Business & Finance - Current Affairs for December, 2015

Russia’s Rostech State Corporation on 29th December 2015 signed an agreement with Hindustan Aeronautics Limitd/ HAL for manufacturing 200 Kamov 226t Light helicopters. Kaman will replace the Cheetah and Chetak. Deal is pegged at USD 1 billion and is the first Russian Indian high tech project implemented under the Make in India initiative.

Financial services company, Reliance Capital, has purchased 11.88 lakh equity shares constituting 6.83 per cent of the equity share capital of Saregama India Ltd. on December 28, according to a regulatory filing. At 28th December’s closing price of Rs. 364.40 per unit, Reliance Capital would have paid Rs. 43.29 crore.

Prem Watsa run Fairfax Financial Holdings’ proposed acquisition of additional nine per cent stake in ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company for an estimated Rs. 1,550 crore has received clearance from CCI. Following the transaction, Fairfax will hold 35 per cent in ICICI Lombard, while ICICI Bank will have about 64 per cent stake. The proposed transaction values the company at Rs. 17,225 crore ($ 2.6 billion), Fairfax had said. Earlier, foreign partners were only allowed to hold 26 per cent stake in an insurance venture which has now been increased to 49 per cent after the passage of the Insurance Laws (Amendment) Act earlier this year.

ASSOCHAM has revised FY16 export target downwards to USD 255-260 billion for 2015-2016 which was pegged at USD 310 billion in the previous fiscal, in disagreement with the claim that there is no crisis on outwards shipments front. There have been 12 straight months of decline in exports. ASSOCHAM has said the sector is in real crisis going beyond petrol products to gems, jewellery, job oriented leather and leather products.

GoI has relaxed guidelines for small, isolated gas fields. Government has relaxed rules for sale of natural gas produced from small, isolated fields through waiving off time stipulation for fields in NE India. Oil ministry had in July 2013 allowed freedom for marketing gas produced from isolated small fields and also provided then with pricing freedom. Timeline of customers who can take supply within 90 days to be sold as gas has now been extended to one year.

Harvard T. H. Chen School of Public Health announced the opening of a centre in Mumbai to broaden and coordinate the collaborations of the institution to improve healthcare in the nation and across the world. The space for the centre has been provided by Harvard alumni Ajay and Swati Piramal. HBS has had a centre in Mumbai since 2006 and Harvard T. H.Chan School of Public Health will now be opening a centre here.

Reliance Defence of RIL on 24th December 2015 entered a partnership with Russian firm AlmazAntey for producing Air Defence Missile Systems. A corporate deal was signed during the two day state visit of PM Narendra Modi. Partnership is aimed at fulfilling air defence missile systems including the TOR-IM missile systems and radar requirements of Indian armed forces.

TATA Power has signed a memo with the Ministry of Development of Russian Far East for exploring and developing investment opportunities within the energy sector. This memorandum reflects the mutual intentions of parties to cooperate for realising investment projects in the energy sector across the Russian Far East.

Wipro has signed a definitive agreement for acquiring US based Viteos Group which is a business process provider for purchase consideration of USD 130 million. Via this acquisition, Wipro provides business process services to global investment banks increasing capabilities for the sector. Viteos was established in 2003 and is headquartered at New Jersey.

Welspun Enterprises Ltd has divested 37% stake in JV firm Dewas Bhopal Corridor Pvt Ltd for INR 662 crore to IDFC sponsored fund India Infrastructure Fund. As per the agreement, the company has sold 37% equity stake in Dewas Bhopal Corridor Pvt Ltd which is a 50% JV of the company at enterprise value of INR 6.62 billion.

E-commerce major Amazon has signed an agreement with National Institute for Entrepreneurship and Small Business Development/NIESBUD for encouraging SMEs to grow businesses profitably online. As part of the MoU, Amazon.in and NIESBUD will work for promoting greater awareness about e-commerce for SMEs and empower then to leverage various opportunities in the growing digital economy of India.

Music streaming services provider Pandora Media has signed separate multi-year licensing agreements with music companies ASCAP and BMI or Broadcast Music for their combined catalogs. As part of the deal, Pandora has also agreed to withdraw its appeal in a recent BMI case. Radio companies and the music industry have lobbied for different payment schedules. BMI manages performance rights for performers like Lady Gaga and Rihanna.

Rayani Airlines, a new low-cost airline, follows Sharia rules "based on guidelines by relevant authorities", according to MD Jaafar Zamhari. Rules include mandatory hijab for female Muslim cabin crew while Non Muslims may wear a decent uniform. Prayers will be said before the departure of each flight and alcohol is strictly forbidden. Food and beverages provided will be haha. Initially, the airline plans to introduce only domestic flights. Other airlines that comply with some Sharia laws include Etihad and Emirates.

