Bengaluru: European aircraft major Airbus, which had sourced more than $400 million worth of components from India in the past year, has signed an agreement with Bengaluru-based Dynamatic Technologies for supply of flap-track beams for its A-330 wide-body planes, for an undisclosed sum.
Under the pact, touted as the largest manufacturing contract between Airbus and a private sector company in India, Dynamatic will assemble all the flap track beams from its Bengaluru facility. Flap track beams are used in the wings of an aircraft.
In the second phase, it will be responsible for the entire supply chain of these beams including sourcing materials, manufacturing and final assembly.
“Airbus partnership with Dynamatic signifies our commitment towards developing the aerospace supply chain in India and thereby supporting thousands of highly-skilled jobs,” Srinivasan Dwarakanath, managing director, Airbus India told reporters.
Dynamatic has manufactured flap-track beam assemblies for Airbus A320 family as a global single-source basis as a tier-2 supplier, from 2010. As part of the agreement, the Indian firm will be the single-source supplier of flap-track beams for the wide-body Airbus A330 family planes, the company said.
With this deal, Dynamatic has emerged as a tier-1 supplier to Airbus. “Through these partnerships, we can proudly claim that there’s a bit of Made in India in all our aircraft programmes,” Dwarakanath said.
Success in my Habit
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
Infosys to acquire automation technology provider Panaya for $200 mn
Bengaluru: In line with the strategy laid out by its Chief Executive and Managing Director Vishal Sikka, Infosys on Monday said it would buy Panaya, which provides automation technology, in an all-cash deal of $200 million (about Rs 1,244 crore). The company said it was expecting all the senior management and employees of Panaya to join. They would report to Abdul Razack, senior vice-president and head (analytics and big data).
The valuation is six times Panaya’s revenues, Infosys said, adding it was a good buy considering the “tremendous piece of technology” Panaya brought to the table. Subject to customary conditions, the transaction is likely to close before March 31.
This will be the Bengaluru-based information technology services company’s second largest acquisition so far. The largest was of Zurich, Switzerland-headquartered management consulting firm Lodestone for $345 million (Rs 1,930 crore) in September 2012.
“The acquisition of Panaya is a key step in renewing and differentiating our service lines. This will help amplify the potential of our people, freeing us from the drudgery of many repetitive tasks, so we may focus more on the important, strategic challenges faced by our clients,” Sikka said in a statement. “At the same time, Panaya’s proven technology helps dramatically simplify the costs and complexities faced by businesses in managing their enterprise application landscapes,” he added.
Founded in 2006, the California, US-headquartered Panaya provides cloud-based services for large-scale enterprise software management. The company, with a little over 400 active accounts from clients such as GE, Coca-Cola, Mercedes-Benz, Apple and Johnson & Johnson, has so far raised about $59 million from private equity players such as Benchmark Capital, Hasso Plattner Ventures, Battery Ventures and Israel Growth Partners. Most of its 156 employees are in Israel.
“I have been a student and admirer of this amazing country [Israel]. It has emerged as the most concentrated area for innovative start-up companies. With this acquisition, we will also have a presence in Israel,” Sikka said during an investor meeting late evening on Monday.
Since assuming charge as the Infosys chief in August last year, Sikka has repeatedly said the company would buy “technologies of tomorrow” in areas such as automation, artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data and analytics. During an analyst call in December, Sikka said Infosys had an “active inorganic strategy” to supplement its growth.
The Panaya acquisition is part of the company’s “renew and new” strategy to increase competitiveness and productivity, Infosys said on Monday. As of December 31, Infosys had cash and cash equivalents of Rs 34,773 crore ($5.53 billion).
Unlike its rivals such as Cognizant and HCL Technologies, Infosys is not seen as an aggressive buyer, notwithstanding its huge cash reserves. Since its inception, the company has acquired only five businesses, including two in the business process management (BPM) market — McCamish ($58 million) and Portland Group (A$34 million).
“We are excited about leveraging Infosys’s global reach, service footprint and broad customer base to deliver compelling, simplifying value to clients. I am confident this integrated proposition will uniquely position Infosys as the services leader in the enterprise application services market,” said Panaya Chief Executive Doron Gerstel.
