Byju Raveendran, CEO and founder of the eponymous edtech giant, has told shareholders that the company will set up a board advisory committee (BAC). This was part of a discussion on July 4 with shareholders at an emergency general meeting (EGM). Raveendran also said that in the next EGM in three weeks will give details about BAC's members and composition.
Vedanta group chairman, Anil Agarwal, 69, is well known for his business journey from a scrap dealer from Bihar to a London-based globe-girdling metal and oil and gas conglomerate with revenues of $19 billion. Now his abilities to keep his group from over-leveraging itself will be put to the test. Over the years, Agarwal, now based in London, set up the conglomerate via acquiring iron ore producer Sesa Goa, Cairn's oil producing assets in India, and Electrosteel Steel.
Mining magnate Anil Agarwal's conglomerate on Friday announced a major business shake-up, with flagship Vedanta Ltd approving a spin-off of its metals, power, aluminium and oil and gas businesses into separate listed entities and an overhaul of lucrative zinc unit planned as part of value creation and reducing debt load. Vedanta will issue one share of the five demerged businesses for every share held in the company, the firm said in a statement. The entire exercise, which would require shareholder and lender approval as well as a nod from the stock exchanges and courts, is expected to be completed in 12-15 months, its president for finance Ajay Agarwal said.
The company's comments came a day after Gandhi alleged in Lok Sabha that 'Mumbai airport, was taken away from GVK using agencies such as the CBI and the ED, and was given to Adani by the Government of India'.
The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal has directed the new board of the debt-ridden IL&FS Group to distribute Rs 16,361 crore of cash and InvIT units available across the Group to its creditors on pro-rata basis. The interim distribution award of Rs 16,361 crore includes Rs 11,296 crore in cash and Rs 5,065 crore in InvIT units (Infrastructure Investment Trusts) and a majority of this is to be distributed to the creditors of three large group firms -- IL&FS, IFIN and ITNL. "The interim distribution shall be confined only to the entities as reflected in Annexure-6 except those excluded and for the amount of Rs 16,361 crores i.e Rs 11,296 crore of cash and Rs 5,065 crores of InvIT Units," said an order by a two-member NCLAT bench headed by Chairperson Justice Ashok Bhushan.
Two Reliance group firms - Reliance Consumer Products Ltd (RCPL) and Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL) - have announced an open offer to acquire a 26 per cent additional stake in Lotus Chocolate. The firms will together acquire 33.38 lakh shares of Lotus Chocolate from the open market at a fixed price of Rs 115.50 per share, said a notice by DAM Capital, which is managing the offer. The offer will aggregate to a total consideration of Rs 38.56 crore over the full acceptance, said an open offer-detailed public statement shared by the company with stock exchanges on Thursday.
The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday carried out raids at the office of Young Indian and questioned Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge for more than seven hours as part of an ongoing money laundering probe linked to the National Herald case, officials said.
The billionaire Mistry family's estate is likely to soon change hands. The assets in the name of Cyrus Mistry, who died in September last year, may soon be divided equally among his wife Rohiqa and sons Firoz and Zahan, according to sources. The reorganisation will also include the 9.2 per cent stake in Tata Sons, which is currently in Cyrus Mistry's name and held through his investment company Cyrus Investments.
Missing the deadline for filing Income Tax returns can lead to consequences.
The growing mismatch between Go First's losses and other group companies' profits was making it tough for the group to fund the losses of the airline venture.
Audit firm Deloitte has resigned as auditors of Byju's citing a delay in submission of financial statements while almost simultaneously three of the edtech firm's board members have quit in what is being seen as a deepening crisis at the decacorn. Deloitte Haskins & Sells, which was slated to audit Byju's until 2025, stepped down with "immediate effect" mid-term stating that "the financial statements of the company are long delayed. In a letter sent to the board of Think & Learn Pvt Ltd (known as Byju's), Deloitte said it has not been able to start an audit due to the delays and that will have a "significant impact" on its ability to "plan, design perform and complete" the audit as per standards.
The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday resumed its raids at the office of Young Indian (YI), the holding company of Congress owned newspaper National Herald, after senior party leader Mallikarjun Kharge presented himself before agency officials at the Herald House building in New Delhi.
Billionaire Gautam Adani's group on Monday listed out details of the $2.87 billion stake sales in group firms since 2019 and how $2.55 billion of this was ploughed back into business, as it looked to counter Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's claim of Rs 20,000 crore coming in to the conglomerate through 'shell companies'. While investors such as Abu Dhabi-based global strategic investment company, International Holding Company PJSC (IHC) invested $2.593 billion in group firms such as Adani Enterprise Ltd and Adani Green Energy Ltd (AGEL), promoters sold stake in Adani Total Gas Ltd and AGEL to raise $2.783 billion. "These funds were reinvested by promoter entities to support the growth of new business and in portfolio companies such as Adani Enterprises Ltd, Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd, Adani Transmission Ltd and Adani Power Ltd," the group said.
