Silk Air to fly Coimbatore,Tiruchi

Flight to Singapore
[ 29 Nov, 2006 0001hrs ISTTIMES NEWS NETWORK ]

Singapore International Airlines (SIA) launched its sixth flight, a Tuesday service, to Bangalore, increasing the weekly seat capacity to 1,816 seats. The sixth flight will see a 20 per cent increase on seat capacity.

Singapore Airlines general manager (India) Foo Chai Woo said the airline hopes to make Bangalore a daily destination soon and hoped the next bilateral talks between Singapore and India would grant the airline the requisite permission.

SIA has offered a cool Rs 6,666 plus taxes return fare for the Tuesday flight as an introductory offer and the tickets have to be booked before December 2. Those booked on this fare can fly from November 28 to January 31. This is against a normal fare of Rs 20,000 plus taxes. Similarly, a fare of Rs 7,777 on the Bangalore-Kuala Lumpur sector and Rs 8,888 on the Bangalore-Bangkok sector has been offered.

Soon, the airline's subsidiary, Silk Air, which operates to Tiruvanthapuram and Kochi, is looking at starting services in cities like Coimbatore, Tiruchi, Nagpur among other places.

Helios & Matheson in expansion gear

With acquisitions and mergers as the quickest way to expand globally nowadays, it is not surprising that Chennai-based Helios and Matheson Information Technology Ltd., a healthcare focused IT firm, is planning to consolidate its earlier acquisition of a listed US company, The A Consulting Team (TACT), and embark on fresh ones.“Three hot prospects worth US$ 50-100 million are on the anvil; all of them reputed and listed American companies in healthcare verticals. Acquisition of one of the three is expected by March 2007,” V Ramachandiran, chairman told this website’s newspaper.Ramachandiran said integration of an acquired company takes eight quarters and the company expects to integrate US$ four million of the US$ 27 million TACT top-line by March 2007. Explaining the advantages of acquisition for foreign companies, Ramachandiran said, “These companies are not familiar with India, so operating individually in the country would be a problem for them. Moreover, cost of services is 50 percent higher in Europe and America compared to that in India.” For an Indian company, a foreign acquisition brings a basket of reputed clients to its fold, results in improved profitability and brings down operating costs further.With the new acquisition, Helios & Matheson expects to improve its turnover to Rs 394 crore (Rs 221.36 crore) and PAT to Rs 55 crore (Rs 38.14 crore) in FY07, a growth of 78 percent over the previous year. “Over the last two quarters we have been witnessing a phenomenal growth in healthcare IT (HIT) investment by our clients in the life sciences, healthcare insurance, and health maintenance organisations,” said vice president, Divya Ramachandran.“Gartner too has identified HIT as one of the six key IT trends that are expected to have a significant impact on the IT industry. Gartner analysts have predicted that by 2009, healthcare investments in IT would increase by more than 50 percent which could enable clinicians to reduce the level of preventable deaths by 50 percent by 2013.”Meanwhile, the company is adding between two and four clients every quarter to its customer list. It is planning to set up an offshore development centre in Coimbatore by the middle of next year. The company is looking at a 20-acre piece of land on which a 500-seater facility will be set up with the number to be scaled up to 3,000 employees, largely engineers, over the next three years.Starting with a builtup area of around 50,000 sq. feet, the area will be increased to three lakh sq. ft. over the same period at an investment of Rs 30 crore, to be funded from internal accruals.“It will be a generic facility. Coimbatore is well-connected with 20,000 engineering students passing out per annum, which makes it an ideal location,” added Ramachandiran. The company is also ramping up its KPO facility in Bangalore where image analysis and data interpretation are undertaken. The headcount of doctors will be increased from 40 to 80 over the next 12 months.

