Business & Finance - Current Affairs for October, 2015

GoI has approved 16 foreign investment proposals which includes HDFC capital and Ageon Religare Life Insurance Company, adding up to INR 4722 crore. Investment proposals were approved after FIPB approval. 8 proposals have been rejected including Cipla Health Limited and Apollo Hospitals.

Schedule Commercial Banks have increased credit by 9.54% to INR 67,83,127 crore in the fortnight closing October 16, as per RBI data. Loans were pegged at INR 61,92,158 crore in the earlier fortnight from INR 62,40,256 crore within the same period in 2014. Deposits rose by 11.25% to INR 91,63,815 crore as against INR 82,36,670 in 2014. Demand and time deposits also registered an increase from 2014.

PE firm TVS Capital through the fund TVS Shriram Growth Fund, is set to purchase 4% per cent equity stake in Indian Energy Exchange (IEX) from Bessemer Venture Partners for INR 81 crore. Fund leads a consortium headed by DCB Power Ventures of Dalmia Bharat Group.IEX is co-promoted by Power Trading Corporation of India.

SpiceJet COO Sanjiv Kapoor has put in his papers close to 10 months after the original promoter Ajay Singh took over the budget airline. Kapoor had been appointed by K. Maran in November 2013. Carrier has seen many exits of senior level executives such as Chief Commercial Officer Kaneswaran Avili and IT head Sudhakar Kondisetty.

In a ranking by Platts in 2015, RIL regained top spot among Indian firms on the list, beating competition from ONGC. RIL ranked 14 this year while ONGC ranked 17. RIL had been pushed to number 2 position in 2014 by ONGC has regained overall global ranking this year. This year also marks the maximum number of Indian companies (14) making it to the list.

Wipro has indicated that it has won a 5 year IT contract from Coop Norge Handel AS/Coop Norge. The latter is a leading Norwegian retailer. As per the agreement, Wipro will transform the enterprise SAP software landscape of this Norway retailer and upgrade the data centre infrastructure of the company. IT engagement will benefit supply chain and distribution operations at the Norway retailer besides other functions. This will enable Coop Norge to strengthen its operating modern with enhanced reach and availability. Coop Norge has market share of 33% with over 1500 stores.

Japan’s Toshiba Corp has made arrangements to sell its image sensor business to Sony Corp and overhaul unprofitable semiconductor business as it seeks to recover from USD 1.3 billion accounting scandal. The company will send its image censoring manufacturing plant in Oita, southern Japan to Sony towards the close of the fiscal year in March and move out of the sensor business, company indicated in a joint statement. Sony will employ the 1,100 workers of the sensor business. Deal is valued around 20 billion yen. Toshiba is also set to withdraw from its LED business which is part of the semiconductor division.

Reliance Industries has signed a new listing agreement with BSE and NSE becoming the first company in the country to comply with new requirements of SEBI. New Listing Regulations will be effective from December 1. SEBI has made it compulsory for all existing listed entities to execute a fresh and simplified Listing Agreement with the stock exchanges where they are listed, within six months of the notification date.

Last year, WB ranked India at 140 for ease of doing business. Within a few months of governance in 2015, the country now has improved its ranking with only 29 days being required to start an business in India. The recalculated value as per the new methodology has also improved India’s ranking to 134. Among S. Asian economies, India has made the largest improvement in business regulation and ranks in top 10 (position 8) for protecting minority shareholders.

Promoter director S. Chandra and CEO R. C. Venkateish have resigned while company has appointed Jawahar Lal Goel as Board Chairman. Chandra’s resignation took effect from October 27, 2015. Board also accepted resignations of Mintoo Bhandari, non-executive nominee director and his Alternate Director Utsav Baijal.

