Billionaire Mukesh Ambani-run Reliance Industries Ltd's retail arm on Thursday raised Rs 9,555 crore from Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia, taking total fundraise in the last two months to Rs 47,265 crore. PIF will take a 2.04 per cent stake in Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL), the Indian firm said in a statement. The investment values RRVL, the retail arm of Reliance Industries Ltd, at a pre-money equity value of Rs 4.587 lakh crore.
India is at a "tipping point" and a major focus for Apple, the technology giant's CEO Tim Cook has said, terming the opening of its first two retail stores in the country - in Mumbai and Delhi - as a "milestone" for the company. Speaking at Apple's Q2 2023 earnings call on Thursday, Cook emphasised the dynamism and vibrancy in the Indian market, calling it "unbelievable". "Looking at the business in India, we did set a quarterly record, grew very strong, double digits year-over-year.
'Forget your loss or profit in your portfolio.' 'Look at how much cash you have in hand.' 'If you don't have cash in hand, liquidate at least partially; get into about 20 per cent in cash.'
This is the second investment by General Atlantic in a subsidiary of Reliance Industries, following a Rs 6,598.38 crore investment in Jio Platforms announced earlier this year.
Abu Dhabi-based sovereign wealth fund Mubadala Investment Co will invest Rs 6,247.5 crore to buy a 1.4 per cent stake in Reliance Industries Ltd's retail arm -- the billionaire Mukesh Ambani-led firm's third such deal in less than two days.
Milk supplies could improve with the monsoon, provided the rains are not excessive.
Adopting overly aggressive strategies without considering risk could lead to significant losses during the next downturn.
Amazon provided mere "lip service" and failed to provide any help to the debt-laden Future Group as the retail major suffered massive setback amid the COVID-induced lockdown and faced possible insolvency or debt restructuring, Future Group's promoters said in a letter to the e-commerce giant. This is the first time Future Group promoters have written to Amazon after the parties were embroiled in a legal battle over the sale of Future's retail assets to Reliance Industries. The letter from the promoters, including Kishore Biyani, was written on December 31. It alleged that Amazon's actions "lacked good faith" during the March to August period, when the group's retail business was severely hit by the lockdown.
With an epic battle of billionaires for supremacy in one of the world's most prolific markets and a pandemic-propelled surge in online shopping in the background, India's nearly trillion-dollar retail market is hoping to touch 85 per cent of the pre-COVID business in the first half of the New Year. In a year when the COVID-19 carnage ripped apart the retail business, circa 2020 will best go down for the unravelling of the war between Jeff Bezos, the world's wealthiest man, and richest Indian Mukesh Ambani for pre-eminence in the booming market that is estimated to reach $1.3 trillion by 2025. It all started with Ambani's Reliance Industries agreeing in August to buy assets of the nation's second-largest retailer for Rs 24,713 crore, just a year after Bezos' Amazon purchased an indirect stake in the indebted Future Retail.
Among the options being weighed are discounts on existing rentals, short-term deferrals, and 50 per cent waivers.
Ramping up e-commerce operations and going beyond its current strongholds are key challenges for the grocery chain in its battle with Mukesh Ambani's retail behemoth.
FSN E-Commerce Ventures (Nykaa) hosted its annual investor day recently. The responses were positive from analysts. Although some analysts pared FY25 and FY26 estimates, the bulk continued to issue 'buy' calls after the stock rose 2.5 per cent. The management expects the Beauty & Personal Care (BPC) business to grow at a 25 per cent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) during FY24-28.
'IPOs have performed exceptionally well, with a notable increase in average ticket size from Rs 800 crore in the last financial year to around Rs 1,300 crore in this financial year.'
The National Stock Exchange (NSE) on Tuesday said it has halved the lot size for trading derivatives contracts for the Nifty 50 index to 25 and also reduced the lot sizes of the Nifty Financial Services and Nifty Midcap indices as part of its periodic revision. "All contracts, i.e. weekly, monthly, quarterly, and half-yearly expires available for trading from the trade date of April 26, 2024, onwards will be with the revised market lot size," the NSE said, referring to applicability of the change for Nifty 50. The lot size in the derivatives segment refers to the fixed number of shares in a unit or group for which contracts are traded.
According to the plan made by the lenders and RIL, all Future group listed companies will be merged into Future Enterprises. RIL will then invest Rs 8,500 crore in the merged entity which will include the retail business.
Gold prices tumbled by Rs 3,350 to Rs 72,300 per 10 grams in the local market in New Delhi on Tuesday amid subdued demand by jewellers after the government announced the customs duty cut on the yellow metal and silver to 6 per cent.
'Subject to any worldwide economic collapse.'