The transaction is expected to close before March 31, 2015, subject to customary closing conditions.
The valuation is six times Panaya’s revenues, Infosys said, adding it was a good buy considering the “tremendous piece of technology” Panaya brought to the table. Subject to customary conditions, the transaction is likely to close before March 31.
This will be the Bengaluru-based information technology services company’s second largest acquisition so far. The largest was of Zurich, Switzerland-headquartered management consulting firm Lodestone for $345 million (Rs 1,930 crore) in September 2012.
“The acquisition of Panaya is a key step in renewing and differentiating our service lines. This will help amplify the potential of our people, freeing us from the drudgery of many repetitive tasks, so we may focus more on the important, strategic challenges faced by our clients,” Sikka said in a statement. “At the same time, Panaya’s proven technology helps dramatically simplify the costs and complexities faced by businesses in managing their enterprise application landscapes,” he added.
Founded in 2006, the California, US-headquartered Panaya provides cloud-based services for large-scale enterprise software management. The company, with a little over 400 active accounts from clients such as GE, Coca-Cola, Mercedes-Benz, Apple and Johnson & Johnson, has so far raised about $59 million from private equity players such as Benchmark Capital, Hasso Plattner Ventures, Battery Ventures and Israel Growth Partners. Most of its 156 employees are in Israel.
“I have been a student and admirer of this amazing country [Israel]. It has emerged as the most concentrated area for innovative start-up companies. With this acquisition, we will also have a presence in Israel,” Sikka said during an investor meeting late evening on Monday.
Since assuming charge as the Infosys chief in August last year, Sikka has repeatedly said the company would buy “technologies of tomorrow” in areas such as automation, artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data and analytics. During an analyst call in December, Sikka said Infosys had an “active inorganic strategy” to supplement its growth.
The Panaya acquisition is part of the company’s “renew and new” strategy to increase competitiveness and productivity, Infosys said on Monday. As of December 31, Infosys had cash and cash equivalents of Rs 34,773 crore ($5.53 billion).
Unlike its rivals such as Cognizant and HCL Technologies, Infosys is not seen as an aggressive buyer, notwithstanding its huge cash reserves. Since its inception, the company has acquired only five businesses, including two in the business process management (BPM) market — McCamish ($58 million) and Portland Group (A$34 million).
“We are excited about leveraging Infosys’s global reach, service footprint and broad customer base to deliver compelling, simplifying value to clients. I am confident this integrated proposition will uniquely position Infosys as the services leader in the enterprise application services market,” said Panaya Chief Executive Doron Gerstel.
The transaction is expected to close before March 31, 2015, subject to customary closing conditions.
293 companies pledge 266 GW clean power
New Delhi: Ambitious renewable energy plans of the Narendra Modi government have captured the imagination of investors.
Close to 300 global and domestic companies have committed to generate 266,000 mega watts (or 266 giga watts) of solar, wind, mini-hydel and bio-mass based power in India over the next 5-10 years.
At a likely average cost of `7-8 crore per mega watt, the 266-GW commitment would translate into an investment of close to `18-21 lakh crore or $310-350 billion.
“Around 293 firms have shown interest to set up renewable power plants in the country and some have assured to manufacture equipment as well,” secretary of ministry of new and renewable energy, Upendra Tripathi, revealed at the first Renewable Energy Global Investors Meet (RE-Invest) in the Capital on Sunday.
In line with Modi’s Make in India plan, the government has also got assurances for setting up close to 50,000 mw of manufacturing and EPC facilities for solar and wind power.
“Renewable energy is one of the 25 sectors identified under Make in India campaign..To create jobs in India, we have to drive the manufacturing sector. I want to see India becoming a renewable energy hub,” power, coal and renewable energy minister Piyush Goyal said.
“What we inherited is a mere 6% share of renewable energy in the India energy basket...and we are looking to expand (it) to over 15% in the next 10 or 12 years,” he said. India’s total renewable energy capacity is around 34,000 mw at present, and Modi is targeting a five-fold capacity increase, he added.
Close to 300 global and domestic companies have committed to generate 266,000 mega watts (or 266 giga watts) of solar, wind, mini-hydel and bio-mass based power in India over the next 5-10 years.