RBI on 24th October 2015 has issued guidelines for Gold Monetisation Scheme that permits banks to fix their own interest rates on gold deposits. RBI notification comes ahead of formal launch on scheme by PM Modi. Gold deposit scheme is aimed to mobilise 20,000 tonnes of idle precious metals with households and institutions. According to guidelines for Gold Monetisation scheme,banks can set interest rates on such deposits and principal and interest of deposit will be denominated in gold. Redemption of principal and interest at maturity will, at the option of the depositor will be in Indian rupees equivalent of the despoiled gold and accrued interest based on gold price prevailing at time of redemption or in gold. Option in this regard will be made by depositor at time of making the deposit and should be irrevocable. Interest will be credited in deposit accounts on respective due dates and can be withdrawn on a periodic basis or at maturity as per deposit terms. Designated banks will accept gold deposits under short and medium as well as long term government deposit schemes.

Online entertainment platform ErosNow has tied up with MSO cable and broadband service provider Ortel Communications for subscription based movie streaming service referred to as Ortel Broadband Movies. Orel Communications is a cable television and high speed broadband service provider associated with Odisha, AP, MP, WB and Chhattisgarh. Partnership allows Ortel Communications to stream movies from the bast library that enabled broadband users to access content across numerous platforms. Subscription based service will be available for Ortel Broadband customers with free subscription for ErosNow.

Industrialist A. Vellayan has resumed charge as Chairman of Murugappa Group following 5 months after stepping aside from the post after regulatory authority had placed insider trading charges against him. Following the assessment of ongoing proceedings against alleged insider trading after expert legal advice on this matter, he was reappointed. Vellayen has stepped aside as Chairman of Murugappa Group and two group firms, Coromandel International and EID Parry.

RBI has allowed lenders to count short term bullion deposits under the gold monetisation scheme as part of CRR or SLR. This will increase the appeal of the plan for this sector. This measure is part of RBI guidelines for gold scheme aimed at ensuring Indian households deposit gold at lenders in exchange for interest rate payments. RBI has indicated it will permit banks to take minimum deposit of 30 grams of gold from persons which will be placed in the bullion for a period of one to 15 years. Short term bank deposits will attract CRR and SLR. The stock of gold mobilised as per the scheme by banks will count for general SLR requirement. This will provide additional capital to banks for lending in productive sectors. CRR is the portion of total deposits to be placed with RBI in cash and SLR is the portion of the deposit parked in government securities. Banks have to set aside 4% of total deposit for CRR while 21.5 percent is for meeting SLR requirement. There will be provision for premature withdrawal subject to minimum long in period and penalty will be assessed by individual banks.

American Tower Corp has agreed to purchase 51 percent controlling stake in Indian mobile mast company Viom Networks for INR 7600 or USD 1.17 billion for expansion. India is the world’s second largest telecommunications market by number of users. ATC will combine 14,000 communication towers with Viom’s 42,200 creating the second largest Indian mobile mast operator as per number of towers. India’s mobile phone carriers are concentrating on spreading 3G and 4G broadband networks where two thirds of the population is under 35 and income levels are expanding fast. Currently, Indus Towers a JV of three top mobile phone carrier companies in India is India’s biggest telecom tower company with close to 100,000 towers. While Credit Suisse advised Viom networks for the deal, Kotak Investment Banking and Evercore advised ATC.

Hard disk drive maker Western Digital has announced it will be purchasing SanDisk Corp for USD 19 billion. This will provide it with better access to flash memory storage chips in mobile and smartphone devices. Record number of deals have been noted in the semiconductor industry. Total value of SanDisk acquisition is based on closing of investment by China backed Tsinghua Holdings Unisplendour. If investment closes before SanDisk acquisition, Western Digital will pay more. Deal aims to add to the adjusted earnings of Western Digital. Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan and Credit Suisse were the financial advisers for this deal while Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP and Baker & McKenzie are legal advisers to Western Digital. For SanDisk, the financial adviser was Goldman Sachs while Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP is its legal adviser.