Gurgaon based on demand grocery service store PepperTap on 21st December 2015 acquired hyperlocal grocery delivery startup Jiffstore in a cash and stock deal. As part of the deal. the latter will merge its operations with PepperTap.

Arre, the digital media brand from Ronnnie Screwala, B Saikumar and Ajay Chacko owned U Digital on 21st December announced the acquisition of Apalya Technologies. Cofounders of Apalya, Vamshi Reddy and Shiva Bayyapunedi, will get 2 percent sweat equity in UDigital. Apalya was formed in 2005.

Following hardware, Micromax now seeks to expand its software services business across areas like healthcare, e-commerce and payments. City based firm has partnered with TranServ to integrate payments with its service platform which will enable the users to employ mobile wallets in a simplified manner. This is the first smartphone based native payments solution of the country.

Smaaash Entertainment, sports centric virtual entertainment company co-owned by Sachin Tendulkar has collaborated with football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo for launching its first Smaaash soccer centre in Dubai, Jeddah. Smaaash will invest USD 20 million over 6 months to create opportunities for Middle Eastern soccer fans to plan and play football.

Gurgaon based skill assessment firm Aspiring Minds has acquired online mobile internship platform LetsIntern dot com for a non disclosed amount. Acquisition is part of the multi million dollar investment by the company in the internship space. This is the second acquisition of this company after acquiring mobile tech startup Mizcoin.

Finnish-Swedish telecoms operator TeliaSonera sold its stake in Nepalese operator Ncell to Axiata from Malaysia, a large telecom company for 948 million euros. TeliaSonera has held 60.4% of Ncell’s capital and also sold its holding in a local vehicle which holds 20% of Ncell.

Cochin Shipyard Limited, a PSU under the control of the Ministry of Shipping has completed a Mark-III Flex Mock-Up, which has been certified by GTT (Gaztransport et Technigaz), France, thereby completing all requirements to be licensed by GTT to build LNG ships for any client world-wide using their patented membrane containment system known as the Mark-III Technology. This makes CSL, the first Indian shipyard in India to obtain this coveted license from GTT.

Hindustan Unilever Limited on 17th December 2015 announced an agreement with Mosons Group to acquire the flagship brand Indulekha for INR 330 crores. This is in line with its leadership position in personal care. Deal includes acquisition of trademark brands Vayodha and Indulekha in terms of intellectual design and know how. Mosons Group will be paid INR 300 crore rupees following the closing of the transaction and deferred consideration of 10 percent on domestic turnover of brands per annum.

Logistics platform Rivigo has raised USD 30 million or INR 198 crore from SAIF partners as well as other investors. Series B round of funding led by SAIF partners was a blend of equity and debt financing. Riving was founded as TrucksFirst in 2014. It provides services to clients across verticals like pharma, e-commerce and cold chain space. Deepak Guar is the founder and CEO of Rivigo.

Lookup, a free service connecting local businesses with consumers has launched @lookuplit on Twitter’s platform for live public conversations. The technical integration has connected with the company with one of the most popular social media platforms in the world. Technical integration will include a Twitter ancon t o answer people’s queries.

TATA Global Beverages on 17th December announced that the youngest CEO in the TATA Group, Avani Davda has resigned to pursue opportunities outside the group. Davda was the CEO of TATA Starbucks, a joint venture between Starbucks Corp and TATA Global Beverages. She has established the TATA Starbucks and positioning Starbucks as the premier coffee house in India. Starbucks opened its first India store in October 2012. JV has appointed Sumi Ghosh as CEO w.e.f January 1st 2015.

Fokker Technologies, a division of GKN Aerospace and Aequs India signed a long term agreement for supply of machine components for Boeing’s Chinook helicopter. The LTA was signed at the Boeing India Supplier Conference in Hyderabad and Fokker Technologies will build parts into final sub-assemblies in facilities in Papendrecht, The Netherlands. Fokker Technologies commenced operations in 2014.

Jet Airways, India’s second largest airline by market share, saw the resignation of its CEO Cramer Ball w.e.f February 29, 2016. Ball has stepped down to pursue new opportunities in Europe for family reasons. Whole time director at the airline G. Shetty will be acting CEO. Ball joined Jet Airways last year. He will now work for Italian airline Alitalia as the CEO, replacing Silvano Cassano who quit the company in September 2015. Jet was trying to implement a turnaround strategy and Etihad Airways has a 24% stake in the airline, the first time a company has made profits in the second quarter in 8 years.

