RIL plunged around 4% after scaling its life-time high of Rs 1,978.50 as investors rushed to book profits after the company's AGM. Bharti Airtel, ONGC, IndusInd Bank, Bajaj Finance and SBI were also among the laggards. On the other hand, shares of Infosys rallied around 6 per cent ahead of its quarterly earnings. HCL Tech, TCS, Tech Mahindra, Axis Bank and HUL too ended with robust gains.
The Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) move to ban Mastercard from issuing new cards for not complying with the local data storage guidelines may hit five private banks, a non-bank lender, and a major card-issuing company. The impact is expected to be felt for a few months as these players transition to other card networks. According to Nomura Research, RBL Bank, YES Bank, and Bajaj Finserv are the ones most impacted by the ban as all their credit card schemes are allied to Mastercard. Among others, IndusInd Bank, Axis Bank and ICICI Bank have 35-40 per cent of their credit card schemes tied to Mastercard, the report said.
Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Mittal has expressed hope that the government and regulators will step in to ensure the sector remains a viable place for continued investments and asserted that the industry requires "long overdue" support to maintain its current 3+1 structure. In the latest annual report of Airtel, Mittal said as the sector's role in the economy becomes more pervasive, its challenges loom larger. Issues such as unsustainable pricing and low returns in a highly capital-intensive environment, coupled with legacy legal issues, "have extracted their toll", Mittal observed.
Record equity divestment by the Reliance Group in its telecom and retail businesses garnering around $23 billion revved up the deal street in 2020, which otherwise would have gone down as one of the dullest on record, and dealmakers are seeing sunnier days in 2021 given the large scope for consolidation in a slew of sectors ravaged by the pandemic. With Jio Platforms alone garnering over $16 billion (Rs 1,18,318 crore) by selling 25.24 per cent stake and Reliance Retail notching up $6.4 billion (Rs 47,265 crore) by divesting around 9 per cent shareholding, the deal street signed off with $85 billion in the deal kitty across 1,270 transactions. This is higher by about 10 per cent over 2019. What is significant is that over a third of the total deal value came from Reliance transactions, say investment bankers.
A number of Xooglers are employing lessons and practices learnt during their stint at Google to branch out into innovative ventures.
A plunge in fuel demand after the raging pandemic forced people to stay home and stifled the economy dealt a body blow to the firm's traditional cash cow oil refining and petrochemicals, even as consumer-facing businesses, which account for 35 per cent of the oil-to-telecom-to-retail conglomerate's revenues, continued to do well.
The race to get a New Umbrella Entity (NUE) licence for digital payments may get crowded. As many as six consortiums are said to be in the fray to apply for an NUE licence, which would create a for-profit National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)-like body for retail payments. A consortium led by Financial Software and Systems (FSS), a leading provider of payment products and payment processor, is in talks and may file an application to the RBI for an NUE license, said sources aware of the development. The other constituents of this group include Indian Bank, Central Bank of India, India Post Payments Bank, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard), and a few small finance banks.
More than a year of Covid-19 has pushed most businesses into gloom but Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) managed to reduce its gross debt 25 per cent, enabling it to turn towards its next phase of capital expenditure that has come in the form of a Rs 75,000-crore plan for green energy and power storage. The company managed to stay afloat during the pandemic because of its large presence in the consumer-centric businesses of retail and telecommunication (see chart: "A new Reliance"). These two businesses constituted 45 per cent of its EBITDA during FY21 from 36 per cent in FY20.
While Mahindra isn't the first person to think that building a social network out of India was a good idea, past attempts have all failed to compete with the multi-billion dollar giants Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp and the like.
With the 21 unicorns collectively valued at $73.2 billion, India is the fourth biggest in terms of unicorns, behind the US, China and the UK, as per the Hurun Global Unicorn List.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's personal fortunes have soared, thanks to investment fund GSV Capital's recent stake in the social networking site which has put the Harvard dropout at a worth higher than Google founder Sergey Brin and Larry Page.
WhatsApp on Wednesday said it expects to facilitate the purchase of "affordable sachet-sized" health insurance through its platform by the end of the year as part of its efforts to provide users in India with greater access to financial solutions. The Facebook-owned company noted that its 'Payments' feature is now available to users across the country (currently up to 20 million users) with support from banking partners - State Bank of India, HDFC, ICICI and Axis Bank.
Hercules Singh Munda's father used to open the gates to a forest. Today, Hercules leaves for London to open the gates of his many dreams.