Reliance Capital Asset Management, part of ADAG on 21st October 2015 signed a definitive agreement for the acquisition of GSAM/Goldman Sachs Asset Management’s onshore mutual fund business in the country. RCAM will pay a total sum of INR 243 crore/USD 37.5 million to acquire onshore MF funds including exchange traded funds of GSAM India. Through this acquisition. RCAM will be the exclusive fund manager for CPSE ETFs of the Union Government of India. GSAM India is part of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, asset management arm of Investment Management Division of Goldman Sachs Group Inc overseeing USD 1.19 trillion asset management under supervision w.e.f September 2015. GSAM India managed 12 MF fund schemes including 10 exchange traded funds.

Google will acquire a minority stake in Beijing-based artificial intelligence firm Mobvoi as part of a $75 million fund raising round, as per an announcement on 20th October 2015. The latter works on
AI voice-controlled software and develops hardware like smart watches. Google's parent company is now Alphabet. The deal is not Google’s first in China. The size of the deal has not been disclosed.

HCL Technologies will buy Swedish commercial vehicles major Volvo Group's external IT business for USD138 million/INR 895 crore in an all cash deal. Volvo will also outsource IT infrastructure operations to HCL Technologies for non-disclosed contract value for 5 years. A letter of intent has been signed by the two companies to this effect.

Meru Cabs has announced a global partnership with eCab, leading taxi service provider under Taxis G7 to provide high-quality cab services to foreign travellers in India and to Indian travellers going abroad with eCab mobile app. Via this strategic partnership, Meru Cabs and Taxis G7 customers will be able to book cabs through a global network of taxi providers.

Bank of Baroda has joined the Chillr payment platform enabling peer to peer payment through mobile application. This is the second bank to join the payment platform after HDFC. Banks integrated with this application can utilise application for remitting funds. Customers of any bank can get funds using this payment platform. Chillr app was developed by Kerala based start up named Mobme Wireless. This was formed into a separate firm by Sony Joy, founder and CEO Chillr.

Yahoo Chief Development Officer J. Reses is resigning to join mobile payments company Square Inc following a role change earlier in 2015. Twitter also named Jack Dorsey heading Square as its CEO earlier. Square has also filed for an IPO recently in October 2015.

The second largest IT exporter in India, Infosys has signed a definitive agreement for acquisition of Noah Consulting LLC, a leading advanced information management consulting firm for Oil and Gas industry. Acquisition is an all cash deal with aggregate purchase consideration of USD 70 million. US based Noah Consulting has deep domain expertise in upstream oil and gas.

Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba has received anti-trust regulator CCI’s approval for purchasing a 4.14% stake in Snapdeal’s holding company Jasper Infotech. CCI gives approval to keep tabs on unfair business practices for acquisitions beyond a certain level. In August 2015, it was announced that Alibaba along with Foxconn and others will invest USD 500 million in Snapdeal.

Jharkhand State government and GAIL India Limited have inked a Gas Cooperation Agreement for the construction of infrastructure for natural and city gas distribution on 15th October 2015. Infrastructure will assist in construction of the Urja Ganga Jagdishpur Haldia Pipeline project in Jharkhand. Project aims to link eastern India to national grid and GAIL will set up a 174 km main line and 166 km spur lines as part of the 2050 km long Jagdishpur-Haldia gas pipeline project linking Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal passing through six districts namely, Bokaro, Giridih, Hazaribagh, Dhanbad, East Singbhum and Ranchi.

RBI has announced merger of two funds to create FIF/Financial Inclusion Fund with corpus of INR 2000 crore for support of development and promotional activities for increasing coverage of banking services. Financial Inclusion Fund and Financial Inclusion Technology Fund will be merged into a single fund called FIF which will be INR 2000 crore. Contribution to FIF will be from an interest differential in excess of 0.5 percent on RIDF/Rural Infrastructure Development Fund and STCRC/Short Term Cooperative Rural Credit deposits on account of shortfall in priority sector lending with NABARD by banks.

Mahindra First Choice Wheels Ltd has acquired the business assets of a pre insurance inspection services business in India, Autorisk Management Services Pvt Ltd. The sum for which the acquisition was made was not publicly disclosed. This acquisition is in line with the total growth agenda of MFCWL and it will add a new client base with enhanced resource footprint.

