The parliament on Tuesday passed the Companies Amendment Bill by voice vote. The amendment proposes to strengthen corporate governance standards, initiate strict action against defaulting companies and will also help the ease of doing business in India. The bill was already passed in the Lok Sabha in the Monsoon Session and now the Rajya Sabha has also passed by voice vote. The amendment will also make an attempt to ensure that companies take their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities more seriously and in a more substantive manner.
In one of the major deals in the ecommerce space, Ola bought out Foodpanda in an all-stock deal worth $200 million. This marks Ola’s second entry into the food distribution business. Ola’s biggest rival in the taxi rental business, Uber, has already launched Uber Eats which is synthesis of the transport and the food delivery business. The Ola infusion will be largely used to scale up Foodpanda’s India business. Foodpanda is part of the Hero Delivery AG group of Germany. Foodpanda currently serves over 15,000 restaurants in India across more than 100 cities. The company is still deep into losses.
HDFC has plans for a massive fund raising to the tune of Rs.13,000 crore ($2.1 billion) which will be used to infuse funds into its banking arm as also to acquire stressed assets. The funds will be raised through the issue of shares or CCDs. Out of the Rs.13,000 crore nearly Rs.8500 crore will be used to subscribe to the preferential issue of HDFC Bank. HDFC will participate in the preferential issue of HDFC Bank to ensure that its overall stake in the bank does not fall. HDFC Bank is a crown in the jewel of HDFC as the unrecognized profit on its HDFC Bank Holdings itself is worth Rs.96,000 crore.
Tata Steel plans to raise $2 billion to fund its India expansion. Demand for steel is likely to triple in the next few years due to an explosion in demand coming from the infrastructure and the auto sector. Tata Steel will not only use to funds to acquire new mills but also to repay high cost debt. To begin with, the capacity of its Kalinganagar plant will be increased by 5 million metric tonnes, which will boost Tata Steel’s total capacity to 18 million tonnes. India currently consumes about 80 million tonnes of steel annually which is expected to rise to 240 million tonnes by 2030.
The world’s valuable company, Apple Inc, may have appreciated 50% during the year but it has received a rate analyst downgrade from Nomura Instinet. Jeffery Kvaal of Nomura Instinet is of the view that the Iphone-X sales and most of the short term positive visibility is already priced into the market. Kvaal also believes that the overall supercycle of smart phones may have entered its final phase meaning that the company may not have much head room left from here. Analysts have been believing for some time that buyers may increasingly prefer the cheaper versions of the IPhone than the more pricey ones. The big worry for Apple is also that after the Iphone it has really not had any great breakthrough product. The I-pad has really been a non-starter and failed to set the market on fire like the Iphone or the Mac.
As part of a major restructuring exercise, one of India’s oldest and most reputed media houses NDTV is looking to cut its workforce by 25% and focus more on its core business. A few months back NDTV had shut down its business channel, NDTV Profit, and it has been facing stiff completion from players like Times Now and Republic who have managed to capture eyeballs with their higher loud and virulent form of journalism. NDTV originally started off as a content company and that is what the company may not focus on. The company is also currently having problems with the investigating agencies.
