Asia's richest man, Mukesh Ambani, signed off an address to employees last week by assuring them that 2024 would be better than 2023 for both Reliance Industries and India. Ambani isn't an exception. Promoters and their representatives from several other conglomerates have expressed similar optimism.
Richest Indian Gautam Adani and mining baron Anil Agarwal on Sunday led India Inc in paying tributes to veteran stock market investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, who passed away early Sunday morning. "Extremely saddened by the untimely passing away of the most legendary investor that India has had. "Shri Jhunjhunwala inspired an entire generation to believe in our equity markets with his brilliant views.
Vedanta Resources (VRL), the diversified mining company headquartered in London, is giving final touches to a plan to raise up to $2.5 billion (about Rs 20,800 crore) as debt repayment deadlines near. The company owned by billionaire Anil Agarwal plans to do this by a combination of instruments, including issuing preference shares in the holding company to a slew of offshore investors from West Asia, and taking on another loan to refinance older debt at a higher interest rate. VRL, which is the group's holding company, is also looking to sell part of its 63.71 per cent stake in the Indian listed subsidiary Vedanta Ltd to meet funding requirements, said a banker close to the development.
While about 8,000 people are in the long list of invitees, the select list features 506 A-listers, including prominent politicians, leading industrialists, top film stars, sportspersons, diplomats, judges and high priests.
Vedanta's Cairn Oil & Gas on Thursday announced the appointment of Nick Walker as the new chief executive officer (CEO) of the company. In a statement, the company said the appointment is effective January 5. "Before this appointment, Walker was president and chief executive officer at Lundin Energy, one of the leading European independent E&P companies," it said.
'Maharashtra, Telangana and Karnataka were competing for the Foxconn-Vedanta semiconductor manufacturing plant'
Vedanta chairman Anil Agarwal on Saturday pressed for further liberalisation of the defence sector and called for corporatisation of defence factories to make the country self reliant in respect of arms and ammunition. There are 52 defence factories for manufacturing arms and ammunition in the country but most of them are running at 10 per cent capacity, he said. "We (India) can be the largest producer of arms and ammunition. "If the defence factories are corporatised it will bring in a new way of thinking," Agarwal said while addressing the inauguration of a post graduate programme for executives virtually from London.
How the business world celebrated Christmas!
Corporate India is busy restructuring - through mergers, demergers and splits. That seems to be the new normal as CXOs and boards brainstorm on how to create assets and value. The pitch rose significantly during the third quarter of this financial year (FY24), translating into $32.9-billion worth of such deals - the highest quarterly total since the HDFC Bank-HDFC merger announced in FY22 Q2.
Vedanta Ltd on Thursday termed any talks of sale in oil-to-metals conglomerate as "untrue and baseless." This comes in the wake of news report which said that mining mogul Anil Agarwal is contemplating a stake sale in Vedanta as a last-resort option and is examining the possibility of selling less than 5 per cent of the company. According to company's spokesperson, "Any talk of stake sale in Vedanta Ltd is untrue and baseless."
The maintenance work will include operations such as removal of remaining gypsum and leachate handling operations among others. Based on this, the district administration has now allowed the firm to maintain the plant after five years.
An increased brand fee paid by India-listed Vedanta, apart from record dividend, has helped Vedanta Resources (VRL) - the London-based holding company of Vedanta Group - to repay part of its debt. Vedanta paid a brand fee of Rs 2,632 crore ($325 million) for 2022-23 (FY23), according to Nomura report. This was after the Anil Agarwal-owned holding company raised the brand fee to 2 per cent of the turnover for its Indian businesses in 2021.
With a robust outlook for mineral-led growth in India, Anil Agarwal-led Vedanta Limited is looking to invest up to $20 billion across its businesses, which includes doubling of silver production and steel capacities. In a virtual press conference had last month, Agarwal said the company planned a capex of $5 billion over a period of three years. The company has not given a timeline for $20-billion investment.
US chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices (AM) on Friday announced a $400 million investment in India over the next five years and said it will build its largest design centre in Bengaluru. AMD chief technology officer Mark Papermaster made the announcement at the annual semiconductor conference in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Undeterred by Taiwan's Foxconn pulling out of his group's $20 billion semiconductor-making venture, mining baron Anil Agarwal said the first phase of Vedanta's chip-making project will be ready in two-and-a-half years.