As many as 49 players including Reliance Retail, Jindal Power Ltd and Adani group have submitted Expression of Interest (EoI) for acquiring the assets of debt-ridden Future Retail, which is currently going through insolvency resolution process. Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd, which is the holding company for retail operations of RIL and April Moon Retail Private Ltd, a joint venture between Adani Airport holdings and Flemingo group have again submitted their EOI, after the lenders of Future Retail decided to invite fresh bids after dividing FRL's assets into clusters. According to an update from FRL's Resolution Professional, the 49 players would be permitted to submit "resolution plan(s) for any/all such Clusters under Option II".
A spate of recent orders under the Indigenously Designed Developed and Manufactured (IDDM) category have led to investor focus on defence stocks. Actually, the defence index has been an outperformer for a long while with public sector undertakings (PSUs) like Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL), Bharat Electronics (BEL), Bharat Dynamics (BDL), Garden Reach Shipbuilders Engineers (GRSE), Cochin Shipyard and Goa Shipyard being beneficiaries of the policy.
The $8.5 billion TVS Group received final approval for a family resettlement on February 4 from the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT). It is an arrangement that is noteworthy because unlike many other corporate settlements this one was sorted out amicably and without any open conflicts.
The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) on Monday gave its approval to Jio for the acquisition of Reliance Infratel (RITL). The tribunal asked Jio to deposit Rs 3,720 crore in the State Bank of India (SBI) escrow account to complete the acquisition of RCOM's tower and fibre assets. On November 6, Jio had proposed to deposit Rs 3,720 crore in an escrow account to complete the acquisition of Reliance Infratel which is undergoing an insolvency resolution process.
The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) on Friday approved the transfer of ownership of bankrupt-Jet Airways to the Jalan Kalrock consortium and gave the winning bidder more time to pay the dues to the creditors. The latest rulings have come on two petitions filed by the consortium. One plea pertained to approval of transfer of ownership and the second one related to extension of time for the payment of dues to the creditors. Earlier, the tribunal had given time till November 16, 2022 for the consortium to make the payments to the creditors of the airline.
As part of the exercise, each family will get complete ownership of the businesses it manages while scrapping the holding company.
The government is not in a "crazy rush" to sell everything and it will continue to have a presence in four strategic sectors, including telecom, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Saturday. In strategic sectors, a bare minimum presence of the existing public sector commercial enterprises at the holding company level will be retained under government control. The remaining enterprises in a strategic sector will be considered for privatisation or merger with another PSE or for closure.
Mining mogul Anil Agarwal-led Vedanta Resources' credit profile will unlikely be weighed down by the group's planned Rs 1.54 lakh crore foray into semiconductor manufacturing, S&P Global Ratings said on Monday. "This is because the company has reiterated that the $20 billion related investment will be carried out outside of Vedanta Resources. "The business will be undertaken in a separate entity under Vedanta Resources' holding company Volcan Investments Ltd," it said.
Tata Sons shareholders have approved a resolution to have separate chairpersons for the company and its largest shareholder -- Tata Trusts. An amendment to the articles of association (AoA) of Tata Sons, which sought to prevent a single person heading Tata Sons as well as Tata Trusts simultaneously, was passed at the company's annual general meeting (AGM) held on Tuesday. With the special resolution being passed with requisite majority of 75 per cent at the AGM, it will now be legally binding for Tata Sons and Tata Trusts to have separate chairpersons.
If Cyrus's protestations of having no knowledge of his imminent dismissal are to be taken at face value, he was extraordinarily naive and insulated from the ground reality. There were enough straws in the wind to suggest that his relations with Ratan were fast deteriorating to a point of no return.
'Devika is a people's person, who simply loves what she does. This reflects in her work; the insights she brings to the table and the way she interacts with people and clients. She has the demeanour of a good captain. Her success is well-deserved.'
The Union Budget 2021-22 has made it easier for sovereign wealth funds and pension funds to invest in Indian infrastructure projects, but some of the new rules may need more clarity, experts said. The proposed regime requiring investments through holding companies may have adverse tax implications for such funds and may create an arbitrage between the new and old projects, they said. Besides, the ownership structure of holding companies through which investments are to be made requires further clarification, they added.
The restructuring, which will involve nine listed companies, including TVS Motor, Sundaram Clayton, Sundram Fasteners, TVS Electronics and TVS Srichakra, among others, will give each family group complete ownership of businesses they manage while scrapping the holding company.
Germany-based Mutares SE & Co will acquire 80 per cent controlling stake in Mahindra & Mahindra's French unit Peugeot Motocycles. In a statement, the Mumbai-based auto major on Thursday said Mutares has submitted an irrevocable binding offer to acquire 50 per cent of equity and a controlling stake of 80 per cent in France-based Peugeot Motocycles (PMTC). As part of the deal, Purple, a fully-owned entity of Mutares Holding, would invest 7 million euros in PMTC, which would entitle it to a 50 per cent shareholding and 80.01 per cent voting rights in the French firm.