EU regulators have cleared Intel, the biggest chipmaker in the world to purchase US firm Altera for USD 16.7 billion in a massive Silicon Valley deal. EU Commission has cleared the acquisition of electronic component supplier Altera as the merged entity will face competition in Europe. California based Intel will pay USD 54 per share in cash for Altera. The latter firm designs processors for server systems, phone networks, cars and other devices. The buyout is the largest in Intel’s 47 year history and will boost its IoT portfolio. Intel attained a target of USD 55.9 billion sales in 2014. Founded in 1983, Altera has more than 3000 employees in 20 nations and attained sales totaling USD 1.9 billion in the past year.

Real estate development major TATA Housing on 14th October 2015 has collaborated with Facebook for the sale of affordable homes online. The company has launched a new campaign called Social Sell on Facebook. The company aims to generate 30% from its sales from online sources. It started selling homes online in 2013 through a collaboration with Google. It also tied up with real estate portal Housing dot com and Snapdeal to sell housing units in India.

Etihad Airways and IBM have announced an IT deal worth USD 700 million dollars for over a decade. This deal will improve airline operations and security apart from incorporating analytics of customer data and technology development to forecast weather patterns and better handle airline flights. Deal also comprises IBM mobile solutions developed in collaboration with Apple. Etihad was founded in 2003 and is the second largest airline in the UAE currently.

The second largest handset maker in India, Micromax has invested in India’s largest streaming and music broadcast service, Gaana. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. As per the deal, Gaana will be available on Micromax smartphones and new users will receive free trials allowing unlimited downloads without ads. Gaana has 20 million active users and has seen close to 30 million downloads and a library of close to 10 million songs with ad supported streaming in more than 45 languages.

Nippon Life Insurance of Japan has signed an agreement to increase stake in Reliance Capital Asset Management, part of the ADAG led Reliance Capital in tranches ranging from 35 to 49 percent for INR 1196 crore or USD 184 million. BoD of both companies have approved the increase in stake by Japanese partner. The market valuation of RCAM is pegged at USD 1.3 billion. Reliance Capital Asset Management, India’s largest asset manager, had Rs. 2,43,162 crore (USD 38.3 billion) assets under management as on June 30, 2015, across mutual funds, pension funds, managed accounts and offshore funds. In 2012, Nippon Life Insurance has initially acquired 26 per cent stake in Reliance Capital Asset Management pegged at aggregate value of Rs. 1,450 crore (USD 240 million). It increased the stake to 35% in February 2015.

RBI has signed an agreement on information sharing with Bank of Botswana under the Supervisory Cooperation and Exchange of Supervisory Information. It has signed an MoU with Bank of Botswana with respect to this. RBI has entered into an agreement with other countries in a similar field. The apex bank has signed 28 such MoUs, one letter for supervisory cooperation and statement of cooperation.

Apple Music members will now be able to access Bollywood plus indie music through playlists regularly updated by MTV India. Exclusive playlists being curated by MTV India for Apple Music comprise Indie Top 10 series from ballads to electronics and heavy metal. Users can access mix of playlists about bespoke MTV properties such as CokeStudio@MTV.

India is presently in goldilocks period of low inflation along with gradual recovery and is expected to clock GDP growth rate of 7.6% in the fiscal according to Japanese financial services company Nomura. India's industrial output rose to nearly three-year high of 6.4 percent in August on improvement in manufacturing and capital goods while retail inflation rose to 4.41 percent in September. According to Nomura, GDP (at market prices) growth is set to recover to 7.6 percent YoY in FY16 from 7.3 percent in FY15.

EVP and CFO of Infosys, Rajiv Bansal has tendered his resignation while EVP and head of strategic operations and CEO’s office, Ranganath Mavinakere has replaced him. Bansal will continue as CEO and Board advisor till December 31 to provide smooth transition. Mavinakere has been with Infosys for close to 15 years and is currently heading strategic operations. Bansal has over 20 years of experience in the field and joined the company as finance manager in 1999. He has also worked for TATA Technologies, Cable and Wireless and ABB, apart from being a gold medalist from ICWAI.