Kingfisher launches new flight services from Coimbatore

Kingfisher Airlines has launched 58 new flight services across 15 new routes connecting nine important cities. The new services include flights to Jammu, Pune and Ahmedabad from Coimbatore.
According to a release from Vijay Mallaya, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Kingfisher, here on Friday, the new services are from Varanasi, Pune, Bangalore, Coimbatore, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Nagpur, Jammu and Hyderabad. The launch of new routes takes the number of daily flights operated by Kingfisher Airlines to 130, connecting 23 destinations. Kingfisher has three new Airbus A321 aircraft in its fleet and the fourth is set to join later this week. With the acquisition of four A321 aircraft and one ATR72-500, the fleet size has gone up to 22.
From Coimbatore
The services launched from Coimbatore and their schedules are as follows: The Ahmedabad-Coimbatore flight will take off at 18.05 hours and arrive Coimbatore at 20.15 hours. In the return direction, it will take off from Coimbatore at 10.00 hours and arrive Ahmedabad at 12.10 hours.
The Bangalore-Coimbatore flight will take off at 08.30 hours and arrive Coimbatore at 09.10 hours and leave Coimbatore at 20.45 hours to reach Bangalore at 21.45 hours.
The Coimbatore-Jammu flight will take off at 10.00 hours to reach Jammu at 15.00 hours. It will take off from Jammu at 15.30 hours to reach Coimbatore at 20.15 hours. The Coimbatore-Pune flight will take off from Coimbatore at 20.45 hours and reach Pune at 23.20 hours. It will take off from Pune at 06.30 hours to reach Coimbatore at 09.10 hours.

Big Bazaar opens shop in Coimbatore

Big Bazaar, the value retailing store of Pantaloon Retail (India) Ltd and a part of the Future Group, has made its entry into Tamil Nadu by setting up its first store in the State at Coimbatore.
The Group is planning its next store at Chennai before the close of this calendar year, before gaining footprint into other happening towns such as Salem and Trichy.
Addressing presspersons after inaugurating a 50,000-sq-ft store at Oppanakara Street in the heart of the city, its Business Manager, Mr Venkateshwar Kumar, said there would be special offers and discounts on the 1.60 lakh products available off the shelf all through the year.
Stores Investment
The multi-level store now offers 43,000 sq ft shopping area. "We have set aside another 10,000 sq ft for entertainment and food court. This would come up on the fourth floor and is expected to be ready within the next two months." The Group has, since setting up its first shop in Bangalore five years back, opened eight malls of which six have been set up in Karnataka and two in Andhra Pradesh. The ninth Big Bazaar outlet has come up in Coimbatore. The investment on each of these stores ranged between Rs 12 crore and Rs 15 crore, he said.
The company has stores in 30 cities across the country. The company is planning to open a store in Palakad in neighbouring Kerala next month. "We have identified places like Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram, Kasargud for setting up the store. At least three more outlets would come up in Kerala by January next," he said.
More Stores
The company is planning to open at least 15 Big Bazaar stores in the South over the next one year. According to Mr Kumar, the food court, entertainment zone and health care beauty saloon were exclusive to Coimbatore. When asked about the possibility of opening a second store in Coimbatore, he said "it can happen, not immediately though."
Answering a query, he said all Big Bazaar stores had come up only in rented/leased premises. "We have never looked at acquiring the building or developing the property on our own land. We are focused on addressing the home maker's endeavour of optimal saving while giving the shopping convenience by serving quality products at unbelievable rates."
On location of the store, he said the company's study revealed that a majority visited the bazaar area in the city to pick their requirements at the cheapest rate. "So we decided to locate our store here and give a stiff fight (on pricing and quality) to the vendors in this area."
The numbers
On business growth, Mr Kumar said the company registered a turnover of Rs 250 crore during the last year from 4 outlets. "We are hoping to cross the Rs 1,000-crore mark this year from about 15 outlets. We are expecting the turnover from this outlet to touch Rs 50 crore in the next 12 months."
The company is sourcing most of the items from local vendors. "The procurement is not centralised," he said.

Suzlon to set up 2nd facility in Coimbatore, TN

Suzlon Energy is planning to set up an energy engineering facility over a 250-acre plot about 20 km west of Coimbatore. This will be the largest corporate facility of its kind so far in the southern city of Tamil Nadu, reports Business Standard. So far, the Pune-headquartered wind energy major has had a foundry unit operating from Coimbatore. The upcoming expansion will help it widen its manufacturing footprint in south India. Suzlon, which had already completed the purchase of the required land, was in `advanced stages` of talks with the Tamil Nadu government. The company had submitted documents pertaining to the land purchase procedures of the facility. Following the physical inspection and approval by state and local authorities, the commerce ministry was expected to give its final go-ahead by mid-December. And then, Suzlon was expected to start construction work on the facility by January next year. Moreover, the project, which will come up along the L&T bypass road that links Palladam taluk with Tirupur, was given the initial go-ahead by the commerce ministry on October 6 with full benefits accorded to it under the SEZ Act of 2004. Suzlon, one of the world`s leading wind energy turbine producers, shares more than half of the domestic wind turbines market.