being a cluster of units with intimate connections. Visitors tend to linger at the connections, long passages decorated with paintings. Both Kiran and Shaw are art connoisseurs. “It is art that brought us together,” says Kiran. Even Glenmore is not big enough to display all the paintings. They are there in the passages, drawing and family rooms, courtyard and even in the bedrooms. They are stacked in some corners also. Kiran had been collecting religiously, even when she did not have enough money to spend. “I once paid for a Husain in three instalments,” she says. Her taste and caution reflects in her collection. She does not buy expensive paintings. An average purchase is worth Rs 15,000. She has also never sold a painting she has bought. Kiran is not an art investor; she just enjoys art.
Kiran loves to show you around the house, and takes particular care to show you the paintings. Yet, her most proud possession is not a painting but a drawing, done with no pretence to being art. It is a drawing of the double helix by James Watson, which she once found with her driver. Watson had sketched it casually, as an answer to a query from the driver —who had been asked to take special care of the Nobel Prize winner — about what he did for a living. Kiran has it beautifully framed and it looks almost surreal on her walls. Much as she has achieved, Kiran bows to genius, to achievement that she can only admire from a distance.
For years, Kiran managed her busy public life and her business with ease. Things began to change as Biocon grew as a large company. The two years after IPO also coincided with an inflection point in Biocon’s growth. She had to focus more on company strategies and less on other matters. The wider world, it seemed, was becoming distant. Over the years, Kiran had not just built a company. She had also built a set of companies and a team of entrepreneurs. All the business heads in Biocon functioned as surrogate entrepreneurs enjoying full freedom to do what they wanted, while Kiran formulated the broad strategy and functioned as the ambassador. Biocon was now being reborn. Kiran has to oversee it closely.
Life also changed when Kiran and Shaw moved to Glenmore. They were now away from the city, which made it difficult for her to attend functions in the city regularly. The biotech industry was still close to her heart. Over the last few years, Kiran had been trying hard to solve the biotech industry’s problems. “All the years I have known Kiran, she has talked to me only about the industry’s issues,” M.K. Bhan, secretary, Department of Biotechnology, had told BW recently. Kiran had impelled the biotech industry as far as it could go. Now that Biocon is entering a different league of companies, it is time to turn around and push it with all her strength.
Indian Warren Buffet
Housewives in surburban Andheri, hooked to the stockmarket ticker, swoon at the mention of his name. Billed by the financial media as the Pied Piper of the Indian bourses, it is not unusual for owners and CEOs of India’s leading companies to drop into his Nariman Point office, funding proposals in hand, for a coffee and a chat. Yet, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, the man who built a gigantic fortune single-handedly during a 21-year relationship with the manic equity markets, is an ordinary man who found his calling early in his life and has pursued it well.
Ask him how wealth has changed his lifestyle, and Jhunjhunwala says: “From smoking Four Square cigarettes, I have graduated to 555s; from drinking Royal Challenge whisky, I have switched to Black Label and instead of a Maruti 800, I now own a Mercedes S-Class.”
Despite the Rs 1,735.86 crore that places him in the BW Billionaires’ listing, Jhunjhunwala has clung to his upper middle class roots. He still lives in his family home at Walkeshwar in downtown Mumbai. He bought his first property — a holiday home in nearby Lonavala — only in his 40s. His family doesn’t go to London and Paris every summer, like other Indian entrepreneurs and corporate chieftains. His last vacation was in Kashmir. And he still vividly recalls spending Rs 7,000 on an outfit for his wife.
It is quite apparent that he is no big spender, a trait corroborated by his wife, Rekha. “He is really careful with his money, but he doesn’t stop me from spending it,” she smiles. Jhunjhunwala is quick to retort with an indulgent smile at his spouse: “I want to live in peace.” The spark between the two is very much there. Jhunjhunwala considers Rekha his lucky mascot, and often buys stocks for her, besides spoiling her silly on birthdays by renting nightclubs and DJs. But even then, the middle class gene kicks in — the value-for-money man heads to Tanishq, a brand known for its quality, to buy her jewels.
So, if money isn’t the driving force behind him, what makes him one of India’s canniest value investors? Our bet is that the man seeks excitement. For him, the adrenalin rush of the market is vital. And since he is not into car racing or flying in air balloons, the stockmarket is a perfect alternative for the man who says: “Life is a gamble.”
