General Awareness

BUSINESS AND ECONOMY - June 2020

Jun 2020

Jun 15, 2020

Adani and Tata Vie for Odisha Discoms

The Adani Group, R. P.Sanjiv Goenka group's CESC Ltd and Tata Power Co. Ltd have evinced interest in the three electricity distribution companies (discoms) being privatised by the Odisha government.
The discoms are the Western Electricity Supply Utility of Odisha Ltd (Wesco), North Eastern Electricity Supply Co. of Odisha Ltd (Nesco) and the Southern Electricity Supply Co. of Orissa Ltd (Southco).
"Among those who have evinced interest in placing bids for these discoms are CESC, Tata Power and Adani. All of them have experience in running discom businesses. The privatisation drive of the three discoms is spearheaded by the Odisha Electricity Regulatory Commission (OERC).

Exim Bank Sanctions $215.68 mn LoC to Malawi Govt.

Export-Import Bank of India (EXIM Bank) , a specialised financial institution wholly owned by Government of India (GoI),has provided a line of credit (LOC) of $215.68 million to the Malawi government.
This assistance will be used on drinking water supply schemes and other development projects includes supply of irrigation network, tobacco threshing plant, cotton processing facilities, green belt initiative, sugar processing equipment, fuel storage facility and construction of a new water supply system from Likhubula river in Mulanje to Blantyre.
The LOC Agreement was signed between Mr. Sudatta Mandal, Chief General Manager, Exim Bank, and H.E Mr. George Mkondiwa, High Commissioner, Malawi High Commission in India in New Delhi.

TPG, L Catterton to Buy stake in Jio Platforms

Reliance Industries has raised Rs. 64.4 billion ($847 million) from the sale of two stakes in its digital unit Jio Platforms, making them the tenth deals in less than two months.
The oil-to-telecoms conglomerate said on Saturday global investment firm TPG will buy a 0.93% stake for Rs. 4,546.80 crore ($598 million), while private equity firm L Catterton will pick up a 0.39% stake for Rs. 1894.50 crore ($249 million).
Reliance, which is controlled by India's richest man Mukesh Ambani, has now sold just over 22% of Jio Platforms to investors including Facebook Inc, securing $13.72 billion in eight weeks.
L Catterton, one of the world's largest consumer focused private equity firm.

Jun 14, 2020

RBI Bars People's Co-operative Bank from Granting Fresh Loans

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) barred Kanpur-based People's Co-operative Bank from granting fresh loans and accepting deposits for six months, due to its weak financial position.
As per the RBI, no withdrawal of amount of a depositor will be allowed from the co-operative bank.
As from the close of business in June 2020, the bank shall not, without prior approval of RBI in writing grant or renew any loans and advances, make any investment, incur any liability including borrowal of funds and acceptance of fresh deposits, disburse or agree to disburse any payment whether in discharge of its liabilities and obligations or otherwise.
The central bank has barred the co-operative bank from selling, transferring or disposing any of its properties or assets.
These directions will remain in force for six months from the close of business on June 10 and are subject to review.

NHAI Becomes First Construction Sector Organisation to Go 'Fully Digital'

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) said that it has gone fully digital with cloud-based 'Data Lake Software', becoming the first such construction sector organisation. With advance analytics, the 'Data Lake' software will forecast the delays, likely disputes and give advance alerts.
At the same time, the software will facilitate in taking correct and timely decisions as the system is likely to predict financial impacts of different alternatives based on the historical data.
The entire project management workflow of NHAI is transformed from manual to online portal based, wherein the complete project execution operations including 'workflow with time lines' and 'alert mechanism' have been configured, the authority said adding, all project documentation, contractual decisions and approvals are now being done through portal only.
Under the software, the complete project documents and correspondences will be stored in Digital format in the cloud-based 'Data Lake' linked with GIS tagging and Unique Project ID, so that the project data can be easily retrieved as and when required from any location.

RBI Sets Up Panel to Review Ownership of Private Lenders

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) constituted an internal working group to review the existing guidelines on ownership and corporate structure of private sector banks. The group will be headed by RBI executive director P. K. Mohanty.
The group will examine the existing licensing guidelines and regulations on ownership and control of private sector banks. It will also suggest appropriate norms, keeping in mind the issue of excessive concentration of ownership and control. Besides, it will examine and review the eligibility criteria for individuals or entities to apply for a banking license, and review the promoter shareholding norms at the initial licensing stage.
It will also study the current regulations on holding of financial subsidiaries through a non-operative financial holding company (NOFHC) and suggest steps to migrate all banks to a uniform regulation.
The need to examine the current guidelines on ownership comes after large shareholders of private sector banks sought RBI's permission to raise their stakes beyond the permitted 15%.