Dell, the company founded by Michael S. Dell is looking to adapt to a quick changing tech industry and is in the process of acquiring storage provider EMC keeping this in mind. This deal has been valued at USD 65 billion and Dell along with its financial backer Investment firm Silver Lake has held that the acquisition will assist it in keeping up with the competition. Purchasing EMC will provide Dell with one of the leading names in computer data storage along with existing offerings such as mobile devices, corporate software and network servers. Dell will pay close to USD 33.15 per share in a transaction involving cash and special kind of stock. Currently, VMware holds an 81% stake in EMC and the company has a market value pegged at USD 33 billion valuing EMC’s stake at USD 27 billion.

Benchmark BSE Sensex rose rapidly by 858 points during the first week of October causing 9 of the top 10 most valued companies to gain INR 80,086.27 crore in market cap. ONGC posted the biggest gains. Sensex surged to 27,079.51, second straight weekly rise. Apart from Infosys, top 9 companies which saw market valuation rise included ITC, RIL and TCS. M-cap of ONGC surged to INR 2,25137.72 crore from INR 26,393.68 crore. TCS topped the list of companies being followed by RIL, ITC, HDFC Bank, Infosys, ONGC, Sun Pharma, CIL, HDFC and SBI.

3 UK firms Enterprise Control Systems, developed the product along with Blighter Surveillance Systems and Chess Dynamics. They have created a new system called AUDS/Anti UAV Defence System for covertly jamming a drone’s signal and making it unresponsive through a new technique using radio beams to freeze drones and prevent them from coming into sensitive areas. The AUDS operator can freeze the drone for a short period or until its battery dies and it crashes.

Marina Holdco, a company backed by Apax Partners has announced acquisition of 23.2% stake in RPG promoted Zensar Technologies. Apax acquired the stake from Electra Partner Mauritius, currently a minority shareholder in Zensar. Following the deal, RPG Group remains the promoter and largest shareholder in the firm with 48% stake.

Futures Group entered into a partnership with Baba Ramdev led Patanjali Ayurved following a partnership to sell the FMCG products of the latter via its stores. Future Consumer Enterprises and Lifestyle Fashion shares as well as those of Future Retail rose by a healthy margin. Patanjali is all set to lunch noodles in the coming week to gain a projected profit of INR 1000 crore within the next 20 months.

To benefit buyers of low cost housing, RBI on 8th October 2015 raised the amount banks can advance for property purchase and lowered the risk weightage of various categories of home loans. This will attract customers to low cost housing sphere. Banks will also gain surplus funds for affordable housing loans as they have to set aside less capital for the segment. Banks can now provide home loans up to 90% for properties that cost INR 30 lakh or less from the earlier INR 20 lakh. LTV has been raised to 80% for properties between INR 30 lakh and 75 lakh and 75% for those above INR 75 lakh.

Chairwoman and CEO of American chemical major DuPont Ellen Kullman has announced her retirement from the post w.e.f 16th October 2015 following a battle with activist investor Nelson Peltz. DuPoint has appointed chairman of Tyco International Plc and member of DuPont BoD as interim chairman and CEO. Kullman is an ex GM director and joined DuPont in 1980. She is ranked among the Forbes most powerful women for the year 2014.

Pharma major Cipla through its subsidiary Cipla Medoro Pty has entered into an exclusive agreement with the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer SII to supply vaccines. Diploma will use the partnership to address national vaccine storage. Pune based SII has presence in 140 countries and 1.3 billion doses have been manufactured and sold by it. Agreement holds that the Cipla subsidiary will become the holder of MCC regulatory approvals with respect to product registrations and marketing authorizations.