He has been obsessed with stock prices and balance sheets since boyhood. “The market was, is and will be his only passion,” says Rekha, recalling how her father-in-law had to shut down a crown caps manufacturing facility in Hyderabad as Rakesh refused to run it. Instead, after completing his chartered accountancy in 1985, he headed for the stockmarket.
The early days were tough, but Jhunjhunwala was unfazed. He wanted to be an independent professional and not kowtow to a corporate management team. “In 1986, I made my first big profit of Rs 15 lakh by selling 5,000 Tata Tea shares, which I bought for Rs 43 each, at Rs 140 in three months.”
Jhunjhunwala attributes his success to plain old common sense rather than intelligence. “You have to tap a good investment, one that comprises a business that is scalable, and then just hold on to it,” he says. He has done just that with the Pantaloon stock, which he bought before the Indian markets took off and holds a 1.85 per cent stake valued at Rs 97.31 crore as on 31 March. He also believes in a diversified portfolio. “Buy few companies, but in different businesses,” he says. A look at his portfolio (as on 31 March, 2006) reveals that he has invested in industries like media, hotels, information technology, retail, pharmaceuticals, banking and FMCG (see tables).
Jhunjhunwala says it takes time to make money. “I made 50 per cent of my wealth in five years (remember he has been trading for over two decades).” Which five? Probably the last five years, though he ducks the question by saying that 2005 was a “bumper year”.
For him, the excitement doesn’t end with hot stock picks. “He likes to party, either at home or outside,” says Rekha. He is often seen with family and friends at his favourite haunts among the city’s eateries and lounges. He even has a full-fledged discotheque in his Lonavala home for his weekends there.
Despite the hectic socialising, Jhunjhunwala is a workaholic and his eyes are glued to the screen practically 24 hours. Stockmarket reporters will tell you of interviews with him, during which he keeps a close eye on the ticker and business news, and makes deals at the same time.
His other obsession is his two year-old daughter, Nishtha, born to the couple after 18 years of marriage. “He wants to drop her to school at 9 a.m. and then go to work, despite wrapping up the day at 10 p.m. I often bring her to his office so that he can spend time with her,” says Rekha. The birth of his daughter has also kindled an interest in philanthropy. Jhunjhunwala proudly displays a model of a 57,000-sq. ft complex in Panvel that will house 400 homeless children. “For our daughter’s first birthday party, we invited 500 underprivileged children to Bowling Co. (in mid-town Parel),” says Rekha.
There is, thus, a soft side to the successful investor. “When I think of Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, I think of Crisil. He got Standard & Poor’s (S&P) to pay Crisil the right price,” says the head of an Indian private equity fund. (In 2005, S&P, through an open offer, became a majority shareholder in Crisil, where Jhunjhunwala had an over 14 per cent stake. He still retains about 5 per cent.) “I see no reason why he will not continue to be one of the country’s large private investors,” she adds.
Ask him how wealth has changed his lifestyle, and Jhunjhunwala says: “From smoking Four Square cigarettes, I have graduated to 555s; from drinking Royal Challenge whisky, I have switched to Black Label and instead of a Maruti 800, I now own a Mercedes S-Class.”
Despite the Rs 1,735.86 crore that places him in the BW Billionaires’ listing, Jhunjhunwala has clung to his upper middle class roots. He still lives in his family home at Walkeshwar in downtown Mumbai. He bought his first property — a holiday home in nearby Lonavala — only in his 40s. His family doesn’t go to London and Paris every summer, like other Indian entrepreneurs and corporate chieftains. His last vacation was in Kashmir. And he still vividly recalls spending Rs 7,000 on an outfit for his wife.
It is quite apparent that he is no big spender, a trait corroborated by his wife, Rekha. “He is really careful with his money, but he doesn’t stop me from spending it,” she smiles. Jhunjhunwala is quick to retort with an indulgent smile at his spouse: “I want to live in peace.” The spark between the two is very much there. Jhunjhunwala considers Rekha his lucky mascot, and often buys stocks for her, besides spoiling her silly on birthdays by renting nightclubs and DJs. But even then, the middle class gene kicks in — the value-for-money man heads to Tanishq, a brand known for its quality, to buy her jewels.
