Aditya Birla group flagship firm Hindalco Industries has decided to trim its overseas operations and is restructuring its capital expenditure in India in an effort to stabilise operations. As part of this overall plan, Novelis, which Hindalco acquired for $6 billion in 2007, is closing its sheet mill at Rogerstone in the UK, involving 440 job losses.
Micky Jagtiani, owner of Landmark, the unlisted Dubai-based retail chain, has entered the list of 10 richest Indians compiled by Bloomberg.
With the new entity coming in force, Bharti Airtel will lose the tag of India's biggest telecom service provider to the new entity.
Aditya Birla Group company Idea Cellular today said it expects to start 3G services in the third quarter of the ongoing fiscal.
Kumar Mangalam Birla-led Aditya Birla Group plans to invest over Rs 4,000 crore in future technologies by setting up a Knowledge Park and a branch of the Birla Institute of Technology and Sciences (BITS) at Kozhikode in Kerala.
Vodafone Idea's cash flow analysis indicates that its situation may remain challenging even after any relief measures, and the telco needs "meaningful capital infusion" with a long gestation period to become competitive, a report by Credit Suisse said on Wednesday. The report expects Airtel to be "well placed" in either of the scenarios, of two-private-operator sector, or three private operators post an industry repair. The note by Credit Suisse on the Indian telecom sector said there has been increasing interest among investors to evaluate valuations of Bharti Airtel and Indus Towers under two situations, in the wake of recent developments.
Many, including DLF, Suzlon, UB, the Tata and the Aditya Birla Group are selling stake or assets to reduce debt and the strain on their balance sheets. That's because they have been hit either by slowing sales, or have a big exposure to markets in the West where demand has contracted sharply as a result of the economic downturn.
While Vodafone will hold 45.1% of the shares in the new entity, to be renamed at a later stage, Kumar Mangalam Birla and other promoters of Idea group will hold 26%. Vodafone India will also transfer 4.9% of its shareholding to Idea's promoters for a cash consideration of Rs 38.74 lakh crores.
Novelis is expected to come out with its March quarter earnings on Friday and a decision on its rating will follow soon after.
India Inc believes that given the current economic slowdown, it could not have been any better
Idea Cellular, the GSM service provider of the Aditya Birla group, has roped in global telecom major Ericsson as equipment supplier for its GSM network in the Mumbai circle.
Diversified conglomerate Aditya Birla Nuvo will acquire 56 per cent stake in retail broking firm Apollo Sindhoori Capital Investments for a consideration of Rs 198.8 crore (Rs 1.988 billion), a move that will strengthen the financial services segment of the group.
Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Mittal on Thursday said he had reached out to Vodafone's Nick Read after bold telecom reforms were announced by the government and will also speak to RIL's Mukesh Ambani, as the telecom czar vowed to take the lead in bringing the industry together to unleash India's telecom dream. Mittal exhorted the industry to collaborate in areas such as infrastructure sharing to reduce costs but vehemently ruled out possibility of any cartelisation among players. Amid reports of its potential tie-ups with handset makers to counter Jio's upcoming ultra low-cost smartphone, Mittal said Airtel is in a state of "readiness" on an affordable smartphone "should a need arise".
This also shows that there are other skills that go into a success story than mere ideas.
The Aditya Birla Group has received in-principle approval from the Kerala government to set up a Rs 4,000-crore (Rs 40 billion) IT and Biotech Knowledge Park and a branch of Birla Institute of Technology and Sciences (BITS) at Kozhikode.
Raman's hacking expertise is much in demand -- and not from criminal elements. Indian firms and multinationals like ABN Amro Bank, Aditya Birla Group, Bank of Maharashtra, Bombay Dyeing, HSBC, ICICI Bank, Indiabulls, Centurion BOP, Citibank, India Infoline, Ispat Industries and Kotak Group proactively seek his services. Raman's hacking expertise is much in demand -- and not from criminal elements.
After Vodafone, UK-based Vedanta Resources Plc and Aditya Birla group firm Indian Rayon also face a potential tax demand of around Rs 900 crore and Rs 45 crore, respectively, for their failure to deduct taxes on payments to buy Indian assets, said a senior government official.
