General Awareness

BUSINESS AND ECONOMY - December 2015

Dec 2015

Dec 16, 2019

RIL Arm Inks Pact To Get Investments From Canada's Brookfield

Reliance Industrial Investments and Holdings Limited (RIIHL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), entered into binding agreements with Brookfield Infrastructure Partners LP, and its institutional partners, for an investment of Rs. 25,215 crore in the units to be issued by the Tower Infrastructure Trust.
At the closing of the transaction, the Trust will own 100% of the issued and paid up equity share capital of Reliance Jio lnfratel Private Limited (RJIPL). RJIPL has a portfolio of approximately 130,000 telecom towers that form the backbone of Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited's network. The company plans to scale up to 1,75,000 towers eventually.

Coal Ministry to Set Up 'Sustainable Development Cell'

The Coal Ministry will establish 'Sustainable Development Cell' (SDC) for promoting sustainable coal mining in the country and address environmental concerns at closure of mines.
The SDC envisages to address environment mitigation measures in a systemic manner and provide a better environment to people working and residing in the vicinity of mines.
"The Ministry of Coal has decided to establish a 'Sustainable Development Cell' in order to promote environmentally sustainable coal mining in the country and address environmental concerns during the decommissioning or closure of mines.

Dec 15, 2019

Plastic Industry Seeks Hike in Customs Duty

Faced with a sharp decline in exports and an erosion in domestic offtake brought on by a spurt in imports, India's plastic manufacturers have urged the government to increase customs duty, levy anti-dumping duty and review foreign trade agreements (FTAs) to restrict supply of cheap and poor-quality products from overseas markets.
Plastic producers under the aegis of the All-India Plastics Manufacturers Association (AIPMA) met with other players in the value chain to discuss steps needed for the revival of the domestic industry. AIPMA, which represents some 22,000 makers of plastic and allied products, highlighted the need to bring the industry on a growth trajectory to prevent closure of these units and improve exports of plastic products.

Government to Allot 6 Coal Mines to Reduce Coal Imports

The Ministry of Coal initiated the auction process of coal mines. The move by the government is to reduce coal imports. After the poor participation of investors in the previous rounds of coal auctions, the government is now finally considering allotment of six mines soon.
The Ministry of Coal had initiated the auction process for 27 coal mines under tranches 8, 9 and 10 for non-regulated sector and the allotment process for 15 coal mines under tranches 6, 7, 8 and 9 for various specified end-uses such as power, iron & steel.
These mines will add more than 5mt coal per annum and boost the coal production in the country and reduce the dependence of industries on imported coal. This will also generate about Rs. 15,000 crore revenue for state governments where the mines are located besides royalties and other applicable taxes.

Russia Keen to Boost Investment in Pakistan

As per Stanislav L. Korolev, Russian investors are keen to explore business opportunities in Pakistan and want to further strengthen trade and investment cooperation with Pakistani.
While addressing the business community at the Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI), Korolev discussed various options for promoting business collaboration between the private sectors of both countries.
Korolev was part of a 64-member delegation headed by Minister for Trade and Industries for the Russian Federation Denis V Manturov visiting Pakistan.
The new Pak-Russia deal is expected to amount $9 billion under which Islamabad would purchase heavy and medium fighter jets, medium and short-range air defence systems, tanks, combat helicopters, and warships.

Google Wants US Fed to Replicate India's UPI Model

The US Federal Reserve, or the Fed, should replicate India's Unified Payments Interface (UPI) model for its proposed interbank real-time gross settlement (RTGS) service, Google recommended.
Launched in 2016, the UPI is the country's flagship real-time payments system, which allows users to transfer money directly from their bank accounts. Since it works across multiple bank accounts, without revealing the details of one's account to the other party, it makes paying someone as simple as handing over cash. Citing the UPI's phenomenal success in India, Google, in a letter to the Fed, said that FedNow should be an open system, like the UPI.

Dec 14, 2019

Piramal Realty Signs Partnership with Omkar

Piramal Realty, the real estate unit of Piramal Group, entered into a joint development agreement with another local builder Omkar Realtors & Developers to develop a residential project in Mumbai's Mahim area with a total investment of around Rs. 3000 crore.
This is the second time both the firms entered into such a partnership, the first one being a luxury housing project at Mahalakshmi, a neighbourhood in south Mumbai.
Under the existing partnership, Piramal plans to develop 2.2 million square feet over 4 acres in Mahim, making it the residential projects in the area.

RIL Arm Buys Stake in Asteria

Reliance Industries Ltd's (RIL) wholly-owned subsidiary Reliance Strategic Business Ventures Ltd (RSBVL) acquired over 51% stake in Asteria Aerospace for Rs. 23.12 crore. The investment will further enable the group's initiatives in emerging technology. RSBVL proposes to make a further investment of up to Rs. 125 crore, subject to Asteria achieving agreed milestones. Post the further investment, the shareholding of RSBVL will increase to 87.3% of the equity share capital of Asteria.

AU SFB Raises Rs. 525 cr from Temasek Arm

AU Small Finance Bank said that Singaporean sovereign wealth fund Temasek through its wholly-owned subsidiary Camas Investments Pte invested Rs. 525 crore ($74 million) in the lender by conversion of warrants. With this investment, Temasek firmed up its stake at 4.8% in AU Bank.
As per managing director and CEO Sanjay Agarwal, the completion of Temasek's investment is a reflection of the uniqueness of our secured retail and steadily growing granular deposit franchise, stable portfolio quality, margins and growth headroom.