So, if money isn’t the driving force behind him, what makes him one of India’s canniest value investors? Our bet is that the man seeks excitement. For him, the adrenalin rush of the market is vital. And since he is not into car racing or flying in air balloons, the stockmarket is a perfect alternative for the man who says: “Life is a gamble.”
He has been obsessed with stock prices and balance sheets since boyhood. “The market was, is and will be his only passion,” says Rekha, recalling how her father-in-law had to shut down a crown caps manufacturing facility in Hyderabad as Rakesh refused to run it. Instead, after completing his chartered accountancy in 1985, he headed for the stockmarket.
The early days were tough, but Jhunjhunwala was unfazed. He wanted to be an independent professional and not kowtow to a corporate management team. “In 1986, I made my first big profit of Rs 15 lakh by selling 5,000 Tata Tea shares, which I bought for Rs 43 each, at Rs 140 in three months.”
Jhunjhunwala attributes his success to plain old common sense rather than intelligence. “You have to tap a good investment, one that comprises a business that is scalable, and then just hold on to it,” he says. He has done just that with the Pantaloon stock, which he bought before the Indian markets took off and holds a 1.85 per cent stake valued at Rs 97.31 crore as on 31 March. He also believes in a diversified portfolio. “Buy few companies, but in different businesses,” he says. A look at his portfolio (as on 31 March, 2006) reveals that he has invested in industries like media, hotels, information technology, retail, pharmaceuticals, banking and FMCG (see tables).
Jhunjhunwala says it takes time to make money. “I made 50 per cent of my wealth in five years (remember he has been trading for over two decades).” Which five? Probably the last five years, though he ducks the question by saying that 2005 was a “bumper year”.
For him, the excitement doesn’t end with hot stock picks. “He likes to party, either at home or outside,” says Rekha. He is often seen with family and friends at his favourite haunts among the city’s eateries and lounges. He even has a full-fledged discotheque in his Lonavala home for his weekends there.
Despite the hectic socialising, Jhunjhunwala is a workaholic and his eyes are glued to the screen practically 24 hours. Stockmarket reporters will tell you of interviews with him, during which he keeps a close eye on the ticker and business news, and makes deals at the same time.
His other obsession is his two year-old daughter, Nishtha, born to the couple after 18 years of marriage. “He wants to drop her to school at 9 a.m. and then go to work, despite wrapping up the day at 10 p.m. I often bring her to his office so that he can spend time with her,” says Rekha. The birth of his daughter has also kindled an interest in philanthropy. Jhunjhunwala proudly displays a model of a 57,000-sq. ft complex in Panvel that will house 400 homeless children. “For our daughter’s first birthday party, we invited 500 underprivileged children to Bowling Co. (in mid-town Parel),” says Rekha.
There is, thus, a soft side to the successful investor. “When I think of Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, I think of Crisil. He got Standard & Poor’s (S&P) to pay Crisil the right price,” says the head of an Indian private equity fund. (In 2005, S&P, through an open offer, became a majority shareholder in Crisil, where Jhunjhunwala had an over 14 per cent stake. He still retains about 5 per cent.) “I see no reason why he will not continue to be one of the country’s large private investors,” she adds.
Monday, April 9, 2007
Telugu Channels
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http://www.jaynay.blogspot.com/
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http://rakodali.blogspot.com/
http://jkirankumar.blogspot.com/
http://satyakarnati.blogspot.com/
http://movies-sports.blogspot.com/
http://sivamoney.blogspot.com
Regional electronic media seems to have suddenly become a hot business option. Andhra Pradesh, which has the largest cable penetration, is witnessing an influx of new channels. Five new 24-hour news channels will go on air this year.
First among the soon-to-be-launched are NTV and TV5, promoted by Narendranath Chowdhary and B.R. Naidu, respectively. Chowdhary will invest Rs 20 crore and has roped in S.R. Ramanujan, the man behind ETV’s successive launch of 11 entertainment channels. On the other hand, TV5’s Naidu has hired I. Satyanarayana, from Vissa Television. Satyanarayana had earlier worked with ETV as a news coordinator.
