The drying up of funds for a number of start-ups is affecting the firms' unicorn status across the globe. The past six months have seen the valuations of 147 unicorns drop, of which 71 were from the US and 29 from China, according to the latest Hurun Global Unicorn Index 2022. Eighty-one unicorns from across the globe saw their valuations drop below $1 billion-the threshold for a start-up to be labelled unicorn-from last year.
The government could look at providing deductions for expenses incurred by salaried employees while working from home in the upcoming Budget as it looks to boost demand, consulting firm PwC India said on Thursday. Addressing a pre-Budget session, Pwc India senior tax partner Rahul Garg said demand creation is particularly focussed on money being given or left in the hands of the individuals.
PricewaterhouseCoopers India campaigns to appear responsible as it distances itself from the mess surrounding former client Satyam
FutureBrand, which is a global brand transformation company, said part of Reliance's success could be attributed to Mukesh Ambani's recasting of the firm as a one-stop-shop for Indians.
PricewaterhouseCoopers is looking at doubling its employee strength in Kolkata in the next 4 years for all its verticals that include tax advisory, regulatory and audit advisory services. At present, it has close to 1000 employees in Kolkata.
Saudi Arabia is insisting on 'In Kingdom' total value-addition requirements
Indian rupee, which earlier this week touched an all-time low, is likely to remain under pressure and may test new levels as a fallout of the US Federal Reserve indicating more interest rate hikes, experts said. The aggressive rate hikes will dampen demand and increase the possibility of a recession in the US. This could accelerate the pace of capital outflows, weaken the rupee and raise the threat of imported inflation.
India's rupee is likely to remain under pressure due to high prices of crude oil and other commodities, and may stabilise at around 79-80 against the US dollar in the near term, say experts amid limited headroom available with the Reserve Bank to check the weakening of the domestic currency. The currency has slumped over 5 per cent this year after Russia's invasion of Ukraine sent international crude oil prices soaring to a decade high. On Monday, rupee ended at a fresh all-time low of 78.34 (provisional) against the US dollar.
Foreign banks set the template in consumer banking in its infancy, but have almost vacated this booming space.
Setting aside the ban on PwC, which is one of the Big Four global accounting firms, SAT said only the national auditors watchdog ICAI (Institute of Chartered Accountants of India) can take any action against its members and fraud cannot be proved on the basis of negligence in auditing.
Sanand has catapulted into the big league of automobile industry hubs.
PwC wants to know what will happen when a company with substantial reserves is merged into a new concern and the resultant entity is converted into a limited liability partnership.
In terms of expansion, a little more than half of the family businesses are open to internationalisation, while 40 per cent are looking at diversification, a PWC survey said. Even Indian family businesses are increasingly looking at diversification and exploring newer markets, it added.
A significant 71 per cent of India's CEOs are very confident of their companies' growth in the next 12 months, a 7-point increase over last year's and 33 points above this year's global average (38 per cent).
With Bharatpe's co-founder Ashneer Grover launching an offensive against the firm's investors after facing a probe over alleged fraud, abrasive behaviour and corporate governance issues, the company on Friday said questioning the integrity of board members and misrepresentation of facts is painful. "The (company) board in all its actions has followed due process in the best interest of the company. We would urge that the confidentiality and integrity of the governance review and board meetings is maintained by all," BharatPe said in a statement. The statement followed Grover, who was sent on a three-month leave following allegations of using abusive language against Kotak Mahindra Bank staff and for fraudulent practices, reportedly saying he was "arm-twisted" by the company's investors into going on leave and that he had lost confidence in CEO Sameer Suhail.
In a tectonic shift in the global economic centre of gravity, the size of India's economy would grow to 90 per cent of the United States by 2050, with China becoming even bigger than the US, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers report. The global advisory firm projected that Brazil seems likely to overtake Japan by 2050 to move to the fourth place, while Russia, Mexico and Indonesia all have the potential to have economies larger than those of Germany or the UK by 2050.
Payments startup BharatPe on Tuesday said it has terminated several employees and vendors as well as filed criminal cases against them for misconduct besides deciding to claw back former founder Ashneer Grover's restricted shares in the firm. The steps have been taken by the company's board following a detailed corporate governance review against the backdrop of alleged lapses and misdoings during the tenure of Grover as managing director. IPO-hopeful BharatPe, which allows shop owners to make digital payments through QR codes, has implemented a new code of conduct for senior management and employees and brought in a comprehensive vendor procurement policy to avoid a repeat of alleged lapses that happened when Grover was managing director.
To begin with, there would be the immediate integration of various technology stacks. This would create more business for global consulting and IT services entities such as KPMG, PwC, EY, Accenture and IBM, among others. Indian service providers - Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), and Wipro, for instance - would also cash in.