Mahindra Seeks to Give Up Control of SsangYong

After incurring a substantial loss in the March quarter due to losses at foreign subsidiaries, Mahindra and Mahindra said that it will exit several money-losing businesses, starting with US-based electric bike company GenZe.
The company will also stop further investments in its Korean subsidiary SsangYong and is willing to give up control in the loss-making venture.
The farm equipment and SUV maker reported a loss of Rs. 2,510 crore for the March quarter due to one-time provision of Rs. 2,781 crore made due to impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and write-off on several investments. About 80% of the write-off was on account of SsangYong and GenZe.
Mahindra has been looking for investors in SsanYong after it failed to turn the company profitable.
Not just SsangYong and GenZe, the company has promised to relook all its money-losing ventures and may exit several to reduce expenses.

Jun 13, 2020

Uber India Chief Pradeep to Lead Asia-Pacific Operations

Car-hailing major Uber India announced that the president of its India and South Asia operations, Pradeep Parameswaran, will have an expanded role as regional general manager for the Asia-Pacific.
Parameswaran will take charge of the new job later this month (June). He will oversee Uber's rides business in India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Australia, and New Zealand.
In some countries like Australia he will be locking horns with his desi rival Ola, which, too, has SoftBank as its common investor Uber is looking at shifting its Asia-Pacific headquarters from Singapore after it sold its business in Southeast Asia to Singapore-based Grab, exiting in eight countries, which, apart from Singapore, included Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

Kedaara Capital invests in Religare's Health Insurance Arm

Religare Group completed a transaction with Kedaara group entity, Trishikhar Ventures LLP, for investments in its health insurance subsidiary called Religare Health Insurance Company Limited (RHICL).
This transaction will further the growth of the health insurance business for Religare.
The equity infusion is in sync with the long term vision of the company to be future-focused, explore its full potential and accelerate growth.
The total investment made by Kedaara to acquire shares of RHICL is Rs 567.31 crore which comprises of primary capital infusion of Rs. 300 crore and Rs. 267.31 crore for the purchase of RHICL shares from the existing shareholders, including purchase of 6.39 per cent stake from the company against a consideration of Rs. 200 crore.

IHCL to Foray into Home Delivery of Food and Beverages

With the Covid-19 pandemic hitting the hospitality industry hard, Tata group's Indian Hotels Company Ltd (IHCL) is planning to venture into other areas of revenue generation, including home delivery of food and beverages.
IHCL had a nice response to our Hospitality@Home service, where customers can order our products for take away from our hotels across the country.
IHCL will very shortly announce plans to begin delivering its products to customers. All of this is aimed at helping take our hospitality to our customers' homes.
IHCL has also been working on programs like 'Dream, Drive, Discover, Delight' where one can book its standalone villas and bungalows while also observing social distancing.

CBIC Launches 'Turant Customs' Programme in Bangaluru and Chennai

The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) launched a flagship programme, 'Turant customs' at Bengaluru and Chennai with technological support for faster clearance of imported goods and for the ease of doing business. The start of 'Turant customs' in Bengaluru and Chennai is the beginning of the nationwide program and is expected to be completed by the end of 2020.
Turant customs is a continuation reform for the pilot phase that was initiated in August 2019 at Chennai and later extended to Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Delhi, and Visakhapatnam Customs Zones for select commodities.
This reform resulted in improvement of India's World Bank ranking for Trading Across Border Category of Doing Business Report from 146th position in 2017 to 68th position in 2019.
The first phase would include import of mechanical, electrical and electronics pieces of machinery at the ports/airports/ICDs (Inland Container Depots) of Bengaluru and Chennai.

Wipro Invests in CloudKnox Security

IT services major Wipro Ltd partnered with US-based CloudKnox Security to expand its cloud security portfolio to meet growing demand from enterprises. Wipro Ventures, the corporate investment arm of Wipro, invested in CloudKnox through its recently-announced $150 million Fund II to strengthen the strategic partnership.
Founded by Balaji Parimi, CloudKnox Security is a cloud security company that helps organisations manage identity privileges across private and public cloud infrastructure.
The Wipro and CloudKnox joint solution offering enables enterprises to proactively protect and manage their hybrid and multi-cloud infrastructure by continuously detecting and remediating over-permissioned identities.

Jun 12, 2020

Unilever to Place HQ in UK

Consumer goods giant Unilever said that it will end its Anglo-Dutch corporate structure and be based in London, backing away from a proposal two years ago to move to the Netherlands.
The group behind household names like Dove and Ben & Jerry's ice cream stressed that its presence in both countries would remain unchanged.
Unilever had been forced to change previous plans to switch its headquarters from London to Rotterdam in 2018 amid anger from shareholders. The former CEO Paul Polman, and previous chairman, Marijn Dekkers, both quit soon after.
Unilever will have its primary stock market listing in London.

