Starting the process of incorporating a new company for its proposed aviation venture with Singapore Airlines, Tata group has sought to register this entity as 'Tata SIA Airlines Limited'.
In their new venture, Tata SIA Airlines Ltd, Tata Sons would hold 51 per cent stake and Singapore Airlines 49 per cent.
As per information available with the Corporate Affairs Ministry, the new company was incorporated on November 5 with a total paid up capital of Rs 500,000 and has been registered in New Delhi.
Earlier, the JV company got a go-ahead from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board in October 2013 and was awaiting AOP for launching a full-service carrier.
FIA has filed two separate petitions challenging the approvals granted to Tata-Airasia and Tata-SIA Airlines deals respectively.
The exact figure not known yet but advertisements for recruiting employees would hit print this week.
Tatas and Singapore Airlines have assured the government that control of their proposed airline venture would always remain in Indian hands, while seeking approval to offer passenger services on both domestic and international routes.
Making a strong case for approval of their proposed airline JV, Tatas and Singapore Airlines have said that the venture would create significant job opportunities in India and would boost the country's image as an international investment destination.
JV will set up a full-service carrier based out of New Delhi.
The proposal of Tatas and Singapore Airlines for a new joint venture, entailing foreign investment of $49 million, is likely to come up before the Foreign Investment Promotion Board for approval on October 18.
With the FIPB giving approval to the Tata-Singapore Airlines joint venture to start a full-service carrier, Tata Group Chairman Emeritus Ratan Tata on Friday met Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma.
However, this was subject to conditions like substantial ownership and effective control of the airline being vested in Indian nationals.
As per the FIPB agenda, the proposal will be taken up on October 18.
While four of the directors would be nominated by Tata Sons, the other two would be representatives of Singapore Airlines.
Competition Commission of India (CCI) has issued a show cause notice to the parties with respect to the proposed merger of Tata Group airlines Vistara and Air India, according to a source. The fair trade watchdog issues notice asking why an investigation should not be initiated only after forming a prima-facie opinion that the deal could adversely impact competition in the marketplace. Vistara and Air India are the two full-service carriers that are part of the Tata Group, and Singapore Airlines holds a 49 per cent stake in Vistara.
The Delhi High Court on Wednesday allowed a plea to implead DGCA as a party to a PIL seeking quashing of approvals being granted by the Centre to operationalise the $30 million deal between Tata Sons and Malaysia-based AirAsia.
A bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw posted the matter for hearing on Friday.
Phee Teik Yeoh, the recently anointed chief executive officer of the airline, speaks to Business Standard on his aim of changing the rule of the game in the aviation sector by redefining service and operational experience for travellers accustomed to mere functionality.
"The strategic divestment transaction of Air India successfully concluded today with transfer of 100 per cent shares of Air India to M/s Talace Pvt Ltd along with management control," DIPAM secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey said in a tweet. A new board, led by the strategic partner, takes charge of Air India, he added.
They say better late than never. For the Tatas, the original owners of Air India, bringing back the airline to its fold is worth the wait even if the attempt to privatise the bleeding national carrier by successive governments has taken over two decades. While many airlines have come and gone from the Indian skies since the time when the first move was made to privatise Air India to date, the salt-to-software conglomerate has never let the love affair with aviation, more so with Air India that its former chairman Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata (JRD) had, to go off the radar. It is said that Tata group executives used to complain in private that JRD -- the pioneer of the Indian aviation industry -- spent more time worrying about Air India than the Tata group when he was heading both the entities.
Vistara launched first flight from Hyderabad to New Delhi on Sunday.
Mukesh Ambani-owned RIL's JioMart is set to launch a slew of new products including financial services, electronics to airline tickets to take on the competition from upcoming rivals like the Tata Super app and other established players including PayTM, Amazon and Flipkart. This comes at a time when RIL's e-commerce revenues are set to grow by 35 per cent to $15 billion within four years and its core retail revenue is expected to grow at the same pace to $44 billion, as per a forecast by Goldman Sachs. "The Tata vs JioMart war will be the next big corporate battle to watch. "While Tata has an upper hand like in-house products and brands, RIL has the backing of global biggies like Google, Facebook and Microsoft," said head of a rating firm asking not to be quoted.
The group began to outperform the broader market only with the onset of the pandemic in March 2020 while earlier it was largely keeping pace with the Sensex. The group's market cap is up 164.4 per cent since the end of March 2020 against a 105 per cent rally in the Sensex.
TCS has acquired Singapore Airlines' 51 per cent stake in Aviation Software Development Consultancy India Ltd for Rs 14.02 crore.
Tata-SIA will kick off with full-service domestic operations.
Tata's Vistara has a very strong core team to look into daily operations.
Two aborted missions, three different ministers, multiple rule changes and two decades later, Indian taxpayers will no longer have to pay Rs 20 crore per day to keep the loss-making Air India flying. While opposition Congress expectedly attacked the decision as selling the family silver, DIPAM secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey said what Tata is getting is not a cash cow but an airline which is bleeding where money needs to be pumped in to refurbish obsolete aircraft and dust up strangled ones while being unable to touch any employee for one year and only be able to resize staff after paying a VRS. "It won't be a very easy task there. Only advantage is they (new Air India owner) are paying the price which they think they can manage. "They are not taking the excessive debt accumulated to fund years of losses. We are continuing it as an ongoing concern.... This process has also saved huge amount of taxpayers money going forward," Pandey told PTI.
The year gone by saw the high and mighty of the corporate world face the music in the Delhi High Court which held that the telecom majors are amenable to CAG audit and Mukesh Ambani's RIL struggling hard to get rid of an FIR lodged on gas pricing by the 49-day-old AAP regime.
The disappointment of the year is government's failure in finalising the re-drafted aviation policy.
India Inc has few leaders who are likely to grab headlines in 2015.