TSP Aircel has partnered Tech Mahindra to roll out IoT service offerings while no financial details of the deal were disclosed. Tech Mahindra is set to provide IoT services in partnership with Silicon Valley based specialist Aeris Communications. IoT refers to network of internet accessible, inter connected devices. Aircel is looking to launch vertical specific solutions in the IoT space and cater to vertical market segments such as smart energy and smart city.

Private sector lender ICICI bank has launched mobile payment solution services based on mVisa which will allow customers to make payments for services via smartphones. Service can be used by those customers who have app of bank’s mobile wallet Pockets. It works through scanning of QR codes. The bank is the first to launch mobile app based mVisa solution for consumers and merchants. mVisa is a mobile payment solution from Visa. Service will help overcome problems of low availability of PoS machines with only 1.1 million machines for 570 million debit cards.

Aditya Birla Group via Aditya Birla Nuvo has entered into a collaboration with leading investor in global growth markets, Abraaj Group for developing utility scale solar power plants in the nation. ABNL has entered into an SSA/ Subscription and shareholders agreement with an Abraaj affiliate and the affiliate created will be 51% owned by ABNL and 49% by the latter. Aditya Birla Renewables, the solar power platform will bid for projects at national and state auctions to develop utility scale power plants in the nation to provide cost effective electricity to several national grids.

Gannet Co has reached an agreement for the acquisition of newspaper company Journal Media Group for USD 280 million providing the media giant control of 100 local US markets. Journal media publications include Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Memphis (Tennessee) Commercial-Appeal and Knoxville (Tennessee) News Sentinel. Gannet will be able to maximise short term profits through this acquisition. Merger will add 15 day and 18 weekly papers to its portfolio. Journal Media Group was formed in 2015 after Journal Communications Inc of Milwaukee and E. W. Scripps Co of Cincinnati merged broadcasting operations under the E. W. Scripps me and created a separate public entity for newspaper.

French IT services firm Capgemini has indicated that Ashok Vemuri, CEO of iGATE has resigned from the company six months after it was acquired by the former for USD 4 billion. Vemuri joined iGATE as CEO in September 2013. Other noted execs of this company included Sean Suresh Narayanan and Sujit Sircar who were offered retention bonuses in 2014.

Low cost carrier SpiceJet has received shareholder approval for appointment of Ajay Singh as MD by the board for a 3 year period. The shareholders gave the approval through a postal ballot. Singh was the original co founder of the airlines. He gained 58.46% stake from promoters Kalanithi Maran and Kal Airways Pvt Ltd to return to the fold.

RBI has announced higher investment limits in rupee terms in G-secs by FPIs to bring a total of INR 1.2 lakh crore in March 2018. This is after RBI decided to fix FPI investment limits in rupee terms and raise in phases to attain 5% of the outstanding stock by March in the year 2018. Limits for FPI investment in debt securities will be fixed in rupee terms. This will open up investment of INR 1.2 lakh crore billion in the limit for central G-secs by March 2018 over and above existing limit of INR 1.5 lakh crore for all government securities. RBI has decided to enhance limit for investment by FPIs in G-secs in two tranches and there will be a separate limit for investment by all FPIs in state development loans to be increased in phases to reach 2 of outstanding stock by March 2018. This will equal an additional limit of INR 50,000 crore by March 2018. Changes are in line with Medium term framework/MTF for FPI limits in G-secs to provide a more predictable regime.

Department of Biotechnology has tied up with US based Prakash Lab to provide its low cost paper folding microscope to students in India on 5th October 2015. Foldscope will be used for understanding physics, biology, chemistry and instrumentation and was developed by Indian origin Assistant Professor at Stanford University, Manu Prakash. Foldscope is a torchlight allowing people to explore planets at microscopic levels.

Secusmart, a BlackBerry subsidiary offering secure mobile communications has entered into a partnership with TATA Power Strategic Engineering Division of the TATA Group. The partnership focuses on accelerating innovation for high end secure communications solutions.

