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MOTORINDIA
l
January 2012
161
‘CEAT-PROKnowledge Series’
to help fleet owners
The Indian tyre major CEAT
Ltd. organized a knowledge plat-
form – ‘CEAT PRO’ – for fleet
owners in Chennai to help them
better their business and reduce
operation costs. The interactive
platform gave fleet owners access
to best practices and ideas across
diverse areas of the Indian trucking
industry.
As part of
its fleet excel-
lence
pro-
gram, CEAT
PRO knowl-
edge series aims
to create a common platform for
sharing information and resources
and thus helping fleets compete on
a flatter turf. The panelists speak
about the benefits of telematics to
customers, AMC and maintenance,
lubrication for one’s fleet, radiali-
zation and how to better manage
credit.
Speaking on this occasion, Mr.
Vinod Kumar, Head (Marketing),
CEAT Ltd., observed: “Though
the Indian transportation indus-
try is booming it lacks a common
platform to engage customers and
help them build best practices. At
CEAT, we believe in partnering
with our customers and the auto-
mobile industry to gain value and
optimum growth, thus “CEAT
PRO” was launched.” This is not
a selling but a knowledge plank,
to share ideas and best practices.
CEAT will engage industry experts
and help create
value for the
end customer
by assisting
him with new
technology, information and best
practices.”
The Indian truck transporta-
tion market is approximately Rs.
38,000 crores, of which over 80
per cent lies in the unorganised
sector. Despite recent develop-
ments, the overall awareness of
new technologies and industry best
practices is quite low. Penetration
of new age systems such as the
Fleet Management software or the
GPS systems is quite dismal and is
mostly restricted to only a select
few big transporters.
The first step in this direction
is the CEAT ‘PRO’ knowledge
seminar series, where top indus-
try experts share their views on a
variety of topics, thus helping fleet
owners.
corporate news
IndianOil mobilises
bonds of over
Rs. 1,400 crores
Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. has raised
over Rs. 1,400 crores from the Indian
bond markets after a gap of nearly 2½
years.
IndianOil’s issue of secured redeem-
able non-convertible bonds opened for
subscription on private placement basis
on December 15. The ‘AAA’ rated bonds
have a maturity of five years with put and
call option at the end of the 18th month.
The issue has been placed through
book-building route in a coupon range
of 9.20-9.45 per cent per annum payable
annually. Well received by institutional
investors, particularly FIIs and banks, the
issue, which was launched with an origi-
nal size of Rs. 500 crores, was oversub-
scribed over three times with subscrip-
tion aggregating to approximately Rs.
1,600 crores.
IndianOil has decided a cut-off cou-
pon rate of 9.28 per cent, i.e., the lower
of the book-building range. As per mar-
ket sources, this is one of the finest pric-
ings achieved by any corporate in recent
times.
The proceeds of the bond issue would
be utilised for meeting capex of ongoing
domestic projects.
Mr. RS Butola, Chairman
CEAT has also started India’s first
and only transportation awards
– the India Road Transportation
Award (IRTA) – to take forward
the knowledge platform and to
start recognizing the achievers
in the transportation sector.
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