Virtuous Retail Buys Tata Realty's Retail Mall Portfolio

Virtuous Retail South Asia Pte. Ltd (VRSA), the retail development arm of investment firm The Xander Group Inc., acquired the Trilium shopping mall portfolio from Tata Realty and Infrastructure Ltd (TRIL) for $100 million.
VRSA's acquisition comprises a shopping mall each in Nagpur and Amritsar, of around 700,000 sq.ft and 1 million sq.ft, respectively, which will boost its mall portfolio and expand its presence across both large and small cities.
VRSA also recently bought 20 acres in Thane, near Mumbai, from Raymond Ltd for Rs. 700 crore.
With these acquisitions, VRSA's operational and under-development retail portfolio in India is currently more than 13 million sq.ft across Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai, along with smaller cities such as Surat, Mohali, Amritsar and Nagpur.
The buyout of TRIL's retail portfolio is in line with VRSA's rapid, pan-India expansion strategy through both greenfield development and acquisition of existing, high-quality retail assets.

Dec 13, 2019

Future Retail Looks to Raise up to $400 mn

Kishore Biyani-led Future Retail Ltd, which runs the Big Bazaar chain of stores, is looking to raise up to $400 million by selling dollar bonds.
The money will be used to buy retail assets from Future Enterprises Ltd as part of a planned group restructuring exercise.
The company hired investment banks Barclays, Standard Chartered, JPMorgan and UBS to help raise the dollar bonds. The company is expected to hit the markets in January 2020 for the bond issuance.

Paytm Parent Raises Rs. 4,724 cr

One 97 Communications Ltd, which operates digital payments company Paytm, raised Rs. 4,724 crore (around $660 million) from Alipay Singapore E-commerce Pvt. Ltd, SVF Panther (Cayman) Ltd, T Rowe Price Growth Stock Fund Inc. and others.
The board of directors of One 97 Communications recently approved the allotment of 2,592,472 equity shares at $254.58 a share.
Alipay Singapore E-commerce invested Rs. 1,433 crore, SVF Panther (Cayman) invested Rs. 1,430 crore and T Rowe Price Growth Stock Fund invested Rs. 704 crore.
Paytm competes with companies such as Google Pay and PhonePe in the highly competitive digital payments domain in India.

Air India to be Privatised

As per Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, the government has decided to sell its entire 100 per cent stake in Air India under the proposed disinvestment process. The national carrier, which has been making a loss for long, has a debt burden of over Rs. 50,000 crore.
The Minister of State for Civil Aviation said that after the formation of the new government, Air India Specific Alternative Mechanism (AISAM) has been reconstituted and the re-initiation of the strategic disinvestment of Air India has been approved.

Industrial Output Shrinks and Inflation Rises

India's industrial output shrank while inflation swelled, highlighting challenges for policymakers battling an economic slowdown amid surging food prices.
Factory output contracted 3.8% in October 2019 after shrinking 4.3% in September, in sharp contrast with an 8.4% expansion in October in 2018. Retail inflation continued to surge in November, fuelled by soaring food prices, as prolonged rains dampened vegetable supplies.
Retail inflation surged 5.54% in November as food price inflation measured by the Consumer Food Price Index rose 10% in November from 7.89% in October.

Dec 12, 2019

Qatar Investment Authority to invest in Adani Electricity Mumbai Ltd

Adani Transmission Ltd (ATL), Adani Electricity Mumbai Ltd (AEML) and a subsidiary of Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) have signed definitive agreements for the sale of a 25.1 per cent stake in AEML to QIA and for a shareholder subordinated debt investment by QIA in AEML.
The total QIA investment in AEML will be about Rs. 3,200 crore. AEML is the licensee for an integrated power distribution, transmission and generation business that currently serves more than 30 lakh consumers across a license area of 400 square kilometres in Mumbai.
AEML`s market share of Mumbai is 87 per cent by license area, 67 per cent by consumers served and 55 per cent by electricity supplied.As part of the transaction, ATL and QIA have agreed definitive plans to ensure that over 30 per cent of the electricity supplied by AEML is sourced from solar and wind power plants by the year 2023.

FB and Google Fall in Rankings

Big tech companies like Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google, long seen as some of the world's most desirable workplaces offering countless perks and employee benefits, are losing some of their shine.
The Silicon Valley firms dropped out of the top 10 "best places to work" in the US, according to Glassdoor's annual rankings. HubSpot Inc., a cloud-computing software company, grabbed the No. 1 ranking while tech firms DocuSign Inc. and Ultimate Software were 3rd and 8th, respectively.
Facebook, which has been rated as the "best place to work" three times in the past 10 years, was ranked 23rd.
Google, voted "best place to work" in 2015 and a top-10 finisher the previous eight years, was ranked 11th.

Nippon Express Gets Nod to Acquire Stake in Future Supply

The country's competition watchdog Competition Commission of India (CCI) approved Nippon Express's proposed acquisition of 22 per cent stake in Kishore-Biyani-led Future Supply Chain for Rs. 641 crore.
This is the second time in two weeks that the CCI has given its nod to a foreign investment in a Future Group company.
In November 2019, the CCI had approved Amazon's proposed Rs. 1,500-crore deal to acquire 49 per cent stake in Future Coupons, a Future Retail promoter entity. The transaction will give Amazon a 3.5 per cent stake in Future Retail.

Alstom to Double Manufacturing Capacity in India

French train set and related systems manufacturer Alstom is planning to double its manufacturing capacity in Sri City, in Andhra Pradesh, to 480 train sets per annum in near future. The company will be increasing its headcount from current 5,000 people to 8,000 by March 2023.
However, the company is unhappy as it is being restricted from participating in certain tenders based on conditions put forth by funding agencies, and that it is not being considered as an Indian company.

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