UCO bank registered the biggest increase in gross NPA against total loans in 2014-2015 becoming the worst performer among public sector banks with Gross NPA to gross advances ratio of the bank increasing to 8.05 percent at the end of March 2015 from 4.47 percent, with accretion of 3.58 on an annual basis. This was followed by IoB and BoM having gross NPA rising to 8.30 percent and 6.18 percent respectively at the end of March 2015. Gross NPA of Dena Bank increased from 3.33 percent to 5.29 percent at the end of 2014-15.

IT major Infosys has won the position of being the third most valued firm with regard to market valuation surpassing private sector lender HDFC Bank with TCS being Number 1 closely followed by RIL in the top 10 rankings. Combined market valuation of top 8 Sensex companies rose by INR 50,464.51 crore during 30th September to 4th October 2015. HDFC followed Infosys on ranking of 10 top firms. At the end of the week, Infosys commanded a market valuation of Rs. 2,69,489.03 crore. This was Rs. 432.68 crore more than HDFC Bank’s m-cap of Rs. 2,69,056.35 crore.
TCS emerged as the biggest gainer among the top 10 firms, with its valuation rising by Rs. 12,555.44 crore to Rs. 5,17,045.42 crore. Other companies in the top 10 include RIL, CIL, ITC, ONGC, Sun Pharma, and SBI

Dr. Anup K. Pujari assumed additional charge as CMD of SAIL on 1st October 2015 and is currently MSME secretary, GoI. He is a 1980 batch IAS officer of Karnataka cadre with experience in PSUs. He has also served as DG of Foreign Trade in Commerce Department and Secretary at the Ministry of Mines before this.

Redmond based IT major Microsoft has acquired video game engine and 3-D physics provider Havoc from American chip maker Intel. Havok’s business model includes licensing physics technology to developers. It was founded in the late 90s in Dublin before Intel purchased it in the year 2007. Previous partnerships of Havok include Ubisoft, Destiny and Dark Souls. It also developed special effects for movies such as Matrix.

ItzCash has announced a partnership with online marketplace company Flipkart to reach out to the next billion segment. i. e those without access to debit or credit cards. Partnership is in form of a co branded store called ItzCash World which will be accessible across more than 75,000 franchisee stores. ItzCash has been serving the under banked segment through prepaid payment instruments since 2006. Partnership will leverage existing retail presence at more than 75,000 ItzCash World outlets and this multi service payments solutions company has announced it will expand its presence in Tier 2 and 3 cities.

Cloud software services provider FreshDesk has announced the acquisition of Chennai based social recommendation app Frilp. All 19 Frilp employees will join Fresh Desk’s development centre. Frilp stands for Friend’s Help and connects users with local services as well as business through friend recommendations. It was founded in 2012 by Shyan Anandaraman and Senthil Santhaswamy and raised money from angel investors including Fresh Desk execs.

Mukesh and Anil Ambani have made the decision to launch 4G mobile phone services by the end of the year, which is a virtual consolidation. RCom chairman Anil Ambani said he will be tying up trading and sharing of spectrum with Mukesh Ambani led Reliance Jio for 4G services. RCom is the 4th biggest mobile phone carrier in terms of subscribers. Talks are on between RCom and Sistema’s Indian unit for a possible merger. RIL shared gained 2.5% to close at INR 860 while RCom shares gained 6% to close at INR 68. Collaboration between the Ambani brothers commenced in 2013 after a mutual split in 2005. RJio has made the decision to share RCom’s extensive inter and within city infrastructure of 520,000 km of optic fibres and close to 45,000 towers. RCom was launched in 2002 at Reliance Infocomm under a consolidated Reliance empire. The Ambani brothers are set to launch 4G bundled voice and data services in the second largest market in the world as per customers.

Godrej Properties has announced the sale of 4.35 lakh square feet in the new commercial tower, Godrej BKC at the Bandra Kurla complex for more than INR 1479 crore to pharma firm Abbott India Ltd. Market sources indicated this was the biggest transaction for a single end user commercial real estate in the country. The deal was brokered by property consultant Cushman & Wakefield. Abbott has indicated it will occupy more than 400,000 square feet of office space in the Godrej Building. Godrej Properties had collaborated with Jet Airways for developing a 19 storey office building in BKC in 2006.

