News that you may have missed
Reliance Industries plans to invest Rs 1.5 lakh crore over three years,
said Chairman Mukesh Ambani at the recent annual general meeting in
Mumbai.
<em>Photo: Bhaskar Paul</em>
Reliance Industries plans to invest Rs 1.5 lakh crore over three years, said Chairman Mukesh Ambani at the recent annual general meeting in Mumbai. He is also betting big on telecom. His company, Reliance Jio Infocomm has inked a Rs 12,000 crore tower sharing deal with younger brother Anil Ambani's Reliance Communications.
CORPORATE
Apollo Tyres, promoted by Onkar S. Kanwar, will acquire 100 per cent stake in US-based tyre manufacturer Cooper Tire & Rubber Company for $2.5 billion (Rs14,500 crore). Apollo, set to be the world's seventh-largest tyre maker by revenue after the deal, will fund the acquisition fully by raising fresh debt. The deal will be the largest acquisition by an Indian company in the automotive sector, beating Tata Motors' acquisition of Jaguar Land Rover in 2008 for $2.3 billion.
The Central Bureau of Investigation has registered fresh cases in the coal block allocation scam against Congress MP Naveen Jindal and former Minister of State for Coal Dasari Narayana Rao for criminal misconduct, conspiracy and cheating. A first information report named Jindal Steel and Power Ltd and three other companies. Jindal is alleged to have bought shares in Rao's company, Sowbhagya Media, at a premium to market price as a quid pro quo for favourable allocation of a coal mine in Jharkhand in 2008.
Car sales in India fell for a record seventh consecutive month in May registering a decline of 12.26 per cent. Domestic passenger car sales in May stood at 143,216 units as against 163,222 units in the same month of 2012. Industry body SIAM jumped in to caution that the prolonged slump in the market could result in job losses in the automobile sector.
Fitch Ratings has revised India's outlook to stable from negative. The global ratings agency has taken note of the government measures to contain the budget deficit, Yet last month, Standard & Poor's warned India of a downgrade. The ratings agencies may have differing views on Indian economy, but the factory output showed the spreading gloom. The Index of Industrial Production registered a meagre 2.2 per cent rise in April, compared to 2.5 per cent in the previous month. The fall in the manufacturing index was led by a sharp decline in sub-sectors such as consumer durables and capital goods.
$76 bn The total size of etailing in India, or the business of selling retail goods on the Internet, by 2021. E-tailing, which is around 6 per cent of the total e-commerce, is estimated to be around $0.6 billion in 2012, according to a Technopak study.
$44.8 bn Information technology spending by companies in India in 2014. The IT spending will expand by about $10 billion between 2012 and 2014, according to a report by IDC. Cloud computing and enterprise mobility will drive the growth. The Tier II and Tier III cities, as well as emerging verticals such as education and healthcare, will ensure boost in IT spending.
MARKETS
The government has hiked the investment limit for foreign portfolio investors in government bonds by $5 billion to $30 billion.
The enhanced limit will be available only to foreign central banks, sovereign wealth funds, multilateral agencies, endowment funds, insurance funds and pension funds.
The mutual fund industry posted five per cent growth in average assets under management, or AUM, to touch an all-time high of Rs8.68 lakh crore in May on the back of strong inflows into money market and income funds. The country's 44 fund houses had recorded higher funds in May compared to the previous inflow of Rs8.26 lakh crore in January 2013.
COMING UP
CORPORATE
Onkar S. Kanwar
- Sun Pharmaceuticals will pay Pfizer and Takeda $550 million to settle a patent dispute over pantoprazle in the US. The global sales with this anti-ulcer drug as the key ingredient are estimated at $8 billion.
- With Samsung and Apple, along with a handful of local manufacturers, cashing in on India's love for tablets, their global rival Amazon has decided to launch its popular Kindle Fire HD series of tablets in the country. These will be available in India from June 27 through Amazon.in.
- Facebook is taking a leaf out of Twitter and similar services books by introducing hashtags. These will help to identify topics being discussed and allow users to search for them.
Naveen Jindal
- Big Brother is watching us all the time. Revelations that America's National Security Agency is monitoring phone and Internet data at Web giants such as Google Inc and Facebook Inc have raised concerns across the world.
- Wealth in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) saw near double-digit growth at 9.1 per cent in 2012, says the latest Boston Consulting Group's annual global wealth management report. Qatar has the highest density of millionaires in the world, with 14.3 per cent of the oil-rich Gulf nation's population holding private wealth of at least $1 million. Kuwait ranks third with 11.5 per cent, while Bahrain (4.9 per cent) and the UAE (4.0 per cent) rank seventh and ninth, respectively.
Fitch Ratings has revised India's outlook to stable from negative. The global ratings agency has taken note of the government measures to contain the budget deficit, Yet last month, Standard & Poor's warned India of a downgrade. The ratings agencies may have differing views on Indian economy, but the factory output showed the spreading gloom. The Index of Industrial Production registered a meagre 2.2 per cent rise in April, compared to 2.5 per cent in the previous month. The fall in the manufacturing index was led by a sharp decline in sub-sectors such as consumer durables and capital goods.
$76 bn The total size of etailing in India, or the business of selling retail goods on the Internet, by 2021. E-tailing, which is around 6 per cent of the total e-commerce, is estimated to be around $0.6 billion in 2012, according to a Technopak study.
$44.8 bn Information technology spending by companies in India in 2014. The IT spending will expand by about $10 billion between 2012 and 2014, according to a report by IDC. Cloud computing and enterprise mobility will drive the growth. The Tier II and Tier III cities, as well as emerging verticals such as education and healthcare, will ensure boost in IT spending.
MARKETS
The government has hiked the investment limit for foreign portfolio investors in government bonds by $5 billion to $30 billion.
The enhanced limit will be available only to foreign central banks, sovereign wealth funds, multilateral agencies, endowment funds, insurance funds and pension funds.
The mutual fund industry posted five per cent growth in average assets under management, or AUM, to touch an all-time high of Rs8.68 lakh crore in May on the back of strong inflows into money market and income funds. The country's 44 fund houses had recorded higher funds in May compared to the previous inflow of Rs8.26 lakh crore in January 2013.
COMING UP
- US Secretary of State John Kerry will arrive in Delhi on June 24 for a strategic dialogue. The India-US CEOs Forum is set to meet in July. Prime MInister Manmohan Singh is set to visit the U.S. in September-October.
- The government is likely to conduct the third round of spectrum auction within 70 days of receiving approval from an empowered group of ministers. The eGoM is to decide on auction of 2G spectrum in 1800 Mhz band, premium airwaves frequency in the 900 Mhz band and CDMA spectrum that remained unsold in March.
