Cut-throat competition, high spectrum costs, and frequent flip-flops in government policies have made it difficult for Vodafone to make money in the country.
India is believed to have challenged in a court in The Hague an arbitration tribunal verdict that overturned its demand for Rs 10,247 crore in back taxes from Cairn Energy Plc -- the second time in three months that it has refused to accept an international award against retrospective tax.
S&P Global Ratings on Thursday upgraded ratings of five companies of the Tata group including Tata Steel, Tata Motors and Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) reflecting its reassessment of the ongoing influence and the potential for 'extraordinary financial support' from the parent, Tata Sons. Under the revised exercise, S&P Global said ratings on Tata Steel Ltd and its 100 per cent-owned financing subsidiary ABJA Investment Co Pte Ltd have been upgraded to 'BBB-' from 'BB' with stable outlook. Similarly, Tata Motors Ltd and its wholly-owned arm TML Holdings Pte Ltd have been upgraded to 'BB-' from 'B' ratings with stable outlook.
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Cairn India said it has always been fully compliant with all Indian income tax laws.
day after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a Rs 1 lakh crore spending package, a top government source said the Centre has not closed its options for another stimulus package.
Moving quickly towards ending a retrospective tax dispute with a firm that gave India its largest oilfield, the government has accepted Cairn Energy PLC's undertakings which would allow for the refund of taxes, sources said. Meeting the requirements of the new legislation that scraps levy of retrospective taxation, the company had earlier this month given required undertakings indemnifying the Indian government against future claims as well as agreeing to drop any legal proceedings anywhere in the world. The government has now accepted this and issued Cairn a so-called Form-II, committing to refund the tax collected to enforce the retrospective tax demand, two sources with direct knowledge of the development said.
At market close, the oil-to-telecom conglomerate's market capitalisation (m-cap) zoomed to Rs 10,01,555.42 crore on BSE.
Govt's move will facilitate entry of global giants such as Total SA of France, Saudi Arabia's Aramco, BP Plc of the UK, and Trafigura's downstream arm Puma Energy.
Global energy supermajor BP plc on Thursday said it is about to open its first 'Jio-bp' branded petrol pump in partnership with Reliance Industries near Mumbai.
It emerges that Vi has probably offered good data quality despite being short on spectrum and infrastructure due to its stretched finances. Did the two companies that merged face the heat due to price wars? Probably. Did the government's tough stance in demanding its "due" share of telecom revenues hurt the company? Certainly!
A senior company executive said the company waited for seven years for the verdict and its shareholders needed to know when it would be concluded.
The government should convert Vodafone Idea's (Vi) debt into equity to avoid a duopoly in the telecom sector, Deutsche Bank Research said in its report on Monday. This, the bank suggested, would be the only viable solution in the backdrop of the Supreme Court dismissing the telecom company's application for recomputation of adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues.
Cash-strapped telco Vodafone Idea's proposal for investment of up to Rs 15,000 crore through foreign direct investment (FDI) has been approved by the Union government, according to officials. A top-level group, comprising representatives from the ministries of home affairs, external affairs, finance and commerce and industry, took the decision. The nod, which is an enabling provision, would help the financially-stressed company raise funds to pay up some of its dues linked to adjusted gross revenue (AGR), reduce debts and use the money for operational expenses.
The Union government's offer of settling the retrospective taxation case with Cairn Energy may hinge on Vedanta withdrawing the ongoing arbitration from the Singapore Tribunal on the same issue. The government has offered to refund Cairn Energy Rs 7,900 crore that it had collected under the retrospective tax demand on fulfilment of certain conditions, including withdrawal of pending litigation and furnishing of an undertaking to the effect that no claim for cost, damages, interest, etc., would be filed. This condition is also part of the Taxation Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2021, passed by Parliament recently.
Diageo Western Europe President John Kennedy would will take responsibility for Russia, Eastern Europe and Turkey as President, Diageo Europe.
The collapse of Thomas Cook in the UK has no impact whatsoever in terms of ownership, business, people, technology or processes to us at Thomas Cook India: Madhavan Menon, chairman & managing director, TCIL.
The government will have to make substantial payments, as well as forego revenues in FY'23, if it wants to work on the survival of Vodafone Idea because it will have to extend the same incentives to the entire telecom sector. According to estimates, the industry has to spend around Rs 21,000-Rs 25,000 crore for spectrum which it bought on a deferred payment basis. Vodafone Idea has asked for a moratorium for another year (FY23). If granted, the government will have foregone the instalment payout for a third year in a row as it has already provided a moratorium for two years, giving telcos Rs 42,000 crore worth of relief.
Hinduja Group's business process management entity, Hinduja Global Solutions Limited (HGS) said on Wednesday that it has entered into definitive agreements to divest its Healthcare Services business to funds affiliated with Baring Private Equity Asia (BPEA), at an enterprise value of $1.2 bilion. The deal is subject to closing adjustments, and is expected to complete within 90 days, subject to shareholder and other regulatory approvals. "The cash that will come in as a result of this transaction will be deployed to growing the business as well as looking at buying some capabilities...where capabilities are important for being able to do a good job of customer experience transformation.
The game intensified after Congress fielded Channi from a second seat and Shiromani Akali Dal leader Bikram Singh Majithia chose to take on Sidhu from the Amritsar East seat.