Ajay Piramal, owner of Primal enterprises will become promoter with 35% stake in company created through merger of financial services business with infra firm IL&FS. All stock deal will contribute to a company with revenue of USD 2.5 billion or INR 15,000 crore to be owned 37% by existing institutional shareholders of the infra firm while retail and foreign investors of PEL will own 28%. The combination of IL&FS and the PEL unit will contribute to a financial services conglomerate with a net worth of INR 14,500 crore and debt of INR 65,000 crore. The presence will span infrastructure finance, corporate lending and PE fund with assets under management of USD 3 billion. The firm will also include 10 power firms and India’s largest wind energy assets of 1000 MW30 functional toll road projects and engineering and consultancy company Maytas Infrastructure. IL & FS is owned by SBI, the largest bank by assets , India’s largest private sector mortgage lender HDDFC and LIC, the largest insurer in India. Other shareholders include CBI, Orix and AIDA. Piramal and his family now own 53% stake in PEL which earned 18% of the revenue in the previous fiscal from financial services.

News Corp has sold digital education brand Amplify to management team supported by private investors resulting from slow growth in digital curriculum market. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Strategic options are being reviewed for Amplify and the new company will be led by CEO of Amplify Learning Division, Larry Berger.

American designer Ralph Lauren who has constructed a mega fashion brand is stepping down as CEO and has named GAP’s populist President, Old Navy brand to the current position. Ralph Lauren Corp has founded by him in the 1960s. R.L Corp’s new CEO is the global president of GAP’s Old Navy division, Stefan Larsson. Lauren will continue to remain the executive chairperson and head the design team.

ISRO had aborted the Devas deal in 2011. The commercial arm of ISRO, Antrix had signed a contract for launching two satellites and using spectrum. Devas was asked to lease 70 MHZ of S-band spectrum from the two satellites that were launched by ISRO and to pay USD 300 million for the rights. However, the government scrapped the deal. Antrix, ISRO has been asked to pay USD 672 million in damages.

Infosys is aiming to create new Internet of Things solutions to derive practical benefits from tons of data generated via connected devices in industrial enterprise with GE. Infosys is the second largest IT services firm who has collaborated with GE and others to develop solutions. Two Infosys led testbeds have been approved by Industrial Internet Consortium. Two Big Data analaytics will be used for developing IDT namely Infosys Information Platform (providing in memory data analytics and big data management) and GE’s Predix platform for delivering data acquisition, processing and user interface as well as app development. IDT has been co-developed by Infosys and GE and will be first implemented as a pilot project in GE Aviation.

GSK pharma has completed its transaction with Novartis Healthy Private Limited, acquiring the vaccine business of Novartis and divesting marketed oncology portfolio to Novartis India. This is the result of a transaction between Novartis and GSK on March 2015. Acquisition will give GSK opportunity to create a strong global vaccine business. As per the agreement, Novartis was to acquire GlaxoSmithKline plc’s (GSK) cancer drugs portfolio for USD 16 billion and sell its vaccines business in return for USD 7.1 billion, besides forming a JV for the consumer healthcare business in a 3-part transaction

NDTV Convergence, the digital wing of NDTV group, on 30 September 2015 signed a strategic agreement with the US-based content recommendations engine Taboola worth around INR 100 crore for 3 years for jumpstarting the entire network of desktop and mobile sites of NDTV.Taboola will serve as the exclusive, multi-platform content discovery partner across all the sections of NDTV and offer advertisers with an option to target the premium NDTV audience through native content marketing. Both the companies also aim to increase user engagement. New Delhi Television Limited is an Indian commercial broadcasting TV network founded by Prannoy and Radhika Roy while Taboola is a content marketing platform formed by Adam Singolda in the year 2007.