As India's online population crosses 450 million, e-commerce ventures are trying to grab a pie of online sales estimated to hit $48 billion by 2020.
In the two weeks since the terror attacks in Mumbai, most of the large Indian business groups in the city have been conspicuous by their absence in offering help to terror victims.
Mining baron Anil Agarwal-led Vedanta Group has bid for the most number of 14 coal mines out of 23 on offer in the first round of auction which also have aggressive bids by Aditya Birla Group, Adani and Naveen Jindal group, but was shunned by foreign players.
Irrespective of demonetisation and GST blues, IIM Lucknow has been able to successfully place their batch of 459 students.
"When we are building businesses with a long-term view, we are less concerned about short-term impacts. The basic growth in India, the high savings rate and low penetration of financial products suggest there is a huge yet-to-be-tapped opportunity. We believe this is a good time to be building businesses to tap that potential," says Ajay Srinivasan, CEO, Aditya Birla Group's Financial Services.
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!
Aditya Birla group company Idea Cellular and US-based wireless operator Verizon are all set to get the Letters of Intent for long distance services following clearance of their applications by the Department of Telecom (DoT). Official sources said the applications have been put forward for the Telecom Minister's approval. Idea is awaiting LoI for International Long Distance services while Verizon's application is for both National and International Long Distance services
Idea Cellular, an Aditya Birla group company, is investing around Rs 647 crore (Rs 6.47 billion) for the rollout of operations in the Mumbai circle. The operations are expected to commence in two months time.
With increasing corporatisation of Indian television, creativity is being backed by professional management. The growth potential is huge.
As the FM said, this is a Budget that lays the foundation for the next 25 years, observes Kumar Mangalam Birla.
Aditya Birla group firm Idea Cellular on Monday made an open offer to the shareholders of Spice Communications for acquiring additional 20 per cent stake in the telecom services provider for about Rs 1,066.63 crore (Rs 10.66 billion).
Aditya Birla group's Idea Cellular has signed a deal to acquire 40.8 per cent stake in Spice Communications for Rs 2,716 crore (Rs 27.16 billion).
Idea announced the lowest tariff for mobile users in the city offering all local calls for 40 paise per minute on its network for a period of one year, and STD and SMS at 50 paise per minute, on any mobile and landline network.
UltraTech said its board will meet on Tuesday to consider a proposal from Samruddhi Cement to merge the cement business of group with itself.
The proposed investment will be made in aluminium, cement, telecom, retail, among other sectors, in the state over the next few years. Birla, who was in the city to discuss some project related issues with Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, said the company also intends to launch its retail business in the state as part of its national roll out plan in the next six months.
A major top management level churn is on in the country's financial services space, with the Aditya Birla group emerging among the biggest beneficiaries of this shake-out as it has attracted a large number of executives from other companies.
The companies are expected to announce the deal soon.
While consulting firms and investment bankers preferred not to participate in the lateral placements as usual, sources say that companies such as KPMG, Aditya Birla Group, Barclays Bank, Microsoft, Infosys and Capgemini have issued the maximum number of offers.
Aditya Birla Group, Satyam Computer Services and Marriott Hotels India have been ranked as the top three employers in India.
The Aditya Birla Group company has already spent over Rs 3,000 crore on projects to take its production capacity from 17 million tonnes to 21.9 mt and plans to further scale up till 23.1 mt by June-end. K C Birla, chief financial officer, said, "We will continue to maintain our market share and, if required, we will go ahead with more capacity additions to ensure we don't become a loser in the market."
An interview with Andrew Denby, who took over as the CEO, Supermarkets, of the Aditya Birla Retail Ltd six months ago. Before joining the Aditya Birla group, he had worked for retail majors like Marks & Spencer, Dairy Farm, A S Watson, etc.
It will also close 30 unviable stores. The company's move comes after its net loss widened to Rs 141.2 crore in the March-ended quarter, owing to mounting losses in apparels. The loss was Rs 82.2 crore in the apparel business, against a loss of Rs 4.44 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous financial year.