In a surprise move, ABG Shipyard on Wednesday exited the race to acquire Great Offshore and sold its 8.2 per cent stake to three financial investors. The ABG move comes after seven months of intense rivalry with Bharati Shipyard through a series of competitive counter-bids.
India's second-largest private ship builder, Bharati Shipyard, which already holds 14.9 per cent stake Great Offshore, has said it will make an open offer to buy an additional 20 per cent. While P C Kapoor, MD, Bharati Shipyard, ruled out any possibility of a hostile takeover bid for Great Offshore, he had earlier said competitors such as Punj Lloyd and ABG Shipyard had shown an interest in buying Great Offshore shares from the open market.
Bharati Shipyard said it has hiked the open offer price to acquire stake in offshore service provider Great Offshore to Rs 560 per share.
The bidding war for Great Offshore ratcheted up a notch with ABG Shipyard saying it would come out with a counter-offer to rival Bharati Shipyard's offer of Rs 560 a share announced on Wednesday after it acquired 3.1 per cent from the open market to take its total holding to 22.4 per cent.
ABG Shipyard, the largest private sector shipbuilding firm, has raised the open offer price to buy out drilling firm Great Offshore to Rs 520 a share from the Rs 450 announced last week. This is the second increase in the open offer price by ABG in a week's time, as it continued to purchase shares from the open market to outbid its rival, Bharati Shipyard, in an attempt to take control of the drilling firm.
This is the time for India to plan forward fully, with the goal of Atmanirbharata, and energy security. The Persian Gulf is no longer a reliable source, points out Rajeev Srinivasan.
'Torpedoes travel at more than 100 kilometres per hour, about 50-60 knots.' 'It must have been a matter of a few minutes before it detonated under the Iranian ship.' 'The Iranian ship would have probably got three, four minutes and wouldn't have known till they actually heard the whirr of the torpedo.'
'There is responsibility to make great games that are played by audiences, that fill the gap from an entertainment perspective.'
What has surprised the industry is that the Bill has been tabled without any consultation. Critics warn the ban on real-money gaming could fuel black markets, endanger 200,000 jobs and billions in tax revenue.
As the potential threat of a steep 200 per cent tariff on pharmaceutical imports hangs in the air, analysts and industry insiders feel that focus on exports to non-US regions as well as domestic market will increase as a long-term trend. US President Donald Trump told CNBC's Squawk Box in the first week of August that planned tariffs on import of pharmaceutical products to the US could eventually reach up to 250 per cent.
Trump is confident the US will eventually emerge the winner from whatever turmoil his policies cause, notes T T Ram Mohan.
'We need to be very vigilant as we are passing through some fraught times.'
The formulations in the declaration in reference to terrorism is going to be to our "satisfaction", Dammu Ravi, secretary (economic relations) in the external affairs ministry said on Monday.
US Vice President JD Vance called on India to drop non-tariff barriers, give greater access to its markets and buy more American energy products and military hardware. Vance, in a speech in Jaipur, highlighted the need for a stronger US-India partnership for a prosperous and peaceful 21st century. He emphasized the importance of working together to address global challenges and praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi, describing him as a "special person." Vance also urged India to provide greater market access to American products and buy more defense platforms and energy from the US. He suggested that India consider dropping some of the non-tariff barriers for American access to the Indian market and highlighted the benefits of closer India-US defense collaboration, advocating for New Delhi to procure more military hardware from the US. He cited the example of American fifth-generation F-35s, arguing they would give the Indian Air Force the ability to defend its airspace and protect its people like never before. Vance also welcomed the Modi government's budget announcement to amend India's civil nuclear liability laws, paving the way for US producers to export small modular reactors and build larger US-designed reactors in India. He emphasized the importance of energy security for India's AI ambitions, stating "there is no AI future without energy security and energy dominance." Vance's visit comes amid growing global concerns over the US's tariff war.
Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, the company that cancelled a five-year contract of rig supply with Great Offshore on Thursday, is planning to issue a new tender. India's largest oil producer cancelled the contract as Mumbai-based Great Offshore could not supply the rig in time.
'The race is now on for Indian IT firms to develop their AI prowess and focus on a software-first approach to services as the people element becomes more complicated with Trump's expected new regulations.'
Surfing makes its second Olympic appearance at the Paris 2024 Games after a successful debut in Tokyo, with competition being held this time on the French Polynesian island of Tahiti.
