Corporate India is busy restructuring - through mergers, demergers and splits. That seems to be the new normal as CXOs and boards brainstorm on how to create assets and value. The pitch rose significantly during the third quarter of this financial year (FY24), translating into $32.9-billion worth of such deals - the highest quarterly total since the HDFC Bank-HDFC merger announced in FY22 Q2.
Arjun Mohan, CEO of India operations of Think and Learn, which owns Byju's brand, has resigned from the beleaguered firm, which on Monday also announced a business rejig consolidating its operations into three verticals. Mohan had joined Byju's in July last year as the CEO for international business after quitting rival UpGrad in February as CEO. Later, he was given charge of India operations in September after Byju's then CEO Mrinal Mohit resigned. After taking over the charge, Mohan undertook restructuring of the organisation which led to layoffs of around 4,000 employees at Byju's.
The states have unanimously pitched for sole administrative powers to carry out assessment, scrutiny and enforcement for entities up to an annual turnover of Rs 1.5 crore.
Regulators find it difficult to track down illicit transactions with no limit on the number of subsidiaries.
Restructure oil PSUs on a selective basis: Pant
Avista helped some companies restructure their debt in such a way that overseas investors had to take a steep haircut
'Corporations that were recruiting 15 or 20 [students] have reduced the number to two or three.'
Check out some of the stocks that will react on the basis of their numbers in the near term.
Edtech firm Think and Learn Private Ltd, owner of Byju's, on Thursday said neither the company's founder and CEO Byju Raveendran nor any other board member will attend the extraordinary general meeting called by some select investors. Shareholders at Byju's are set to vote on Friday on a resolution brought by some investors to oust founder CEO Byju Raveendran and his family members over alleged "mismanagement and failures". Byju's has called the EGM "procedurally invalid" and contractually in contravention of the company's article of association and shareholder's agreement.
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has to "keep evolving" and be relevant to clients as generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) technologies emerge, K Krithivasan, chief executive officer and managing director of the IT company, has said in a New Year's message to employees. "It is always heartening to see the reinforcement of how strong our relationships are with our clients and the level of trust they place with us.
L&T surprised on the upside of consensus due to stronger-than-expected growth overseas. The Q1FY25 results were ahead of estimates on both revenue and net profit fronts. The company reported a 15 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) growth in revenues along with 15 per cent Y-o-Y growth in operating profit and 12 per cent Y-o-Y growth in net profit on consolidated basis.
rediffGURU Krishna Kumar, founder and CEO of GoMoTech, offers expert advice on how to scale up in your career and life.
According to the World Bank, economic growth in middle-income countries, including India, is not accelerating. 'In fact, it is slowing down as incomes increase, with the trend becoming more pronounced each decade.'
'It has changed the political character of India by ejecting socialism as an ideology from the Constitution of India.'
President Mohamed Muizzu, known for his pro-China stance, has thanked India for enabling the resumption of medical evacuation services with civilian aviation personnel from India.
The market could not make a clear assessment of Tech Mahindra with the stock swinging wildly in the last two sessions. The results on Thursday were expected to be weak but the stock dropped slightly. However, investors reviewed the three-year turnaround plan and decided the stock had been oversold and the price recovered 7.5 per cent.
'He was a practical person who ensured that he thought about the common man, animals, the fact that they have a life and they have to be respected.'
Logistics and delivery firm Dunzo plans to settle dues of former employees in next three months while it is regularising salary for its current employees, sources said. The firm backed by Reliance Retail and Google said that while its co-founder Davlir Suri has decided to leave the company, another co-founder Mukund Jha will continue be part of the strategic leadership team. "In June salary of 85 per cent employees were paid.
'We are going to need more technical people in government.' 'You can't expect a generalist to understand the complicated world of financial engineering.' 'I regret to say that most of our politicians have no competence to deal with these things. Nor is there a willingness to learn.'
Nearly 40 per cent of IITians sitting for placements in 2024 are yet to receive job offers, showing a doubling of the 'unplaced' in the last three years from 19 per cent in 2021-2022 to 38 per cent in 2023-2024.
