Novelis Inc

Aluminum and copper producer Hindalco Industries Ltd. said Sunday it planned to pay $3.6 billion to acquire Atlanta-based aluminum producer Novelis Inc. The all-cash acquisition would make Hindalco the largest rolled-aluminum products manufacturer in the world, a company statement said. Hindalco also would assume Novelis' debt of $2.4 billion. The planned Hindalco takeover comes less than two weeks after India's Tata Steel won a bidding war for European steel maker Corus Group when its $11.

Aluminum and copper producer Hindalco Industries Ltd. said Sunday it planned to pay $3.6 billion to acquire Atlanta-based aluminum producer Novelis Inc. The all-cash acquisition would make Hindalco the largest rolled-aluminum products manufacturer in the world, a company statement said. Hindalco also would assume Novelis' debt of $2.4 billion. The planned Hindalco takeover comes less than two weeks after India's Tata Steel won a bidding war for European steel maker Corus Group when its $11.

Alcoa Inc. said Wednesday that it might sell three of its businesses including its packaging unit, which makes Reynolds Wrap. The world's largest aluminum company said the strategic alternatives review would include sale or possible joint ventures for the packaging, electrical and automotive castings businesses. The units contributed about 16%, or $4.8 billion, of the company's revenue in 2006. The sale of the businesses could reduce Alcoa's workforce of 122,000 by more than a third.

Gordon Brown's plane will have barely departed New Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport this month before Nicolas Sarkozy arrives with another contingent of executives seeking opportunities in India's rapidly opening markets. The British prime minister and the French president, separately visiting next week, are bringing along commercial delegations, including retailers Tesco and Carrefour, attracted by a burgeoning middle class and loosening curbs on foreign ownership in the nation of 1.