If there were an Olympics for bank frauds in India, Rishi Agarwal, founder and former chairman of ABG Shipyard Ltd, a nephew of the Ruia brothers of the Essar group, would bag the gold, pushing Nirav Modi to his right, says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The Supreme Court junks technicalities in international arbitration agreements.
Switzerland remains the 'biggest private banking financial centres for cross border wealth management' with assets worth over CHF 2.11 trillion ($2.2 trillion), as per the study conducted by the Swiss Bankers Association and the Boston Consulting Group.
The six-month moratorium on deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico is likely to delay the deployment of idle rigs by Aban Offshore and impact the day rates for support vessels that companies such as Great Offshore supply.
The world needs to wake up to this new dimension of war at sea and be prepared to face the 'unknown enemy' who have the advantage of attacking at their choice of location and time, cautions Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
Byju's, India's most-valued startup, has decided to put two of its key assets -- Epic and Great Learning -- on the block to generate $800 million-$1 billion in cash, with an aim to meet the edtech firm's various commitments, including repaying the entire $1.2 billion term loan B (TLB) within six months, according to sources. The cash-strapped company has proposed repaying $300 million of the $1.2 billion loan in the next three months, depending on whether the lenders accept Byju's amendment proposal, said the people familiar with the development. "This loan repayment proposal has been submitted to the lenders and conversations are going in the right direction," said a person in the know.
Australia's green political party on Wednesday warned the government for approving India's Adani group's plan to expand a major coal port on the fragile Great Barrier Reef coast, saying it will hasten the death of the natural wonder, a World Heritage site.
In our mystery the watchdog agencies are silent, but it is the market that has barked and has not stopped barking. Till such time as it continues to do so, this headache will not go away, notes Aakar Patel.
International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief economist Gita Gopinath has made a strong case for regulating cryptocurrencies, saying it will always be a challenge to ban them as they operate from offshore exchanges. Gopinath also suggested a global policy and co-ordinated action for regulating cryptocurrencies. "I think cryptocurrencies are a particular challenge for emerging markets. "It seems to be more attractive to adopt cryptocurrencies and assets in emerging economies than in advanced economies," she said while addressing an event organised by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) on Wednesday.
Unsubstantiated and illogical opinions, delivered freely from within or abroad, could not destroy the democratic nature of the country, he added.
'As long as businesses do not consider cyber recovery an integral part of their enterprise IT, they remain greatly vulnerable.'
The Global Offshore Outsourcing Summit 2006, organised by the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce kicked off on Friday at the ITC Grand Central, Mumbai.
The government should scrap the windfall profit tax on domestically produced crude oil as the levy is adversely impacting the capex-intensive exploration of oil and gas, the industry said in its recommendation for the forthcoming annual Budget. India first imposed windfall profit taxes on July 1, joining a growing number of nations that tax super normal profits of energy companies. At that time, a Rs 23,250 per tonne ($40 per barrel) windfall profit tax on domestic crude production was levied.
A day after Adani Group's shares took a beating as Hindenburg Research made damaging allegations against it, the group on Thursday said it is examining legal options to take "punitive action" against the US activist investor for its "reckless" attempt to sabotage a share-sale at the conglomerate's flagship firm. "The maliciously mischievous, unresearched report published by Hindenburg Research on January 24, 2023 has adversely affected the Adani Group, our shareholders and investors. "The volatility in Indian stock markets created by the report is of great concern and has led to unwanted anguish for Indian citizens," the group's lead head Jatin Jalundhwala said in a statement.
With automation taking place at a much faster pace across industries especially in the tech space, domestic software firms that employee over 16 million are set to slash headcounts by a massive 3 million by 2022, which will help them save a whopping $100 billion mostly in salaries annually, says a report. The domestic IT sector employs around 16 million, of them around 9 million are employed in low-skilled services and BPO roles, according to Nasscom. Of these 9 million low-skilled services and BPO roles, 30 per cent or around 3 million will be lost by 2022, principally driven by the impact of robot process automation or RPA. Roughly 0.7 million roles are expected to be replaced by RPA alone and the rest due to other technological upgrades and upskilling by the domestic IT players, while it the RPA will have the worst impact in the US with a loss of almost 1 million jobs, according to a Bank of America report on Wednesday.
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