India Inc's investment in all aspects of social networks, mobile computing, analytics and cloud computing (SMAC) is consistently surpassing its global counterparts.
From cloud computing to people analytics, most lucrative future jobs will be dominated by people with digital skills and expertise, explains Sarita Digumarti, chief learning officer, UNext Learning.
Less than 50 per cent respondents admit that their company has sufficient security controls, says PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Dealmakers and advisors feel investors are shifting their focus to Asia Pacific, especially India, owing to geopolitical instability driven by events such as Brexit and protectionist trade wars.
The initiative is being undertaken by the government of Karnataka, considered one of the leaders in the technology space. Currently, India doesn't have such a platform and, globally, there are very few privately-run platforms.
China on Tuesday announced a major policy change for its crisis-ridden power sector by allowing coal-fired power plants to charge their industrial and commercial customers market-driven prices. The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) of China said the electricity generated by coal-fired plants would discover price in market trading "in an orderly manner" from October 15. This is being done to pass on the high costs of coal and is being held up as the boldest reform in the Chinese power sector.
Equities in India saw record FPI inflows of $16.8 billion in November and December, taking the benchmark indices to new highs.
While the most obvious beneficiary of this roll-out will be manufacturers of FASTags, or the Radio Frequency Identification chips, a PwC report says implementation of a pan-India electronic toll collection system on national highways may help save approximately Rs 87,000 crore annually.
The global entertainment and media industry is expected to grow at a moderate rate over the next five years as economic uncertainty offsets the impetus of digital technologies, according to a new study.
Amid fears of a third wave of coronavirus pandemic and hardening of retail inflation, the Reserve Bank is likely to maintain status quo on interest rate and watch the developing macroeconomic situation for some more time before taking any decisive action on monetary policy. The RBI is scheduled to announce its bi-monthly monetary policy review on August 6 at the end of the three-day meeting -- August 4-6 -- of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC). The RBI Governor-headed six-member MPC decides on the key policy rates.
The Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF) on Monday announced the appointment of former Supreme Court judge Justice Vikramjit Sen as the Chairman of its newly formed self-regulatory body Digital Media Content Regulatory Council (DMCRC).
'If a stranger refuses to pet my Russian dog, what treatment can I expect for myself?'
As per the Budget proposals, migration of a fund to a fund in IFSC will not be regarded as transfer if done on or before March 31, 2023. Transfer of units will be tax neutral. Grandfathered investments of the fund to continue to enjoy capital gains exemption on future sale by the IFSC fund. There is no impact on carry forward of losses for the investee company.
There is little that Andreas Schmid, the Swiss-born chairman of Flughafen Zurich AG (Zurich Airport International AG), and Yogi Adityanath, chief minister of Uttar Pradesh (UP), could have in common. But Schmid, whose company is building the Noida airport in partnership with the UP government, finds himself on the same footing as the firebrand Hindutva leader who rules the state. Both hope the Rs 30,000-crore ($4 billion) project, hanging fire for 20 years, shows some progress when UP goes to the polls in 2022.
In an interview with PricewaterhouseCoopers, A M Naik, chairman of Larsen & Toubro Limited, talks about the company's strategies, opportunities and the challenges facing it.
US proposal to raise the global corporate tax rate to 28% from 21% might face resistance from countries unwilling to give up their edge and compete with America on its terms.
Billionaire and Mahindra Group chairman Anand Mahindra along with top Silicon Valley investors Naval Ravikant and Balaji Srinivasan are backing space tech start-up Agnikul as part of a new funding round. Chennai-based Agnikul said, on Thursday, that it has raised $11 million in Series A funding round led by Mayfield India. It is the largest funding round for a private Indian space technology company in the country. Existing investors pi Ventures, Speciale Invest and Artha Venture Fund also invested in this round.
India conceding ground to bring only top 100 digital companies like Google, Facebook, and Netflix into the global taxation pact may have revenue implications. This will mean that New Delhi will have to withdraw the contentious 2 per cent equalisation levy on e-commerce operators by 2023. This may have revenue implications for India, experts pointed out, as the equalisation levy has a much lower annual revenue threshold of Rs 2 crore (euro 0.2 million) as against euro 20 billion agreed by 130 countries at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). India, along with other developing countries, was pitching for at least euro 1 billion threshold to cover at least 5,000 global entities. India collected Rs 2,057 crore from the equalisation levy in 2020-21, an 85 per cent growth over Rs 1,136 crore in the previous fiscal.
Indian CEOS are very innovative, says a PwC report.
About 41 per cent of chief executive officers (CEO) in India have cancelled or delayed a key strategic initiative because of skills shortage, an annual global CEO survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) states.
Management consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers' survey found that Indian CEOs were less concerned about the availability of talent and were willing to invest in training and development.