'If you invest in sovereign gold bond, you are going to get the price rise of gold over an eight year period.' 'You're also going to get that two-and-a-half percent which the Government of India is willing to give you, treating the money that you've invested in the sovereign gold bond as a kind of a FD or a deposit.' 'That kind of return you can never get anywhere else.'
Global supermajor BP Plc's exclusivity with Reliance Industries Ltd has ended but the energy giant will continue to pursue oil and gas as well as mobility ventures in India with the Mukesh Ambani firm owing to an unwritten strategic partnership, BP's outgoing India head Sashi Mukundan said. BP in 2011 spent $7.2 billion to acquire 30 per cent interest in 23 oil and gas blocks of Reliance. Eastern offshore KG-D6 block was the cornerstone of the deal that also provided for a 10-year exclusivity period which meant that BP would take up energy projects or investments in India only in partnership with Reliance.
Did top Indian business groups miss the e-commerce opportunity by focusing on replicating the Walmart model instead of following the Amazon model of online shopping?
Online retail in the country is expected to grow to $200 billion by 2026, up from $15 billion in 2016.
'The private sector believes that some enablers in labour-intensive sectors like apparel, toys, tourism, and media retail, can unlock a lot of jobs.'
The expansion into smaller towns is coming at a time when the online retail space has not only seen consolidation but is actually looking to collaborate with physical stores. Abhineet Kumar reports.
Real estate experts say rentals have corrected by 5-10 per cent across formats, including office, retail and housing, with a pick-up expected over the next few quarters as the economy recovers.
The recent blip in housing sales on a quarter-on-quarter (Q-o-Q) basis should not worry investors as the long-term prospects of real estate stocks remain on a strong foundation, according to analysts. In the first half of the calendar year 2024 (H1CY24), realty stocks surged up to 104 per cent. This sharp run should be used to book partial profit in related stocks, suggested Deepak Jasani, head of retail research at HDFC Securities.
There is no impediment to normal operations as Tata Motors puts in place the demerger process of its commercial and passenger vehicles businesses. Instead, the demerger would provide greater manoeuvrability for both new entities to operate independently, according to Tata Motors management. While there may not be immediate value unlocking, it will give investors clarity about future growth and the financials across different segments.
Walmart is rumoured to be looking to listing Flipkart in a few years. At that stage, we'll get a better sense of what's going on in retail, says Devangshu Datta.
This marks the second billion-dollar investment by Silver Lake in a Reliance subsidiary after the $1.35 billion investment in Jio Platforms.
Broader markets gain nearly 1-1.5%, out-performing benchmark indices.
'From data on enquiries, we can build what we call a data lake or a data warehouse where data is classified into various cohorts and then we use AI and ML tools to predict demand down the line.'
'Will make sure that we create value. We will again look for organic and inorganic opportunities.'
'India has the largest slate of local original content outside the US.'
Under its door-step delivery model, consumers can shop at any of the three Future Group-owned convenience formats - Easyday, Nilgiris and Heritage - both online or offline.
In a short span of time, with the help of Amazon, Cloudtail was able to devise a model that could protect it from the vagaries of online retail business.
Re-rating of Axis Bank's stock may continue in the near-future, believe analysts, as the risk-reward on the stock remains favourable amid healthy financials. The bullish stance comes after the Mumbai-based lender delivered a strong outperformance in the March quarter of fiscal year 2023-24 (Q4FY24) on core pre-provision profit and net profit, with improving asset quality. Axis Bank's net interest margin (NIM) expanded, against expectations, even in a tough market.
'For how long can investors fund loss-making companies?'
Private equity (PE) investments in India have fallen to a 6-year low at $24.2 billion in the financial year ending March 2024. Investments via PE deals are down 47 per cent compared to FY23, when private equity deals worth $45.8 billion were signed. According to data sourced from Bloomberg, PE firms had signed record deals worth $80 billion in the financial year ending March 2022.
Since the Union Budget, gold has become costlier by 8-9 per cent because of a 2.5 per cent increase in import duty to 12.5 per cent and about a 5 per cent depreciation in the rupee.
Reliance Industries Ltd on Friday reported a 9 per cent rise in its December quarter net profit as a planned maintenance-induced weakness in oil business earnings was offset by stability in retail and telecom verticals. The oil-to-retail-to-telecom conglomerate's consolidated net profit of Rs 17,265 crore, or Rs 25.52 per share, in October-December - the third quarter of the current 2023-24 fiscal - was 9.3 per cent higher than Rs 15,792 crore, or Rs 23.19 a share, earning a year back, according to a company statement. Quarter-on-quarter, the profit was lower when compared to Rs 17,394 crore earnings in the preceding three months ended September 30.
Through this transaction, Amazon has managed to acquire around a 3.6 per cent stake in the Future group.