ADAG Reliance Entertainment and acclaimed Hollywood director Spielberg has announced formation of Amblin Partners with his company DreamWorks. This is a new film television and digital content creation company. Also part of the venture are Participant Media by Jeff Skoll and Entertainment One, a US based media company.

Baljeet Singh, Twitter product lead in charge of video will quit the company next month, according to a Twitter spokesperson. Singh is currently senior product director and joined Twitter 2 years after he worked for more than 5 years with YouTube. Singh will be the latest product leader to leave Twitter after Glenn Brown.

Ride hailing app Lyft has hired Evan Cohen on 17th December 2015 to head its east coast operations to win over regulators and fend off competitors. Cohen is a former executive from Foursquare, a mobile app providing recommendations for restaurants and nightlife. He has joined as regional director of the company.

Apple has named Jeff Williams as the new COO since Tim Cook left the position to become a CEO of the company. Williams has been in Apple for 17 years and supervised the launch of Apple Watch. Apple has already named Johnny Srouji as the senior vice president.

The largest software exporter in the company TCS has been selected by German aviation major Lufthansa for setting up a test facility to support its IT transformation initiative in a multi million dollar deal. TCS will provide testing service. It will also help improve the quality of services of Lufthansa’s technology ops. Currently, TCS has 85 clients in Germany and Austria.

US PE firm Blackstone Group LP has purchased a minority stake in India’s IBS Software for USD 170 million from shareholders including General Atlantic. IBS is a software company involved in diverse industries such as travel, hospitality, logistics and oil and gas. General Atlantic has been an investor in IBS since 2007. PE firm Blackstone has been looking for investment opportunities since acquisition of India operations of British outsourcing firm Serco for 250 million pounds, the largest acquisition in India by enterprise value.

For overcoming language barriers and shopping online in the regional language they prefer, Snapdeal users can now try its multilingual interface. Snapdeal’s user interface on mobile will soon be available in English and 11 regional languages w.e.f January 26th. Snapped has now expanded the reach to 130 million smartphone users in the country.

Chinese internet company Alibaba will pay USD 266 million for the South China Morning Post of Hong Kong. The business had been valued at half the amount and some observers indicated that the hefty price tag reveals Alibaba’s intent to control the media. Alibaba also owns the Hong Kong editions of magazines Cosmopolitan, Elle, Esquire and Harper’s Bazaar.

Tech Mahindra and Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd, part of the Mahindra Group have made the agreement to purchase Italian car designer Pininfarina S.p. A in an all cash deal. Tech Mahindra and M&M will form a 60:40 JV for acquiring Milanese company Pininfarina which has designed cars such as Ferrari, Rolls Royce and Cadillac. The JV, will also infuse 20 million euros into Pininfarina by way of a rights issue, which would be executed before the end of 2016.

Etihad Airways has announced a strategic agreement with Cognizant to drive digital transformation across the airline and its equity partners. As per the 3 year multi-million dollar deal, Cognizant will enable Etihad Airways to define its digital strategy and enable the airlines and its equity partners to better understand the needs of their customers. As part of the engagement, this IT company will manage the existing web apps and portals of the airline and integrate them into a new digital platform.

Wipro healthcare and life sciences CEO Sangita Singh has quit following 23 years of service with the company. She is one of the senior most leaders in the IT industry and has resigned at a very high level. Global health of life sciences and healthcare strategic business units will now be taken over by senior VP J. Heenan-Jalil. Healthcare and life sciences constitutes 11.4% of USD 7.6 billion which forms the firm’s top line.

BoD of DuPont and Dow Chemical Company on 11th December 2015 has approved a definitive agreement for merging the two companies in an all stock deal. Merged company will be named DowDuPoint and will have combined market cap of 130 billion dollars at announcement. Under the transaction terms, Dow shareholders will receive fixed exchange ratio of 1.00 share of DowDuPont for each Dow share. DuPont shareholders will receive fixed exchange ratio of 1.282 shares in DowDuPont for each DuPont share.

Data integrator SnapLogic has raised USD 37.5 million in funds from Microsoft Corp and Silver Lake Waterman, where plans are on to accelerate growth and expansion. Silver Lake Waterman is the growth arm of Silver Lake. It focuses on flexible capital building for later stage growth tech firms. SnapLogic is a San Mateo California based company. It was founded in 2006 by Gaurav Dhillon and its customers include Adobe Systems Inc and AstraZeneca Plc.