At a likely average cost of `7-8 crore per mega watt, the 266-GW commitment would translate into an investment of close to `18-21 lakh crore or $310-350 billion.
“Around 293 firms have shown interest to set up renewable power plants in the country and some have assured to manufacture equipment as well,” secretary of ministry of new and renewable energy, Upendra Tripathi, revealed at the first Renewable Energy Global Investors Meet (RE-Invest) in the Capital on Sunday.
In line with Modi’s Make in India plan, the government has also got assurances for setting up close to 50,000 mw of manufacturing and EPC facilities for solar and wind power.
“Renewable energy is one of the 25 sectors identified under Make in India campaign..To create jobs in India, we have to drive the manufacturing sector. I want to see India becoming a renewable energy hub,” power, coal and renewable energy minister Piyush Goyal said.
“What we inherited is a mere 6% share of renewable energy in the India energy basket...and we are looking to expand (it) to over 15% in the next 10 or 12 years,” he said. India’s total renewable energy capacity is around 34,000 mw at present, and Modi is targeting a five-fold capacity increase, he added.
Ireland welcomes Indian pharma manufacturing units, offers sops
Hyderabad: Ireland is looking to attract more Indian pharmaceutical firms such as Dr Reddy's and Lupin to set up manufacturing plants by offering tax incentives, having already persuaded some of them to do so.
The European country, which has emerged as the world's largest net exporter of medicines worth 55 billion euros, has already attracted Indian pharmaceutical companies such as Ranbaxy, Wockhardt and Reliance Life Sciences among others.
The island nation currently has plants of eight out of the top 10 global drug makers such as Pfizer. Some of the key attractions include the low cost of real estate and living, apart from the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe.
A delegation of representatives from the Investment and Development Agency (IDA), which seeks out investments, was in Hyderabad recently to explore opportunities. "We are in talks with more Indian phar-maceutical companies in a bid to attract them to invest in Ireland given our strengths in R&D base, API process technologies and highly qualified workforce, apart from attractive cost and tax structures," said India chapter director John Kilmartin. "We attracted six investments from India last year and expecting at least eight investments this year."
Ireland has been encouraging global pharmaceutical firms to set up their manufacturing base in the country and medicines account for nearly half the country's total exports. In the last three years alone, the country managed to attract $3 billion of foreign direct investment into the biopharmaceuticals sector.
Apart from medicine makers that together pumped in over $200 million, Indian technology companies have also invested in Ireland over the years. These include Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services, Tech Mahindra and HCL, among others.
"Ireland is indeed an attractive destination for most pharmaceutical and biotech companies given a strong investment support system, modern infrastructure not to mention access to a highly skilled pharmaceutical workforce," said a Lupin's spokesperson.
Ireland offers the advantage of providing access to the European Union, said India Ratings' pharma analyst Avinash Lodha.
The European country, which has emerged as the world's largest net exporter of medicines worth 55 billion euros, has already attracted Indian pharmaceutical companies such as Ranbaxy, Wockhardt and Reliance Life Sciences among others.
The island nation currently has plants of eight out of the top 10 global drug makers such as Pfizer. Some of the key attractions include the low cost of real estate and living, apart from the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe.
A delegation of representatives from the Investment and Development Agency (IDA), which seeks out investments, was in Hyderabad recently to explore opportunities. "We are in talks with more Indian phar-maceutical companies in a bid to attract them to invest in Ireland given our strengths in R&D base, API process technologies and highly qualified workforce, apart from attractive cost and tax structures," said India chapter director John Kilmartin. "We attracted six investments from India last year and expecting at least eight investments this year."
Ireland has been encouraging global pharmaceutical firms to set up their manufacturing base in the country and medicines account for nearly half the country's total exports. In the last three years alone, the country managed to attract $3 billion of foreign direct investment into the biopharmaceuticals sector.
Apart from medicine makers that together pumped in over $200 million, Indian technology companies have also invested in Ireland over the years. These include Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services, Tech Mahindra and HCL, among others.
"Ireland is indeed an attractive destination for most pharmaceutical and biotech companies given a strong investment support system, modern infrastructure not to mention access to a highly skilled pharmaceutical workforce," said a Lupin's spokesperson.