RR Global Enters Electric Vehicle Segment

RR Global, a prominent player in electrical goods industry, forayed into electric vehicles segment with plans to invest Rs. 125 crore in the next three years on the venture. The Mumbai-based firm plans to launch two electric scooter models under the brand name 'BGAUSS' by first week of August.
"The reason why we entered into this (electric vehicles) space is because of the forward integration we are trying to do. We understand this space, power train - motor controller, cluster, battery, wire harness, lightning etc and 70 per cent of the components, we do day in and day out. We understand it very well," RR Global Director Hemant Kabra told.
He further said they understand distribution network, service, performance etc. It's quite a bit of a natural extension for us to get into this pace.

Kris Gopalakrishnan Invests in Myelin Foundry

Myelin Foundry, a Bengaluru-based deep tech start-up, raised an undisclosed amount in a fresh round of funding from Kris Gopalakrishnan's family office, Pratithi. Gopalakrishnan is curently chairman of Axilor Ventures, a company supporting and funding startups and is one of the co-founders of Infosys.
The funds from this round will be used for penetration in OTT market in India and internationally. The company is seeing significant traction with large customers and is looking to raise its Series A funding over the next 2 quarters.
Myelin is at the leading edge of AI/ML based solutions. They are creating solutions that will change industries.
Myelin builds edge AI products that transform visual experiences and personalized outcomes on consumer edge devices using proprietary AI algorithms for video, voice, and sensor data. Myelin's first product in the market, Fovea Stream, is in the Media and Entertainment space and deploys on edge devices such as mobile phones, to provide the highest quality visual experience at the disruptively low bandwidth consumption for OTT providers and viewers.

IFFCO Signs MoU with ICAR for Collaborative Research

Indian Farmers Fertilizer Cooperative Ltd (IFFCO) signs MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) for joint research, testing and validation of different products through ICAR institutes and Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs)
The agreement enables the centers to disperse technological advancements through training programs, campaigns, field trials and demonstrations for the benefit of farmers.
The objective of the collaboration is to reduce farmers's consumption of chemical fertilizers by effective use of technology.

Jun 11, 2020

Lakshmi Vilas Bank Appoints B. K. Manjunath as Non-exec, Independent Director

Lakshmi Vilas Bank appointed B K Manjunath as its non-executive and independent director.
Manjunath is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and practising as a chartered accountant.
He has an experience of over 30 years in audit, accountancy, taxation, finance, business management and administration.
He had also served as an independent director of the bank between 2008 and 2015, and as its part-time chairman during the June 2017-June 2020 period.

Microsoft's VC Arm M12 Opens India Office in Bengaluru

M12, Microsoft's venture fund, opened of an office in tech-hub Bengaluru, its fifth one globally after San Francisco, Seattle, Tel Aviv and London. The firm will pursue investment opportunities across the region, focusing on Business-to-Business (B2B) software start-ups in the sectors such as applied artificial intelligence (AI), business applications, infrastructure and security.
M12 seeks to invest in disruptive enterprise software start-ups in Series A through C funding stages, targeting both local and cross-border solutions.
M12 has already been remotely investing in India since 2019. Its portfolio includes category leaders such as healthcare technology start-up Innovaccer and Noida-based logistics SaaS start-up FarEye. FarEye secured $25 million in Series D funding in April, led by M12.

Apollo Global, ICICI Ventures End India JV

Apollo Global Management and ICICI Bank's private equity arm ICICI Ventures are ending their joint venture investment platform Aion Capital, as the New York-based private equity firm plans to set up its own credit investment business in India.
The two had started Aion Capital in 2011 and raised $825 million for their first fund.
Utsav Baijal, a senior executive at the fund, will manage the existing fund's portfolio and look at exiting the investments made by the fund.
Apollo will join its American peers KKR and Blackstone that have their own independent teams in India.

Anand Mahindra Invests in Social Network Start-up Hapramp

Anand Mahindra, Chairman, Mahindra Group, has come on board as a key investor at start-up Hapramp. The firm is working on the biggest social media challenges such as user privacy, data security and fair content monetisation. It was founded in 2018 by five students in the final year of their computer science graduate degree.
Mahindra is investing $1 million in the Gurugram-based firm. He had, in 2018, announced via Twitter a funding opportunity for an Indian social media start-up that met certain criteria. Hapramp grabbed the opportunity to apply. Mahindra tweeted that Team Hapramp had won the seed funding.
Shubhendra Vikram, CEO and one of the co-founders of the start-up said that the investment is a massive approval of the company's mission to give creators the right to their content.

Arvind Ties up with HeiQ to Introduce Anti-viral Fabrics, Garments

Arvind Ltd, the leading textile-to-retail conglomerate entered into technical collaboration with Swiss textile innovator HeiQ Materials AG and Taiwanese speciality major Jintex Corporation to introduce Anti-Viral "Virolock" textile technology for the first time in India under its brand "Intellifabrix".
Intellifabrix brand is currently clocking a sales revenue of Rs. 1000 crore and the company plans to add Rs. 50 to Rs. 100 crore to this revenue from the sale of anti viral fabrics and garments in a few months.

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