Tata Steel UK is reformatting its operations in Port Talbot by investing 1.25 billion in an electric arc furnace facility with the UK government contributing 500 million. The project will take around three years to complete, if all the regulatory clearances come through. The facility will use scrap and be classified as green since it will utilise renewable power and cut carbon emissions considerably.
'What's sad today is that there are so many people who cannot find work, not because the country is devoid of that opportunity, but because we are not doing enough in the country.'
Despite taking a hit on profitability amid the pandemic, companies with strong balance sheets are gaining market share because of consolidation in their respective sectors.
'We are not in the race of how much is the revenue, but how good is the revenue.'
'Business families like the Godrej group are increasingly realising that an amicable settlement is better.' 'Else, the wealth of all shareholders gets destroyed.'
After startups and Big Tech, the layoff season may have begun at the $245 billion Indian information-technology (IT) industry. Bengaluru-based IT major Wipro is looking to cut hundreds of jobs, targeting mid-level employees working onsite as the company looks to improve margins, according to a media report, citing two sources. The company has said it is aligning its business and talent to the changing market environment.
The proposed changes in Long Products business will predominately affect management and administrative functions at sites in Scunthorpe, Teesside and Workington.
SoftBank-backed Inmobi has fired about 50-70 people on performance metrics. According to a source, the employees impacted are from Inmobi and the firm's lock screen-based content provider Glance. This comes even as the company announced that it will skip increments for CY23 and also undertake recruitment only when required. The Inmobi group has a total headcount of 2,600.
With 600-700 new NPA cases getting admitted into NCLT every month, the demand for resolution professionals is on the rise with their number more than doubling in less than a year.
The exercise part of drive to combine operations under single firm.
First case filed after new norms come into force, NCLT admits plea.
An Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) of Byju's shareholders got underway on Friday to vote on a resolution brought by some investors to ouster founder CEO Byju Raveendran and his family over alleged "mismanagement and failures". Raveendran and his family stayed away from the EGM, calling it "procedurally invalid."
A Chinese Navy warship capable of surveillance has docked at the Colombo port, nearly a year after another spy vessel berthed at a strategic port in the country and raised concerns in India.
Vedanta Resources (VRL), the diversified mining company headquartered in London, is giving final touches to a plan to raise up to $2.5 billion (about Rs 20,800 crore) as debt repayment deadlines near. The company owned by billionaire Anil Agarwal plans to do this by a combination of instruments, including issuing preference shares in the holding company to a slew of offshore investors from West Asia, and taking on another loan to refinance older debt at a higher interest rate. VRL, which is the group's holding company, is also looking to sell part of its 63.71 per cent stake in the Indian listed subsidiary Vedanta Ltd to meet funding requirements, said a banker close to the development.
Byju's plans to raise funds at a lower valuation of $7-8 billion as the embattled edtech major looks to shore up its financials with adequate liquidity, a senior company executive said on Tuesday. Banking on overall "improved performance", Think and Learn, the parent of Byju's, is hopeful of a higher valuation ahead of its rights issue being planned in February to raise funds. Byju's India chief financial officer Nitin Golani said the company is in need of funds and plans to raise it at a lower valuation to make the offer lucrative for investors as well as ensure adequate liquidity support for the edtech firm.
Facebook's parent company Meta announced on Tuesday it will fire another 10,000 people, implementing a second round of jobs cuts after it slashed 11,000 positions in November last year, to improve its financial performance in a "difficult environment". Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg said in a post that overall "we expect to reduce our team size by around 10,000 people and to close around 5,000 additional open roles that we haven't yet hired." The company has said that in its "Year of Efficiency", the company aims to make itself "a better technology company and to improve our financial performance in a difficult environment so we can execute our long-term vision."
Layoffs, corporate restructuring, governance and most importantly profitability: The 14 Indian startups that plan IPOs this year are pulling out all the stops to ensure successful market debuts.
From almost 60 per cent as of December 2019, the share of liquidations in the mode of closure of total Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) cases came down to 44 per cent till September 2023, data by the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) shows. Experts say the decreasing trend in liquidations under the IBC in India can be largely attributed to the initial economic conditions of companies entering the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP). IBC experts also say the trend shows a certain stabilisation in IBC with the Code now rid of legacy bankruptcy issues.