Ireland offers the advantage of providing access to the European Union, said India Ratings' pharma analyst Avinash Lodha.
PM and Michael Bloomberg announce partnership to advance the Smart Cities Initiative
New Delhi: The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, and former Mayor of New York City, Mr. Michael Bloomberg, today announced a partnership between Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India, to advance the "Smart Cities Initiative."
The Smart Cities Initiative is a historic effort to promote economic growth, improve governance, and deliver more effective and efficient public services to India's urban residents. Under the partnership, Bloomberg Philanthropies will provide assistance to the Ministry of Urban Development to select cities for Smart Cities Mission funding on a continuous basis. This approach is different from the conventional approach, which involved preparation of Detailed Project Reports, and their appraisal and approval by the Central Government. It will ensure that real citizen engagement happens, as people get involved both in design and execution of city development plans. This will actualize the idea of cooperative and competitive federalism.
The Prime Minister described the Smart Cities Initiative as a challenging task, which nevertheless has to be undertaken to improve the quality of life for India's urban citizens with stakeholder's participation.
The Smart Cities Initiative is a historic effort to promote economic growth, improve governance, and deliver more effective and efficient public services to India's urban residents. Under the partnership, Bloomberg Philanthropies will provide assistance to the Ministry of Urban Development to select cities for Smart Cities Mission funding on a continuous basis. This approach is different from the conventional approach, which involved preparation of Detailed Project Reports, and their appraisal and approval by the Central Government. It will ensure that real citizen engagement happens, as people get involved both in design and execution of city development plans. This will actualize the idea of cooperative and competitive federalism.
The Prime Minister described the Smart Cities Initiative as a challenging task, which nevertheless has to be undertaken to improve the quality of life for India's urban citizens with stakeholder's participation.
World's first 3D printer-cum-scanner unveiled
SAN JOSE: The world's first compact 3D printer-cum-scanner that can also scan items has been unveiled at the American Association Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in San Jose, California.
Blacksmith Group start-up at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) launched Saturday the user-friendly all-in-one device, named the Blacksmith Genesis.
The $2,200 device allows users to scan any item, and then edit the digitized model on the computer and print it out in 3D, Lester Kok, assistant manager of NTU's Corporate Communications Office, told Xinhua news agency Sunday.
"Most 3D printers sold on the market now are not really user-friendly as their 3D models and blueprints usually have to be designed from scratch on the computer," Kok said, "but Blacksmith Genesis doesn't require much knowledge of 3D software."
Unlike other commercial 3D printers, Blacksmith Genesis uses an innovative rotary platform for its printing and scanning. This patent-pending revolving platform allows for true 360-degrees scanning, and can print items up to 6,650 cubic cm, twice the size of those printed by other similar-sized 3D printers in the market.
With a fine resolution of 50 micrometres, the reproductions will be twice as detailed compared to other compact 3D printers. Likewise, scanning of objects with its five megapixel camera takes only six minutes, twice as fast as other 3D scanners in the market.
Another unique feature of Blacksmith Genesis is its remote live monitoring and automatic error detection using an in-built camera. Users can also monitor the printing process on their smartphone from anywhere in the world through an internet connection, and will be able to start or stop printing at any time.
"While low-cost 3D printers are accessible to the public, they are still very hard to programme and assemble. Having an affordable, high-quality 3D printer that is easy to use is what the market is missing and this is where Blacksmith Group will bridge the gap," Chua Chee Kai, the mentor for the Blacksmith Group, said in a press release.
The 3D printer-cum-scanner was created in Singapore with the help of a crowd-funding campaign, raising over $80,000, and its US supporters will be able to get it as early as March.
Blacksmith Group start-up at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) launched Saturday the user-friendly all-in-one device, named the Blacksmith Genesis.
The $2,200 device allows users to scan any item, and then edit the digitized model on the computer and print it out in 3D, Lester Kok, assistant manager of NTU's Corporate Communications Office, told Xinhua news agency Sunday.
"Most 3D printers sold on the market now are not really user-friendly as their 3D models and blueprints usually have to be designed from scratch on the computer," Kok said, "but Blacksmith Genesis doesn't require much knowledge of 3D software."