In the next two weeks, the United States will detail plans to equitably distribute about 80 million (8 crore) COVID-19 vaccine doses globally without 'political requirements' of those receiving them, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said.
The government on Tuesday confirmed that a French court has ordered the freezing of certain Indian assets in Paris on a petition by Britain's Cairn Energy, which is seeking to recover $1.72 billion from New Delhi after winning an arbitration against retro tax. Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha said the government has filed an appeal against an international arbitration tribunal overturning levy of Rs 10,247 crore in back taxes on Cairn Energy. "Yes sir, an order has been passed by a French Court freezing certain Indian government properties in the case pertaining to Cairn Energy," he said.
Billionaire Anil Agarwal's mining group Vedanta on Monday said it has withdrawn cases in the Delhi high court as well as before an international arbitration tribunal to settle a Rs 20,495 crore retrospective tax dispute with the government. Post slapping of a Rs 10,247 crore tax demand on UK's Cairn Energy Plc for alleged capital gains made on a 2016 internal reorganisation prior to the listing of its India business, the Income Tax Department had sought Rs 20,495 crore in taxes (including penalty) from Cairn India for failing to deduct tax on capital gains made by its British parent. Cairn India was in 2011 bought by Agarwal's group and subsequently, the firm was merged with Vedanta Ltd.
The Finance Ministry on Monday said Cairn Energy Plc is likely to pay close to $1 billion as capital gains tax on the $8.48 billion it expects to get from selling majority stake in its India arm to Vedanta Resources.
P Sampath, the current CFO, moves to a new role as the President of Business Optimisation and Improvement for Essar Energy plc, the company said in a press statement.
Cabinet will take a decision on a conciliation offer from Vodafone.
With two of its clusters - R-Series and Satellite Series - likely to start production in the next two years, the company looks to turn around production from this business.
Vedanta to file notice of claim in Cairn India tax case.
Anglo-Dutch FMCG giant Unilever Plc's $ 5.4 billion open offer to increase stake in its Indian arm Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) to up to 75 per cent commenced on Friday.
IOC chief said he believed more than 80 per cent of residents of the Olympic Village would be vaccinated or booked for vaccination ahead of the Games
Top Indian private sector lender ICICI Bank, which owns nearly 68 percent of the insurer, is selling up to 181.34 million shares in the IPO.
The government may be waiting for the outcome of an arbitration initiated against its levy of Rs 10,247 crore retrospective tax on UK's Cairn Energy Plc before deciding on appealing against losing a tax case against Vodafone Group, sources said. An international arbitral tribunal is expected to give a decree within next few days on Cairn Energy Plc's challenge to the Indian government seeking Rs 10,247 crore in retrospective taxes. If the arbitration award in the Cairn cases goes against India, the government has to pay the British firm over Rs 7,600 crore to reverse the dividend and tax refund it had ceased and shares it sold to recover part of the tax demand.
Cairn files notice against India in $1.6 billion tax dispute.
The government on Thursday brought a bill in the Lok Sabha to withdraw all back tax demands on companies such as Cairn Energy and Vodafone and said it will refund the money collected to enforce such levies.
Experts attribute the lower target to increased allocation under the credit guarantee scheme for small businesses. Out of the Rs 3.21 trillion worth loans sanctioned under the Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY) in the last financial year, Rs 3.12 trillion were disbursed to entrepreneurs, according to official data.
The government on Thursday hiked by 62 per cent the price of natural gas that is used to produce electricity, make fertilisers and turned into CNG to use as fuel in automobiles and cooking gas for household kitchens. This is the first increase in rates since April 2019 and comes on back of firming benchmark international prices but does not reflect the spurt in spot or current price of liquefied natural gas (LNG) witnessed during the last couple of weeks. The oil ministry's Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell (PPAC) said the rates paid for gas produced from fields given to state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Oil India Ltd (OIL) will be $2.90 per million British thermal unit for the six-month period beginning April 1.
The Biden administration had been under pressure to send the excess COVID-19 vaccines with the US to nations like India, which are facing severe vaccine shortages.
UK-based travel services provider Thomas Cook Group plc will sell for Rs 817.4 crore (Rs 8.17 billion) its entire 77 per cent holding in the Indian arm to Fairbridge Capital (Mauritius) Ltd, a subsidiary of Fairfax Financial Holdings.
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has initiated discussions with banks to address financial stress in the telecom sector, particularly Vodafone Idea Ltd (VIL) that urgently requires fund infusion to stay afloat. There was a meeting of DOT officials and senior bankers on Friday on the issue of Vodafone, sources said, adding that banks have been asked to look for a solution within the prudential guidelines. According to sources, senior officials from the country's biggest lenders State Bank of India and Bank of Baroda were also present among others in the meeting. More such meetings are expected to take place in the coming days, they said.
The central government has agreed in-principle to Air India employees' main demands. It fears an industrial dissension now could impede the process of privatisation. It has agreed to bear the cost of liquidation loss on account of transfer to the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) from company-owned trusts, inclusion of employees in the central government health scheme (CGHS), and encashment of leaves. The template of the Air India process will be followed for other public sector undertakings up for privatisation at a later date.
US market regulator SEC has slapped penalties of over $16 million on spirits giant Diageo Plc for indulging in corrupt practices in India, Thailand and South Korea to push up sales of its leading brands like Johnnie Walker.
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