Many of the stories, the pictures going out of India worldwide lately with these provocative processions, taunting of Muslims, bulldozers targeting mostly their properties, the sweeping 'othering' of a community of 200 million are painting the front pages and TV screens in the democratic world. That is where most of the friends we covet lie. Soon enough, these will also make our vital friends among the Muslim nations, from Bangladesh to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, uneasy. The best time for course correction is now, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) on Friday announced setting up of its second data centre region in India in Telangana that will be operational by mid-2022, and will see the tech giant investing about Rs 20,761 crore. While AWS did not comment on the investment detail, Telangana IT and Industries Minister KT Rama Rao tweeted that AWS will invest Rs 20,761 crore ($2.77 billion) to set up multiple data centres in the state.
The seven Indian-Americans are cybersecurity firm ZScaler CEO Jay Chaudhry, founder and chairman of Symphony Technology Group Romesh Wadhwani, cofounder and CEO of online home goods retailer Wayfair Niraj Shah, Silicon Valley venture capital firm Khosla Ventures founder Vinod Khosla, managing partner of Sherpalo Ventures Kavitark Ram Shriram, Airline veteran Rakesh Gangwal and Workday CEO and co-founder Aneel Bhusri.
Interent is a flourishing business in India.
According to experts, the banning of the apps has created negative sentiments and reduced the confidence among the Chinese investors to invest in India.
Even though India has major strengths in chip design and in making the software that actually commands the processors to execute specific tasks, chip-manufacturing has never been the country's strength.
Indian IT giants are outstanding companies with great management teams, but they have been held hostage by their past success.
According to reports, the deal is estimated to be close to $300 mn.
'Frankly, India has no role to play.' 'This is a showdown between the US and NATO on one hand and Russia on the other.' 'That said, the outcome of this titanic struggle in Central Europe will remould the world order and affect India profoundly,' argues Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
About 5.5 million users are looking for real estate online in India
The existing double taxation avoidance agreements will not be covered by the proposed change, implying that in order to tax Facebook, Google and the like, India will require to renegotiate tax treaties.
'Personally, I have reached that stage where I think material things can't give you any satisfaction.'
After last year's lull, number of offers jump by 15%.
As a venture partner, DVP said that Neemuchwala would be bringing deep technology expertise and invaluable experience of building businesses.
Rohit Gawli, CEO, Lokal Kitchen, a food-tech company, tells you how to start a business from the comfort of your home.
People in India haven't seen what happens if the environment gets sour, the Softbank vice-chairman said.
Though startups find 17 mentions in the Budget speech of the finance minister, and have been promised tax exemptions, the reality is that only 2 per cent of the 4,648 applications received from startups for income tax exemption had been approved as of February 2019, according to an answer to a Parliament question. As India's startup space bubbles with activity - new, young players are tapping into opportunities opening up - there are local anti-portfolio stories circulating about investors missing opportunities in 'unicorns', or companies that have reached valuation of $ 1 billion, says Vandana Gombar.
The two, one a celebrity singer-actor from Punjab and the other a Bollywood star known for her combative comments, began bickering on the social media platform on Wednesday evening and continued till well into Thursday.
The company has also stepped up its courtship of machine-learning PhD's, joining Google, Amazon, Facebook and others in a fierce contest
The CEOs round table is expected to be attended by Apple chief Tim Cook, Walmart head Doug McMillon, Caterpillar's Jim Umpleby, Google head Sundar Pichai and Microsoft's Satya Nadella.
'There is no need to do anything, let your SIPs get deducted every month, and stick to your allocation between equity, fixed income and emergency funds and your risk covers.'
'India missed the software products revolution (and now is in danger of missing the platform revolution), complacent that we are the software experts of the world based on IT services prowess,' points out Rajeev Srinivasan.
PhonePe wants to dethrone its Alibaba and SoftBank-backed rival, Paytm, claiming that additional capital that Walmart will bring to the table will help it grow much faster
This marks the second billion-dollar investment by Silver Lake in a Reliance subsidiary after the $1.35 billion investment in Jio Platforms.
Seven years is a long time for any of Modi's promised actions to show up. If voters are angry and cynical today, it is because the rhetoric stings, argues Ramesh Menon.
Fintechs need to behave with responsibility and transparency. A lot of mis-selling has been happening. Other issues have been plaguing the fledgling industry -- high interest rates, even higher processing fees, harsh collection process and, most critically, data leakage leading to rampant frauds, points out Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The development comes close on the heels of Uber planning to invest substantial part of $3.5 bn Saudi money in India.