While NTV and TV5 are gearing up for the launch, others — VTV, promoted by a group of NRIs, Hyderabad TV, promoted by small-time politician Malepalli Lakshmaiah and Telengana TV, promoted by political group TRS — are still in formative days.It is the lure of ad revenues that drives investment to regional electronic media. A 10 second slot (Rs 300) with an average eight-minute commercial break in a 30-minute news spread would fetch a cool Rs 25 crore annually. And if alternative advertisement sources — scrolls, tariff increase during peak hours, etc. are counted, annual revenues would cover most of the capital investment. Apparently, promoters can also gain instant recognition. The channel line-up in Andhra reflects the increasing interest among politicians to own their own channels.
Meanwhile, to ward off competition, TV9 decided to launch three more channels — music, cultural and entertainment — for the Telugu audience. “We are investing Rs 550 crore for this massive expansion,” says Ravi Prakash, CEO, TV9. The channel intends to consolidate its position blocking prime bands with cable distributors. “Unless the channel is leading, you end up paying exorbitant amounts for distribution,” says Prakash. For instance, Zee Telugu and Maa TV pay about Rs 10 lakh per month for distribution in Hyderabad alone. Three more channels from TV9 bouquet implies that forthcoming channels such as TV5 and NTV will have a tough time coping up with cable distributors.
All said, none of the existing players are perturbed by the impending launch of channels and the likely price war they can create. “Even if TV9 and the new channels compromise with rate cards, we will be left unscathed,” says a senior official from ETV2.
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Regional electronic media seems to have suddenly become a hot business option. Andhra Pradesh, which has the largest cable penetration, is witnessing an influx of new channels. Five new 24-hour news channels will go on air this year.
First among the soon-to-be-launched are NTV and TV5, promoted by Narendranath Chowdhary and B.R. Naidu, respectively. Chowdhary will invest Rs 20 crore and has roped in S.R. Ramanujan, the man behind ETV’s successive launch of 11 entertainment channels. On the other hand, TV5’s Naidu has hired I. Satyanarayana, from Vissa Television. Satyanarayana had earlier worked with ETV as a news coordinator.
While NTV and TV5 are gearing up for the launch, others — VTV, promoted by a group of NRIs, Hyderabad TV, promoted by small-time politician Malepalli Lakshmaiah and Telengana TV, promoted by political group TRS — are still in formative days.It is the lure of ad revenues that drives investment to regional electronic media. A 10 second slot (Rs 300) with an average eight-minute commercial break in a 30-minute news spread would fetch a cool Rs 25 crore annually. And if alternative advertisement sources — scrolls, tariff increase during peak hours, etc. are counted, annual revenues would cover most of the capital investment. Apparently, promoters can also gain instant recognition. The channel line-up in Andhra reflects the increasing interest among politicians to own their own channels.
Meanwhile, to ward off competition, TV9 decided to launch three more channels — music, cultural and entertainment — for the Telugu audience. “We are investing Rs 550 crore for this massive expansion,” says Ravi Prakash, CEO, TV9. The channel intends to consolidate its position blocking prime bands with cable distributors. “Unless the channel is leading, you end up paying exorbitant amounts for distribution,” says Prakash. For instance, Zee Telugu and Maa TV pay about Rs 10 lakh per month for distribution in Hyderabad alone. Three more channels from TV9 bouquet implies that forthcoming channels such as TV5 and NTV will have a tough time coping up with cable distributors.
All said, none of the existing players are perturbed by the impending launch of channels and the likely price war they can create. “Even if TV9 and the new channels compromise with rate cards, we will be left unscathed,” says a senior official from ETV2.
Blogs
If you have dismissed blogs as a new set of toys meant for the nerds and the jobless, you may have already lost a million potential clients. That is the message European and US companies are sending to India Inc. Swathes of western companies are seeing the power of the blog — in both fetching customers and improving image. Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki, a list of business blogs, reports that in February, 22 of the Fortune 500 companies ran blogs. Soon after, 18 more did. Charlene Li, vice-president and principal analyst, Forrester Research, estimates her blog posts were a catalyst that brought more than a million dollars to the Massachusetts, US-based company.
But most Indian businesses just do not seem to care. “Business blogging in India is only seen among early adopters, I cannot think of even a handful of CEO-level people blogging in India,” says Ajit Balakrishnan, CEO, Rediff.com, and one of India’s pioneer business bloggers. Balakrishnan says his blog is seen by around 800,000 readers a month. “This is many times the number that read any OpEd page in India. All CEOs should blog,” he adds.