Reliance Industries Ltd will acquire German firm Metro AG's wholesale operations in India for Rs 2,850 crore as the conglomerate run by billionaire Mukesh Ambani seeks to strengthen its dominant position in India's mammoth retail sector. "Reliance Retail Ventures Limited (RRVL), a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Ltd, signed definitive agreements to acquire a 100 per cent equity stake in Metro Cash & Carry India for a total cash consideration of Rs 2,850 crore, subject to closing adjustments," said a joint statement. Through this acquisition, Reliance Retail will get access to a network of Metro India stores located in prime locations across key cities, along with a large base of registered kiranas and other institutional customers, and a strong supplier network.
The Delhi high court dismissed the appeals of WhatsApp and Facebook on Thursday against an order rejecting their challenge to a probe ordered by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) into the instant messaging platform's updated privacy policy of 2021.
The Adani Group on Friday said it has acquired 27.26 per cent equity stake in NDTV from Prannoy Roy and his wife Radhika Roy -- founders of the news broadcaster. "RRPR, an indirect subsidiary of the company and member of the promoter/promoter group of NDTV, has acquired a 27.26 per cent equity stake in NDTV from Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy by way of inter-se transfer...," said a regulatory filing from Adani Enterprises. On December 23, Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy had announced to sell 27.26 per cent out of their remaining 32.26 per cent shareholding in the NDTV to the Adani Group.
Richest Indian Gautam Adani's conglomerate has cited an improved net debt to operating profit ratio and more than halving of loans from public sector banks to allay concerns about it being overleveraged. In a 15-page note in response to CreditSights report calling the group overleveraged, it said companies in the group have consistently de-levered, with the net debt to Ebitda ratio declining to 3.2 times from 7.6 times in the last nine years. "The businesses operate on a simple yet robust and repeatable business model focused on development and origination, operations and management and capital management plan," the note, reviewed by PTI, said.
News, as a business, faces its biggest crisis ever, globally. To fight it needs investment in feet-on-the-ground journalism, tech tools like artificial intelligence among other things.
In the centre of an ownership battle with Adani Group, New Delhi Television (NDTV) can prevent a takeover by the group if it can buy more shares from public shareholders, corporate lawyers told Business Standard. On Tuesday, the media arm of Adani Group said it had exercised rights to acquire an indirect stake of 29.18 per cent in NDTV through conversion of loans into equity in a promoter group entity of NDTV. This will trigger a mandatory open offer for an additional 26 per cent stake in NDTV, even as the broadcaster said its founder promoters had neither consented to the exercise of rights nor was any conversation or input given on the matter.
Shareholders of Tata Sons, the holding company and promoter of Tata group companies, have approved the reappointment of N Chandrasekaran as chairman for another five-year term despite its single largest shareholder the Shapoorji Pallonji family abstaining from voting, according to sources. In February this year, the Board of Tata Sons had approved the reappointment of Chandrasekaran as executive chairman for another five years till February 2027, subject to shareholders' approval. At the shareholders meeting held on Monday, the proposal for Chandrasekaran's reappointment for a second term needed more than 50 per cent of votes as it was an ordinary resolution.
Max Group founder and chairman Analjit Singh has on Monday refuted the allegations made against him in a petition filed with the NCLT, terming it as "downright untruthful". Singh has said he will contest these allegations in the NCLT hearing. "Apart from being downright untruthful, what is even more anguishing is the agenda with which these reports have been encouraged and planted while the matter is sub judice," said a statement put on BSE by Max quoting Analjit Singh.
A consortium of lenders led by State Bank of India (SBI) has agreed to provide loans to Tata Group for the smooth operations of loss-making Air India. Tata Group, which won the bid to acquire the national carrier along with Air India Express and 50 per cent stake in AISATS in October last year, is expected to formally takeover the airline on Thursday. Sources said the SBI-led consortium has agreed to grant both term loans and working capital loans depending on the airline's requirements. All large lenders, including Punjab National Bank, Bank of Baroda, and Union Bank of India, are part of the consortium, they added.
The TVS family has been engaged, for more than a century, in a diverse range of businesses through various entities in which the branches of the TVS family have invested in or through T V Sundaram Iyengar & Sons, Sundaram Industries, and Southern Roadways - collectively referred to as the TVS Holding Companies.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday temporarily sealed the premises of Young Indian (YI) in the Congress-owned National Herald office in Delhi as part of an ongoing money laundering investigation, official sources said.
RRBs were formed under an Act to provide credit to small farmers, agricultural labourers and businesses in rural areas.
The country's largest retailer Reliance Industries on Monday announced that it will enter the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) business this year as part of its expansion plan. Addressing the 45th AGM of Reliance Industries on Monday, Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL) Director Isha Ambani said: "This year, we will launch our FMCG goods business". The objective of this business will be to develop and deliver products and solve every Indian's daily needs, with high-quality products at affordable pricing, she said while addressing Reliance Industries' annual general meeting.