Three Indian Companies, which include Yatra.com; an online travel portal, BuzzInTown.com which is an event-oriented social network, and advertising company Emnet Samsara Media, have been identified by the Intel Capital to invest its $17 million in them. The announcement was made on Thursday by Intel Capital, which is actually the venture capital unit of Nasdaq-listed Intel Corporation. The company further reported that it is bullish on country’s investment prospects.

The Intel Capital, President, Mr Arvind Sodhani, said that they are rapidly investing in opportunities that they find suitable and are excited about the investment prospects in the country. The $250 million Intel Capital India Technology Fund would provide the funding for the said investment.

Vienna - Austrian company AT&S, the leading producer of printed circuit boards in Europe, said Thursday its first quarter net income dropped 46 per cent to 5 million euros (7.9 million dollars), down from 9.2 million euros in the same period last year.

Seasonal factors and a difficult market environment, combined with a weak US dollar and wage increases contributed to the results, the company said in its report.

Pre-tax profits were down 42 per cent to 5.3 million euros. Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) fell to 5.6 million euros, 22 per cent less than 7.8 million euros in the first quarter of 2007.

Stockholm - German energy giant E. ON AG Thursday said it is has completed an agreement with Norwegian power group Statkraft to take full ownership of Swedish subsidiary E. ON Sverige.

The agreement signed Thursday in Stockholm sees E. ON take over Statkraft's 44.6 per cent stake in E. ON Sverige worth 4.4 billion euros (6.9 billion dollars) as well as a hydropower plant.

Statkraft was in return to acquire E. ON AG shares worth some 2.18 billion euros as well as assets in Sweden, Germany and Britain including hydropower plants, district heating plants and gas-fired power plants.

The financial bids which were opened on Wednesday saw Maytas Infra Ltd and Navabharat Ventures Ltd, Ital Thai of Thailand and IL&FS Ltd, which had formed a consortium getting the 12,200 crore Hyderabad Metro Rail project. This consortium will now develop the 71km metro network on a build, operate and transfer (BOT) basis. It will have the concession period of 30 years.

A top official from Blue Dart Express Ltd announced on Wednesday that the firm which has a significant position in air express and courier service, is planning to invest 2 billion rupees for air and ground infrastructure development in 2008.

In a press conference, Managing Director of the Company, Anil Khanna said that their focus is to develop more hubs and airport infrastructure in the country.

Blue Dart Express Limited, South Asia’s No. 1 integrated Air Express, Courier and Logistics Company plans to hike rates of its air and ground services by 10 – 15 percent in August or September, this fiscal.

The company claims that increase in factors like manpower cost, fuel prices, property prices and rental are the main reasons behind the price hike.

Aviation turbine fuel prices have gone up by 18.5 per cent in the last few months and more than doubled in the last three years