New York  - Johnson & Johnson, a New Brunswick-based pharmaceuticals and cosmetics company, has raised its profit forecast for the year, following the release of strong third quarter results.

Profits rose 30 per cent in the third quarter to 3.3 billion dollars. The company said Tuesday that sales have risen 6 per cent to 15.9 billion dollars due to strong exports.

The company's cosmetics and personal hygiene lines, such as bebe, Penaten and Neutrogena, did particularly well. Medical technology divisions also performed strongly.

Technology giant Infosys Technologies, which develops applications, designs supply chains and offers back-office services, has announced better-than-expected results for the three month period ended Sep 30, 2008, helped by a weaker rupee. 

After tax and minority interest, the company has registered a growth of 30.18% in its consolidated net profit, which stood at Rs 14,320 million as against Rs 11,000 million for the corresponding period of the last year (Sep 2007). 

Indiabulls Real Estate, one of the largest listed real estate companies in India, has announced a consolidated net profit of Rs 7.99 crore for the second quarter ended September 30, a 76.60% decline over the corresponding period a year-ago.

The company had a consolidated net profit of Rs 34.15 crore in the second quarter ended September 30, 2007.

The consolidated total Income has increased from Rs 78.21 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2007 to Rs 143.82 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2008. 

Kolkata-based Balmer Lawrie & Company (BLC) Limited, a diversified public sector conglomerate, has informed that it will keep its UK subsidiary, before being sold off to TAL International Container Corporation of USA (TAL).

BLC expects that the move would help in its overseas operation. The company’s UK arm is engaged in leasing and hiring marine freight containers.

Apart from this, the company will look for other lines of business for Balmer Lawrie UK (BLUK).

At present, BLC has only Rs 100 crore cash surplus on its balance sheets, and may have to go for debt to fund an acquisition.

India’s largest car maker Maruti Suzuki has reported 9.19% decline in sales during August, this year at 59,908 units as against 65,968 units in the same month last year.

In a statement released today, the company said that its domestic sales stood at 54,113 units compared to 60,229 units in the same month a year-ago, which indicates a fall of 10.15%.

However, company’s exports grew marginally at 5,795 units as against 5,739 units in the same period, last fiscal.

The A2 segment comprising Alto, Zen Estilo, Swift and WagonR registered a decline of 9.75%. The sales stood at 37,667 units as against 41,736 units for the corresponding period of last year.

Vienna  - The Vienna Insurance Group reported a profit increase of 29.3 per cent for the first half of 2008 on Thursday, boosted by strong growth in Central and Eastern European countries, where the group is market leader.

Net profits after minorities rose to 207.74 million euros (306.38 million dollars), compared with 160.63 million euros in the first six months of last year.

Second-quarter net profits were up 37.4 per cent, to 116.33 million euros, the company said.

In the first half of this year, revenue in terms of premiums written rose 20.7 per cent to 4.22 billion euros.