Experts say businesses in India keep their eyes shut to blogs as many are organised around a control structure in which consumers are talked to, and not with. However, a few of the IT and media companies in India are starting to see the light. News channel CNN-IBN’s editor Rajdeep Sardesai, however busy he may be, blogs once a month on the channel’s website. Bangalore-based Infosys Technologies and Tekriti Software in Gurgaon are two other active users of blogs.
While blog analysts agree on their power as messaging tools, they warn that you need to be careful. “Use them to advance your interests but do not get carried away,” says Nicholas Carr, former executive editor of Harvard Business Review. “There is a lot of hype around blogs,” says Jacques Kemp, CEO, ING Asia-Pacific, a pioneer in financial corporate blogging. “So, be realistic about your expectations. We believe all sorts of businesses can make use of blogs for benefits.” Kemp says ING was the first financial company to launch an advisor blog (www.pickuradvisor.com) in India.
David Brain, president and CEO (Europe), Edelman, the world’s third-largest public relations agency, has a rule of thumb: “Use a blog to learn from consumers. Build credible support for your initiatives, and reach out to stakeholders. That will help you co-create a brand story and a reputation with thousands of online citizens participating passionately.” The idea of engaging ‘online citizens’ excites Rajeev Karwal, former head of consumer durables, Reliance Retail. “Social networking sites such as Orkut and Facebook will soon redefine the way we look at market segmentation,” he says, adding, “You come across clusters of people with similar interests. Is there any better way [than blogs] to take your message to them at once?”
An Edelman white paper says that, on average, two in every 10 blog readers have taken some sort of action as a result of reading a blog. In the case of Balakrishnan’s blog alone, that equates to 160,000 people. With the world increasingly going online, can India Inc. afford to miss out on such exposure?
Indian companies need to realise that if they do not tell their story, one of those millions of bloggers out there will. Blogs are not going away anytime soon.
But most Indian businesses just do not seem to care. “Business blogging in India is only seen among early adopters, I cannot think of even a handful of CEO-level people blogging in India,” says Ajit Balakrishnan, CEO, Rediff.com, and one of India’s pioneer business bloggers. Balakrishnan says his blog is seen by around 800,000 readers a month. “This is many times the number that read any OpEd page in India. All CEOs should blog,” he adds.
Experts say businesses in India keep their eyes shut to blogs as many are organised around a control structure in which consumers are talked to, and not with. However, a few of the IT and media companies in India are starting to see the light. News channel CNN-IBN’s editor Rajdeep Sardesai, however busy he may be, blogs once a month on the channel’s website. Bangalore-based Infosys Technologies and Tekriti Software in Gurgaon are two other active users of blogs.
While blog analysts agree on their power as messaging tools, they warn that you need to be careful. “Use them to advance your interests but do not get carried away,” says Nicholas Carr, former executive editor of Harvard Business Review. “There is a lot of hype around blogs,” says Jacques Kemp, CEO, ING Asia-Pacific, a pioneer in financial corporate blogging. “So, be realistic about your expectations. We believe all sorts of businesses can make use of blogs for benefits.” Kemp says ING was the first financial company to launch an advisor blog (www.pickuradvisor.com) in India.
David Brain, president and CEO (Europe), Edelman, the world’s third-largest public relations agency, has a rule of thumb: “Use a blog to learn from consumers. Build credible support for your initiatives, and reach out to stakeholders. That will help you co-create a brand story and a reputation with thousands of online citizens participating passionately.” The idea of engaging ‘online citizens’ excites Rajeev Karwal, former head of consumer durables, Reliance Retail. “Social networking sites such as Orkut and Facebook will soon redefine the way we look at market segmentation,” he says, adding, “You come across clusters of people with similar interests. Is there any better way [than blogs] to take your message to them at once?”
An Edelman white paper says that, on average, two in every 10 blog readers have taken some sort of action as a result of reading a blog. In the case of Balakrishnan’s blog alone, that equates to 160,000 people. With the world increasingly going online, can India Inc. afford to miss out on such exposure?
Indian companies need to realise that if they do not tell their story, one of those millions of bloggers out there will. Blogs are not going away anytime soon.
- Almost 175,000 new blogs created everyday
- More than 1.6 Million blog updates are posted online everyday
- 74% of Japan people read Blogs
- 43% of South Koreans read Blogs
- 39% of Chinese people read Blogs
- 27% of U.S people read Blogs
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