Union Minister of Commerce and Textiles Piyush Goyal has stirred up a hornet's nest by taking on India Inc, specifically the Tata group, which is among the companies that lobbied against the Modi government's pro-consumer draft e-commerce policies. While Goyal's comments, made at a Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) event, were streamed live on YouTube, the industry lobbying body later edited the video and subsequently withdrew the entire speech. Goyal had said the Tata group and other Indian companies often lobbied for their interest, while ignoring national interest.
For Paris-headquartered IT services major Capgemini, India has always been the backbone of its services delivery for its global clients, but the company is focused on driving more value from India as it gears up its engineering research and development (R&D) presence worldwide with its acquisition of Altran Technologies. The company, which has about 149,000 employees in India, is looking to hire 60,000 associates this year. Of them, 30,000 will be recruits from campuses and the rest lateral entrants. For Ashwin Yardi, chief executive officer India, Capgemini, the focus is to make sure that the India unit is aligned with the global plans of repositioning the company as a hub of engineering R&D, operational technology, and IT.
One of Mumbai's biggest real estate redevelopment projects of Bombay Development Directorate's (BDD's) chawls (large buildings divided into many separate tenements, offering cheap, basic accommodation) has taken off in Central Mumbai, opening up a Rs 20,000-crore opportunity for real estate companies. It is expected to drive down real estate prices in Central Mumbai by up to 25 per cent, forecast real estate experts. Spread over 92 acres in Central Mumbai's prime localities of Worli, Lower Parel, and Dadar and consisting 195 four-storey houses, the BDD chawls were constructed in the 1920s.
BigBasket co-founder Abhinay Choudhari has exited the company, and in his next entrepreneurial journey, he is looking to "solve another equally painful chore for many Indian households" after grocery shopping. The Tata group acquired a majority stake in the online grocery store in May. And when the deal happened, Choudhari decided he won't continue to be part of the management team.
The Tata group is looking to make a foray into semiconductor (also known as chips) manufacturing and it has set up a business to seize the opportunity, Chairman N Chandrasekaran said on Monday. "At the Tata group, we have already pivoted into a number of new businesses like electronics manufacturing, 5G network equipment as well as semiconductors, in all probability," he said while speaking at the annual general meeting of the IMC Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Chandrasekaran said global supply chains, currently heavily dependent on China, would see a big change in a post-pandemic world with businesses shifting their reliance to other countries.
For the fiscal ended 2021, the group has made a loss of Rs 5,943 crore on sales of Rs 11,723 crore, a drop of 66 per cent over fiscal 2020. The group's total debt was up by 7 per cent to Rs 20,742 crore.
Mumbai, India's financial capital, is set for a mega transformation with a massive patch of land opening up for redevelopment; a new metro railway ready to start services by the year-end; and the country's oldest railway station, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, going for modernisation with private sector participation. Work on Mumbai's second airport will start from next month, while construction of the sea link connecting central Mumbai to Navi Mumbai has already moved into a fast lane despite Covid-induced lockdowns. Also, a coastal road project, connecting Nariman Point to Worli, is under way and will help decongest the city to quite an extent. Of all these mega infrastructure projects, the one that has a huge potential to change the city's skyline is the Eastern Waterfront project - to be built on the Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT) land.
The Essel group founder, Subhash Chandra has settled 91.2 per cent of his debt with 43 lenders, and the remaining dues are in the process of being paid. "I am happy to report that we have come out of the financial stress situation by settling 91.2% of our total debt to 43 lenders in 110 accounts. "About 88.3% of the amount has been paid, while the remaining 2.9% is in the process of being paid. "We are making all the required efforts to settle the remaining 8.8% of our total debt.
While Wipro leads the pack on absolute numbers, analysts for Infosys for reporting consistent growth, revising FY22 guidance and beating TCS on revenue growth.
Dubai-based billionaire BR Shetty has sued Bank of Baroda (BoB) and audit firm Ernst & Young (EY) in a New York court, accusing them of ignoring fictitious and fraudulent transactions that resulted in NMC Healthcare going bankrupt. Shetty is seeking $8 billion in damages in the suit that also names the top management of NMC Healthcare, and Netherlands-based Credit Europe Bank. A top NMC Healthcare official confirmed the development to Business Standard and said despite several meetings, senior BoB officials in India did not take remedial steps for fear of getting involved in an international ponzi scheme perpetrated by then senior management officials.
'India is still a small market but whatever we do, we do it with full focus.'
US tech giant Microsoft is in the final stages of talks with the Telangana government to set up a data centre with a total investment of Rs 15,000 crore. According to sources in the state government, the company has zeroed in on a land parcel near Hyderabad for the facility. "In the information technology (IT) space, Telangana is already seeing some major investments. "Microsoft is establishing its data centre here, and it may come out with a public announcement soon," said a source.
When Biocon chairperson Kiran Majumdar-Shaw - well known for raising issues ranging from lack of civic services in Bengaluru to climate change - decided to take on the Indian stock market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), she forced the Indian corporate world and legal community to take notice. In an interview to Business Standard, Majumdar-Shaw called a Sebi order to impose a fine on insider trading charges against a Biocon employee and an external consultant an "Agatha Christie" fiction, which destroyed the reputation of "innocent people". "The order is pure harassment and has caused huge reputational damage to us and goes against the principles of good governance promised by this government," Mazumdar-Shaw said. "We will certainly appeal this," she added.
The Indian IT services sector is scrambling to retain talent since digitisation-led transformation has increased the demand for a digitally skilled workforce. As a result, the pull for jobs for tech professionals is also coming from non-IT sectors, leading to higher attrition among IT companies. The average number of tech jobs from non-IT sectors has seen a 41 per cent uptick in March-May'21 versus March-May'19, according to data from Naukri.com.
'The competition between the two is definitely going to be of great interest to the Indian market.'
Tata Motors recently cut the sales forecast of its luxury car brand, JLR, due to chip shortages, scaling down its production numbers from the earlier 120,000 units to 60,000-65,000 units by September, and leading to an almost 10 per cent fall in the company's stock. In May this year, Bosch India, too, had stated that chip shortfalls would impact its production, as supply chains were getting disrupted.
Sanjay Kirloskar, promoter of Kirloskar Brothers, moves Supreme Court to enforce a family settlement signed in 2009.
A seasonally-strong quarter, with no immediate impact of the second wave and continued acceleration of digital transformation will allow the IT services sector to report a robust Q1 this financial year. However, key metrics to look out for will be attrition rate and margin lever as they will be impacted by salary hikes. Analysts expect growth for the quarter to be broad-based, with sectors like banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), retail, manufacturing, hi-tech and life sciences driving revenue growth. Analysts across brokerage houses are pegging revenue growth in the range of 1.5 per cent to 4.5 per cent.
Nasper-backed fintech firm PayU has started talks to acquire domestic payment gateway major BillDesk, and the deal size could be in the range of $3-4 billion, sources in the know said. "BillDesk has been open to being acquired for some time now, but in the past the valuations that the company was seeking proved to be a hurdle," said a source. "Three years ago too, PayU had approached BillDesk for an acquisition, but things didn't go ahead due to high valuations. "BillDesk had asked for $2-billion value then," said the source.
With the Jaypee acquisition, the Suraksha group, which made lenders an offer of Rs 7,736 crore, will be able to expand its footprint in north India after making inroads in Mumbai's real estate market over the past year. Sudhir Valia, the promoter, was a co-founder and executive director of India's biggest pharmaceutical firm, Sun Pharmaceuticals, and is a close relative of Dilip Shanghvi.
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