Ballarpur Industries has raised Rs300 crore through share sale and issue of bonds to a promoter group—BILT Paper Holdings Ltd—on a preferential basis

Ballarpur Industries Ltd, India's largest manufacturer of writing and printing (W&P) paper, on Thursday said that it has raised Rs300 crore through share sale and issue of bonds to a promoter group—BILT Paper Holdings Ltd—on a preferential basis, reports PTI.

The committee of directors of borrowing has allotted 4.5 crore shares at Rs30 per share, aggregating to Rs135 crore and 5.5 crore bonds at Rs30, totalling to Rs165 crore, Ballarpur Industries said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange.

The securities under the preferential offer would be subject to a lock-in period of three years from the date of allotment, the filing added.

The company also allotted 5.5 crore zero-coupon compulsory convertible bonds. The bonds would be convertible into the same amount of equity shares of the face value of Rs2 each of the company, at the option of the promoter any time within 18 months from the date of allotment.
 

The handset maker plans to set up a new mechanism to give consumers a chance to download music free of cost for a year

Imagine a world where you could download your music for free and not pay a single pie. A world where you could download as many songs as you wanted, a scenario where whole albums from a whole range of artistes, both local and international, can be downloaded completely free of cost. Does this sound too good to be true?

Finnish mobile handset maker, Nokia, is planning to launch a new music service 'Comes With Music' with its cell phones which will enable its customers to download free and unlimited music from its online store, in a move to combat piracy and create a wider base in its already prominent presence in India.

”We need to fight piracy by making the content compelling, relevant & exclusive, and use subscription models which are almost free," said Nokia India's marketing director, Vineet Taneja.

With the launch of the music service, consumers will get access to unlimited music downloads from the Nokia Music Store for a year, Mr Taneja said. He added that Nokia will offer 3.5 million tracks of all genres, from Indian and international labels.

The Nokia Music Store has been live in India since July 2009. The Nokia music software also supports Indian languages including Punjabi, Gujarati, Marathi, Sanskrit, Konkani, Kannada, Telugu, Tamil and Hindi.

The company has tied up with independent Indian record labels including T-Series, Venus, Tips, Big Music, Eros and Indian Music Industry (IMI).

Customers can either download their music using General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) or over wireless Internet. They can also hook up their handset on a personal computer for downloads, Mr Taneja said.

Analysts believe that Nokia’s plan will increase youth appeal towards the brand and help it to compete with players like Samsung, Siemens and LG.

“The consumer would be able to get free music for a year from Nokia’s online store. The device will be available within the first half of this year,” Mr Taneja said.

The service will be offered on two models: a mid-end and a top-end handset. A mid-end model would cost somewhere between Rs6,000 to Rs10,000, Mr Taneja said. A top-end model would cost more than Rs15,000.

According to industry experts, the value-added services (VAS) business largely remains unexplored in the country and is worth $1.60 billion in India. Music has remained the mainstay of VAS revenues, bringing in as much as 90% of the overall pie—the remaining 10% includes ring tones, caller tunes and games.

Experts believe that the mobile phone has a big advantage over the PC in India for driving value-added content as the country has a huge base of cell phone users.
In worldwide mobile phone sales, Nokia leads the pack with a 36% market share. Samsung is in the second place with 19% share and LG has 10% of the market. The rest of the market is cornered by players like Motorola, Sony Ericsson and Apple.

The government is selling three slots of spectrum across the nation with the exception of a few states where four slots will be on offer. The reserve price for pan-India spectrum has been fixed at Rs3,500 crore

India's largest private telecom company Bharti Airtel Ltd on Thursday submitted its bid for 3G spectrum, the auction for which starts from 9th April, reports PTI.

According to the schedule, tomorrow is the last day for putting in applications to participate in the auction.

The government is selling three slots of spectrum across the nation with the exception of a few states where four slots will be on offer. The reserve price for pan-India spectrum has been fixed at Rs3,500 crore.

According to the notice inviting applications (NIA) for 3G spectrum auction, of the 22 circles only five states—Punjab, Bihar, West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir—will have four private players.

3G mobile services will allow high-speed content download and broadband services. When contacted, Bharti officials confirmed that an application has been put in for participating in the forthcoming 3G spectrum auction.

The successful bidders would be allowed to offer 3G services on a commercial basis from 1 September 2010.

The auction of spectrum has been postponed several times as there was indecisiveness over the availability of spectrum and the number of operators to be allowed in each circle.

The Department of Telecom (DoT) was at loggerheads with the defence ministry over the latter's reluctance to vacate the designated spectrum (air waves) for commercial use.

As per DoT's schedule, the last date for submission of applications is 19th March. The mock auction will take place on 5th and 6th April, followed by the final auction on 9 April 2010.

According to sources, Bharti Airtel will be bidding for a pan-India spectrum.

Other potential operators, including Vodafone-Essar, Tata Teleservices Ltd, Aircel and Reliance Communications Ltd are also likely to put in their applications by tomorrow.

The government expects to garner Rs35,000 crore from the sale of spectrum for 3G and Boradband Wireless Access (BWA). However, with the number of players reduced to three in most of the circles from the four planned earlier, the government may fall short of its target.