Many companies and their executives are seeking solace from new-age motivational gurus.
With store rentals dropping as much as 35 per cent in the last one year, retailers say opening stores in certain locations has become profitable. As a result, some retailers plan to roll out their bigger format stores and others are booking retail spaces that will come up in two years at a much lower cost.
Within months of charging the moon, Indian real estate firms are now offering buy-back of properties, free cars and even free apartments to tide over the current slump which has seen sales halve from the beginning of the year.
Parsvnath Developers is expected to sack its non-performing staff post Diwali as part of its cost cutting measures. "Non performers have to go. Cost cutting measures will start in 15 to 20 days,'' said Pradeep Jain, chairman of Parsvnath, told reporters on the sidelines of a conference in New Delhi on Friday.
Sample this. Five cyber-thieves, allegedly part of a network that hacked into the account of a Noida businessman, were nabbed today for a Rs 1.66 crore (Rs 16.6-million) cyber hack. They used Internet banking to transfer the money from the businessman's account with the Punjab National Bank's Noida branch to their own account.
While 22 per cent of the promoters' stake in Ranbaxy was sold through an off-market transaction, the remaining came from a preferential share allotment. Daiichi Sankyo had earlier picked up more than 20 per cent of Ranbaxy's shares through an open offer. Ranbaxy Chairman and Managing Director Malvinder Mohan Singh said the remaining 12-13 per cent promoter shareholding will change hands in the coming weeks, thereby taking Daiichi's share in Ranbaxy to over 60 per cent.
India Inc, while welcoming the Reserve Bank of India's move to cut the key interest rate, expressed doubts on lenders' response to pass on the benefits to customers.
At a time when most retail firms have either gone slow in opening new stores or closed down some to beat the ongoing slump, the Future Group has opened nearly 150 stores across all its formats over the past three months. This month alone, Biyani is opening 15 stores, mainly selling electronic and lifestyle goods.
This year, there is hardly any cheer in the market place, though three festivals - Eid, Dussehra and Diwali - have fallen in the month of October. Several consumer electronics, automobile, personal care products and food item retailers say sales are sharply down. Even new home sales are learnt to be lackluster.
The JV was expected to open 56 exclusive high-end stores for the four focus brands, Miss Sixty, Energie, Killah & Murphy&Nye, in the top 10 cities in the first three years. As per the original plans, Darshan Mehta president and chief executive of Reliance Brands, was to spearhead the JV with separate business heads for each of the four brands.
Last year, Trent had entered into a tie-up with The Xander Group wherein Xander was to invest in malls along with local developers and Trent was to be the anchor tenant. Currently, three-to-four such malls are being developed in cities such as Surat and Ahmedabad.
Infosys had bid at 600 pence a share for the UK company. Infosys will get the one per cent inducement fee that Axon has to pay to the party unable to close the deal.
New York-based REcap Partners-LLC is all set to buy out Chennai-based business process outsourcing firm HOV Services along with its two units operational in Beijing and Hong Kong for around Rs 950 crore
The land development arm of the railways has cut the reserve price for a 45,371 square metre plot at Bandra, a Mumbai suburb, by nearly 14.5 per cent, to Rs 39.60 billion and reduced the minimum networth requirement for bidders by a similar margin. It has also reduced the bid security amount by 20 per cent. This apart, the authority has more than doubled the payment period to five years.
Most realtors are already advertising cash discounts of 5-10 per cent on upfront payment and buyers can get up to 25 per cent discount if they book properties and are willing to wait for two to three years until possession. According to consultants, developers may even give 15-20 per cent discount on the price as they are eager to clear inventories.
The downturn has drastically lowered valuations of Indian real estate firms but the promoters face virtually no threat of takeovers as they are sitting on stakes in excess of 70-80 per cent of equity.
Despite a slowdown in property sales, realty developers across the country are launching new residential apartments during the ongoing Navratri festival in the hope that they will get higher sales from prospective home buyers, who have deferred their buys so far.
Dow India would comply with all the directives stated by the government to work outa solution to the current situation, the company said. Recently the company's research facility at Chakan was razed by a group of villagers, following which members of the Warkari sect claimed responsibility for the act, saying they would not allow the facility to come up at a place which is sacred to the followers of the 17th century Bhakti movement saint Tukaram.
Brandhouse manages exclusive stores of four SKNL brands -- Reid & Taylor, Stephens Brothers, Belmonte, and Carmichael House -- and two foreign brands Dunhill and Escada. It has more than 600 stores now. The company plans to set up its first private label store early next year and the average size of the store will range from 8,000 to 10,000 sq ft, said Tarun Joshi, managing director of Brandhouse Retails, the retail unit of S Kumars Nationwide.
Analysts say prices may stagnate or decline in the next three months. Almost 70 per cent of the brokers who participated in the poll believe prices will be flat or negative in the period and even Diwali is unlikely to lift the mood in the property market.
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