Global software company Wipro has announced that it has won the Aegis Graham Bell award for developing IoT solutions. This is the country’s innovation award in the field of internet, telecom, media, entertainment, social mobility analytics and cloud.

Chinese e-commerce major Alibaba Group has agreed to purchase Hong Kong English language newspaper group, South China Morning Post. Agreement includes SCMP Group’s other media assets such as licenses to Hong Kong edition of Harper’s Bazaar and Elle. Deal is sure to raise concerns in Hong Kong where the SCMP occupies an important position in the media.

Taxi hailing app Ola has announced a collaboration with Indifi to provide loan for drivers registered on the platform. Indifi is a tech start up that enables enterprises which are small to gain access to debt financing. Ola has initiated a loan scheme in the following cities-Pune, Bengaluru. It will partner multiple finance partners in the next 6 months for extension of this facility to drivers across the country.

Continuing the funding of his startups, well known industrialist and chairman emeritus TATA group has invested in urban services marketplace UrbanClap. The value of the investment was not disclosed to the public. UrbanClap is India’s largest services marketplace and it operates in 6 cities offering close to 80 services. Company also has network of 25,000 service professionals. Tata has invested in firms like Snapdeal, Kaaryah, Urban Ladder, Bluestone, CarDekho, Sabse Technologies, Xiaomi and Ola. He has also joined some VC funds such as Jungle Ventures and Kalaari Capital.

The deal has been signed for the Club World Cup reflecting the massive marketing potential of China. Marketing director Thierry Weil made the announcement regarding the deal with the car manufacturing brand of the popular e-commerce major. The Club World Cup features the leading clubs from FIFA’s six continental confederations.

The two firms will come together to set up a caustic soda plant at Dahej in Gujarat. NALCO CMD T K Chand on 8th December 2015 laid the foundation stone of the proposed plant, a release here said. The new JV company GACL-NALCO Alkalies & Chemicals Private Limited, in which NALCO holds 40 per cent share capital, while GACL holds the rest, plans to produce 2.7 lakh tonnes of caustic soda per annum.

Tata Communications said it will sell majority of its subsidiary Neotel's fixed line assets to Vodacom South Africa but will retain control of licences including spectrum. The deal was agreed to in May 2014. In dollar terms, the value of transaction at that time was around USD 676 million which has come down to USD 479 million due to depreciation in value of South African rand.

India’s biggest software services firm TATA Consultancy Services has won 4 prestigious awards for key client projects as well as innovations at European Software Testing Awards 2015 organised by TEST Magazine.
It won the following awards:

1. Best Agile Project
2. Best Mobile Project
3. Testing Innovator of the Year
4. Leading Vendor

India’s total exports of the IT, ITeS and BPO services grew by 14.8% to USD 82 billion/INR 5.01 lakh crore in the year 2014-2015, as per RBI data. RBI also said in the Survey on Computer Software and IT enabled Services Exports: 2014-2015 that exports of computer services grew 72% and 28% for computer services and ITeS/BPO roughly. Public limited companies constitute 55.6% and as per RBI survey, US and Canada will persist in being major destinations, accounting for 60% of total software services export in 2014-2015.

Titan has appointed 3 directors including MD Bhaskar Bhat on board its new JV with Maison Montblanc which aims to carry out single brand retail trading of the products in India. The other two people appointed on the board are Co CEO S. Ravi Kant and Independent Director Ireen Vittal. Appointment is as per agreement between partners under which Titan has appointed three of six directors in a BSE filing. JV has “equity participation pursuant to FIPB approval in the ratio of 51:49 by Montblanc Services BV and Titan Co Ltd, respectively, as per the filing. The equity share capital of the JV company after allotment on December 5, 2015 is Rs. 41.50 crore comprising 4.15 crore shares of Rs.10 each, the company said. Montblanc is entering India again to open 5 boutiques within the next 3 months. Titan is a JV between TATA group and Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corp.

IDFC Bank has inked a pact with IT services major Tata Consultancy Services to use TCS BaNCS for its core banking solutions. Around 23 branches will be powered by this core banking solution. TCS has deployed more than 300 similar projects across the globe.

They have entered into strategic partnership to offer 'Post Graduate Certificate Program' in software testing that enable learners to apply key testing skills and practices using HP tools. Software apps, especially on cloud serve numerous end users. As per NASSCOM, the software testing outsourcing market is expected to grow from $30 billion in 2010 to $50 billion in 2020 worldwide and India is expected to be the biggest gainers.

Online classifieds portal Quikr has acquired a real estate analytics platform RealtyCompass which enables customers and investors to be involved in the decision making process through provision of builder ratings and project analysis. RealtyCompass was founded in 2013 by N. Bhandari, S. Srinivasan and A. Mishra and will now be part of QuikrHomes.

