James Packer, Kerry Packer's son and the chief executive officer of Consolidated Press Holdings, will join the board of directors of three HFCL group companies""Himachal Futuris- tic Communications Ltd, Consolidated Futuristic Solu- tions Ltd and Excel Netcomm- erce Ltd.
Packer is joining the boards by virtue of CPH holding a 10 per cent stake in the three companies.
"There is nothing in the agreement between the two parties but we have decided that James Packer will join the HFCL board," HFCL group chairman Mahendra Nahata told Business Standard.
CPH is also a 30 per cent joint venture partner in the other two companies.
HFCL holds a 51 per cent stake in each of the two
companies.
Set up in March 2000, both the companies have set aside 19 per cent shares for other investors including employees. While Consolidated Futuristic Solutions is looking at software products, telecom sofware and web-enabled services, Excel Netcommerce has been set up for e-commerce in the B2B space. James Packer will join the boards of these companies in few months' time.
In another development, HFCL has earmarked Rs 200 crore for acquisitions in the near future. The company has identified three areas for acquisitions: companies that have synergies with HFCL's existing business, small technology companes that require financial support and companies that can help grow the group's business.
In the first category, HFCL has already taken over Arihant Optics Ltd, a fibre producer, as a backward integration for its fibre optic cables business. In the third category, it has acquired Page Point, a Motorola-controlled firm, which has grown its paging business from 87,000 subscribers to 200,000. In each case, HFCL didn't pay anything for the company but has taken over its liabilities.
In the secnd category, HFCL is preparing to play the role of a technolgy incubator, Nahata said. "We are trying to identify companies that are technologically sound but short of the required funds. We may acquire a part or the whole of such companies. The new economy is all about partnerships," Nahata added.
Nahata is also looking for acquisitions in B2C websites. "But we are only going to look at websites that have a strong revenue model," he said. Nahata disclosed that he had an offer to acquire a 45 per cent stake in online shopping mall Jaldi.com but the talks never went beyond he preliminary stage.
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