Anil Agarwal-led Vedanta's Sterlite Copper on Monday came out with an advertisement inviting expression of interest (EoI) for carrying out plant "restart activities" at its Thoothukudi unit in Tamil Nadu, that got closed more than five years ago following an order issued by the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB). The EoI for restart comes when the company is still awaiting the final judgement on the issue, and the court has only allowed it to do maintenance work. "We have initiated the upkeep and maintenance activities at the plant as allowed by the Supreme Court vide its order dated May 4, 2023, in coordination with the district authorities.
Mining mogul Anil Agarwal-led Vedanta Resources' credit profile will unlikely be weighed down by the group's planned Rs 1.54 lakh crore foray into semiconductor manufacturing, S&P Global Ratings said on Monday. "This is because the company has reiterated that the $20 billion related investment will be carried out outside of Vedanta Resources. "The business will be undertaken in a separate entity under Vedanta Resources' holding company Volcan Investments Ltd," it said.
Anil Agarwal-led Vedanta's Sterlite Copper has come out with a fresh notification inviting expressions of interest (EoIs) to supply raw materials like copper concentrate, imported thermal coal, rock phosphate and petroleum products, among others, as part of its preparatory measures to restart production at its Thoothukudi unit in Tamil Nadu. This plant is likely to restart operations if a Supreme Court verdict goes in favour of the company. On June 12, the company had invited EoIs for carrying out plant 'restart activities'.
Clearly, Foxconn Chairman Young Liu and his team are looking to raise their game in India.
Taiwanese electronic contract manufacturer Foxconn on Monday said it has decided to pull out of semiconductor joint venture with Indian conglomerate Vedanta, according to a statement. Foxconn said it is "working to remove the Foxconn name from what now is a fully-owned entity of Vedanta". "Foxconn has no connection to the entity and efforts to keep its original name will cause confusion for future stakeholders," Hon Hai Technology group (Foxconn) said.
The government on Thursday withdrew its offer to sell its entire 52.98 per cent stake in Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd, saying that majority of bidders have expressed their inability to participate in the current privatisation process due to prevailing conditions in the global energy market.
As many as six merchant bankers are vying to handle and manage the sale of the government's 29.53 per cent residual stake in Hindustan Zinc Ltd (HZL), according to an official notice. ICICI Securities, SBI Capital Markets, HDFC Bank, IIFL Securities, Axis Capital and Citigroup Global Markets will make their presentations via video conferencing before the government officials on Friday, highlighting their plans in managing the offer for sale. The bankers to manage the sale process would be finalised after the presentation and opening of financial bids on August 12, as per the notice.
Indian conglomerate Vedanta on Monday said it has signed a pact with electronics manufacturing services giant Foxconn to form a joint venture (JV) for manufacturing semiconductors in India. Vedanta is the first company to make the announcement to invest in semiconductor manufacturing after the government announced a Rs 76,000-crore programme to boost electronic chip and display ecosystem in the country. This is also the second attempt of Vedanta to enter the semiconductor space after its earlier plans to set up a display unit with about Rs 60,000 crore investment could not take off.
On June 30, mining and metals giant Vedanta, announced that it had decided to initiate a strategic review of its steel and steel-making raw material businesses. The review would begin immediately and evaluate a broad range of options, including but not limited to a potential strategic sale of some or all of the steel businesses, the company said in its stock exchange filing. The signs have been there - approaches had been made to steel players over the past year. Last December, Anil Agarwal, chairman Vedanta group, told Business Standard that the steel plant capacity was about 3 million tonnes (mt).
Lenders to Venugopal Dhoot-founded Videocon Group will eventually take 50-55 per cent haircut and not 95 per cent as is being reported after considering about Rs 15,000 crore expected from the sale of the group's overseas oil and gas assets, its former CFO Rajneesh Gupta claimed. Videocon Industries Ltd, which is comprised of its consumer electronics business and interest in the Ravva oil and gas field, and its overseas oil and gas assets, mainly comprising of oil blocks in Brazil, are being auctioned separately to recover unpaid loans. While Anil Agarwal-led Vedanta Group has picked up Videocon Industries for Rs 2,962 crore, the bids for overseas assets are yet to be decided.
The government may take a fresh look at BPCL privatisation, including revising the terms of sale, an official said. "We need to go back to the drawing board on BPCL. "There are issues in terms of consortium formation, geopolitical situation and energy transition aspects," an official said. The government is selling its entire 52.98 per cent stake in BPCL for which three expressions of interest (EoIs), including one from billionaire Anil Agarwal-led Vedanta Group, have been received.
"They (BJP) are in power at the Centre, state and have other agencies with them. Let them probe, then things will be clear," Pawar said.
The Vedanta team held a meeting with Shinde, Fadnavis and top officials on July 26, he said.