Online e-commerce and payments company Paytm has acquired Near.in in a consolidation in the local and home services market. With this acquisition, Gurgaon based Near.in is in line with the strategy of the payment company to strengthen online to offline play. Near.in has raised seed funding from well known entrepreneurs such as Anupam Mittal and vanish Vij.

ADAG led RCom has agreed to sell its telecom tower and associated infrastructure to Tillman Global Holdings LLC and TPG Asia. RCom has 45,000 phone towers valued at about Rs. 22,000 crore and optic fibre assets worth another Rs. 8,000 crore, taking the total deal size to Rs. 30,000 crore. This marks the largest acquisition in the telecom space.

A Japanese firm Kyocera has developed the first waterproof smartphone that can be washed with soap and water. Waterproof phones have been on the market for a while in Japan. However, that did not protect phones from the kind of rigorous scrubbing needed to actually clean the device and kill bacteria.

Startups have raised USD 1.7 billion in Q1 of 2015 according to the telecom ministry. This is 300 percent more than USD 450 million raised during the first quarter of 2014. Modi tackled lack of coherent policy framework to support innovation and induce inclusive development.

National Textile Corporation Limited has become the 49th CPSU and 51st PSU to sign an MoU with Transparency International India for adopting an Integrity Pact. the pact is a tool which ensures transactions between PSY and suppliers occurs in fair, ethical and corruption free manner.

Flipkart has acquired a strategic minority stake in online digital map platform for GPS navigation called MapmyIndia. Early financial investors Nexus Venture Partners and Lightbox Ventures will exit this company following this investment. Acquisition of this company’s stake will boost Flipkart’s logistics operations.

In a major step forward for the Telangana aerospace sector, Minister of IT K. T. Rama Rao has announced the setting up of a facility on the outskirts of the city to create fuselage for Apache helicopters in a collaboration between Boeing India and TASL.

The third largest software services company Wipro will acquire German IT consulting company Cellent AG for INR 518 crore. The all cash deal will conclude in March 2016, according to a BSE filing by the company. The agreement has been signed with Landesbank Baden-Wuerttemberg (LBBW) to acquire Cellent AG for 73.5 million euros. Wipro subsidiary Wipro Cyprus is making the acquisition which will provide significant scale for the company in the DACH region (Austria, Germany and Switzerland). The German company founded in 2002 has 8 offices in Germany, 2 in Austria and 1 in Switzerland.

Shareholders in a Finnish telecom company Nokia have approved purchase of French American rival group Alcatel Lucent. The shareholders backed the merger plan sans a vote as none of the shareholders present raised objections. Nokia is currently a leading mobile telephone maker and the combined revenue with Alcatel Lucent stands at USD 26.5 billion.

Product engineering services firm, Aricent, has partnered with Nasscom Foundation to launch “Aricent Employability Programme.” This is a CSR initiative to create employability opportunities for 2,500 engineering graduates. The programme will be offered to under graduate students across Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Delhi NCR and Rajasthan, company officials said.

Foxconn has acquired a 10 percent stake in MoMagic Technologies for an amount which has not been publicly disclosed. MoMagic is a mobile internet company backed by Mediatek offering analytics—driven marketing solutions to enterprises, startups and e-commerce players. FIH subsidiary Wonderful Stars has acquired the stake in MoMagic.

A statement posted on BlackBerry’s website that the service will no longer operate in Pakistan from 30th November 2015 because “remaining in Pakistan would have meant forfeiting our commitment to protect our users’ privacy”. PTA or Pakistan Telecom Authority notified that BlackBerry Enterprise Services would not be allowed to operate December onwards for security reasons. PTA had clarified that other Blackberry services such as messenger and Blackberry internet services (BIS) would continue.

Customers have switched from one brand to another and this switching economy has created opportunity worth INR 331 billion, according to an Accenture report entitled Global Consumer Pulse Research: An Indian Perspective, according to which 88% of the respondents from India said they switched companies in at least one industry due to poor service. This is significantly higher in India than the global average of 64% where switching due to poor service is more prevalent in service-oriented industries like banking and internet service. Global study covered nations like Germany, Japan and the UK.

Global Innovation Index/GII released by INSEAD, World Intellectual Property Organisation and Cornell University and their knowledge partners like CII has placed india at rank 81 in 2015. India ranked 76 in 2014 and 66 in 2013. It was rank 64 in 2012. GII covers 141 nations across the world and uses 79 indicators across numerous themes. Rankings are based on data collected during earlier years.