If reports that Apple Inc plans to triple its iPhone production in India come true, it is likely to help the country become a supply hub for the American company. There are some 190 Apple suppliers globally, but only 12 have manufacturing facilities in India now. Apple's strategy is to focus on India and a clutch of other countries as it diversifies its supply chain out of China.
Maharashtra fell behind Gujarat in attracting foreign investment during the MVA's tenure but in the next two years the present government would take Maharashtra ahead, said Fadnavis.
Starting with a family, which had a dealership of Bajaj Auto's scooters, to becoming the owner of a household name in consumer appliances who could afford to have Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan as the brand ambassador, Venugopal Dhoot's is a story of an aggressive small town businessman's pursuit to be on the top. Now arrested in connection with the ICICI Bank loan fraud case, Venugopal Dhoot during his heydays was not the one to simply sit on small achievements like Videocon becoming the largest television set manufacturer in India.
Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Thursday indicated that the much-delayed privatisation of oil major BPCL may not happen in the near future, saying there is "no proposal whatsoever" on his table for now. As part of its asset monetisation plan, the government had in November 2019 put Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) on the block and said it would completely sell its 52.98 per cent stake in the country's second largest state-run oil refiner and marketer. Though it had received three tentative bids, it got only one financial bid from Vedanta group, forcing it in May 2022 to shelve the plan pending a "comprehensive review".
This will be done across five cities - Delhi, Bengaluru, Coimbatore, Bhopal, and Shillong. Thereafter, it will be scaled up and launched in 100 cities over a period of six months, said a senior government official.
Indian start-ups raised issues, such as blockages in international wire transfers, disruptions due to threshold limits on withdrawals, lack of communication from US agencies, and the need for preferential access to credit, in a meeting with the government over the fallout of Silicon Valley Bank's collapse. Rajeev Chandrasekhar, minister of state for electronics and information technology, held a virtual meeting with over 450 members from start-ups, venture capitalists, and investors who have been directly affected by the closure of SVB. He assured them that the IT ministry would put together a list of suggestions and give it to the finance minister on behalf of start-ups.
In a move that may boost the Indian hydrocarbon industry and bring more investments into the sector, the Union Cabinet on Wednesday decided to give marketing freedom to domestic crude oil producers, allowing them to sell petroleum to any company in the local market. The move is set to be beneficial for major crude oil producers, such as state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Oil India, and private sector majors like Vedanta's Cairn Oil and Gas and Reliance Industries. As of May 31, India was dependent on imports for 86 per cent of its crude oil consumption; domestic production sufficed the remaining 14 per cent demand.
After getting rapped for accepting Vedanta group's bid that would give just 5 per cent of their outstanding loans, lenders to Videocon Industries on Monday approached the insolvency appellate tribunal NCLAT seeking fresh bids for the debt-laden consumer durable firm. Billionaire Anil Agarwal's Twin-Star Technologies had offered Rs 2,962 crore to takeover Videocon Industries, which was 4.15 per cent of the admitted claims of Rs 64,838.63 crore of lenders. SBI, the leading lender of Videocon Industries, has approached the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) requesting for a rebidding of the 13 companies of the debt-ridden group, on account of strong observations against Rs 2,962 crore takeover bid by Anil Agarwal's Twin Star Technologies.
India's GDP expanded 13.5 per cent in the April-June quarter, the quickest pace in a year, to retain the world's fastest growing economy tag but rising interest costs and the looming threat of a recession in major world economies could slow the momentum in the coming quarters.
The first step to keeping your job safe, experts tell Rediff.com's Divya Nair, is understanding why layoffs happen.
The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal on Monday stayed industrialist Anil Agarwal's Twin Star Technologies' Rs 2,962.02 crore-takeover bid of debt-ridden Videocon Industries. A two-member NCLAT bench headed by its Officiating Chairperson Justice A I S Cheema stayed the order passed by the Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal on June 9. The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal's (NCLAT) direction came over two petitions filed by unsatisfied creditors -- Bank of Maharashtra and IFCI Ltd. The appellate tribunal has issued notices to the Committee of Creditors, the Resolution Professional of Videocon and the successful resolution applicant Twin Star.
'It is creditable that the BJP builds the organisation set-up and then looks for leaders.' 'The Congress on the other hand has to care for the leaders more than the organisation.'
The circular issued on Saturday read, "A complaint has been received regarding Malayalam language being used for communication in working places in GIPMER. Whereas maximum patients and colleagues do not know this language and feel helpless causing a lot of inconvenience."
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