Unlike other commercial 3D printers, Blacksmith Genesis uses an innovative rotary platform for its printing and scanning. This patent-pending revolving platform allows for true 360-degrees scanning, and can print items up to 6,650 cubic cm, twice the size of those printed by other similar-sized 3D printers in the market.
With a fine resolution of 50 micrometres, the reproductions will be twice as detailed compared to other compact 3D printers. Likewise, scanning of objects with its five megapixel camera takes only six minutes, twice as fast as other 3D scanners in the market.
Another unique feature of Blacksmith Genesis is its remote live monitoring and automatic error detection using an in-built camera. Users can also monitor the printing process on their smartphone from anywhere in the world through an internet connection, and will be able to start or stop printing at any time.
"While low-cost 3D printers are accessible to the public, they are still very hard to programme and assemble. Having an affordable, high-quality 3D printer that is easy to use is what the market is missing and this is where Blacksmith Group will bridge the gap," Chua Chee Kai, the mentor for the Blacksmith Group, said in a press release.
The 3D printer-cum-scanner was created in Singapore with the help of a crowd-funding campaign, raising over $80,000, and its US supporters will be able to get it as early as March.
Snapdeal.com likely to acquire Exclusively.in
NEW DELHI: Snapdeal.com may be set to acquire Exclusively.in, a site that sells designer brands, as one of the country's largest online retailers looks to strengthen its fashion business to take on rivals Flipkart-owned Myntra and Jabong amid a consolidation drive.
Two people familiar with the deal said Snapdeal is expected to take over Exclusively as part of its acquisition plans following the October funding of $627 million raised from Japanese telecom and internet giant Softbank. The deal has been the works for months and is likely to come through as Exclusively founder Sunjay Guleria has agreed to the valuation, said one of the persons.
ET couldn't confirm how much Snapdeal is likely to pay for the business. Guleria declined to comment as did a Snapdeal spokesperson. Guleria had sold the Sher Singh apparel brand along with co-founders in 2012 to Myntra. While India's rapidly e-commerce sector is dominated by companies such as market leader Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal, among others, it also comprises smaller and specialty online sellers, many of which may be looking to exit as funding dries up for them. Earlier this month, Mahindra Group acquired baby products online retailer Babyoye.com.
Snapdeal has created one of India's largest online marketplaces but the company is playing catchup with online fashion leaders such as Myntra and Jabong in that space. The company plans to use Exclusively to shore up its fashion offerings besides extending it to offer global bridge-to-luxury and even luxury brands, said one of the persons cited above. The stakes are high for fashion as the segment is turning out to be the fastest-growing segment for online retailers.
Last year, Flipkart acquired Myntra as part of its fashion push. Even Amazon, a relatively late starter in fashion and lifestyle, is making a concerted effort to build its fashion portfolio. It's planning its own line of private labels for apparel and other lifestyle products, making India perhaps the first country in which the US e-commerce giant will do so.
In December, Snapdeal acquired giftrecommendation site Wishpicker for an undisclosed amount as its first buyout after raising money from Softbank. Last year, Flipkart raised $1.9 billion from its investors, valuing the company at $11 billion. Amazon said last year it would invest $2 billion in the India business. On Saturday, ET reported that Snapdeal is in talks with investors to raise another $400 million that would possibly value the company at $5 billion.
Two people familiar with the deal said Snapdeal is expected to take over Exclusively as part of its acquisition plans following the October funding of $627 million raised from Japanese telecom and internet giant Softbank. The deal has been the works for months and is likely to come through as Exclusively founder Sunjay Guleria has agreed to the valuation, said one of the persons.
ET couldn't confirm how much Snapdeal is likely to pay for the business. Guleria declined to comment as did a Snapdeal spokesperson. Guleria had sold the Sher Singh apparel brand along with co-founders in 2012 to Myntra. While India's rapidly e-commerce sector is dominated by companies such as market leader Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal, among others, it also comprises smaller and specialty online sellers, many of which may be looking to exit as funding dries up for them. Earlier this month, Mahindra Group acquired baby products online retailer Babyoye.com.
Snapdeal has created one of India's largest online marketplaces but the company is playing catchup with online fashion leaders such as Myntra and Jabong in that space. The company plans to use Exclusively to shore up its fashion offerings besides extending it to offer global bridge-to-luxury and even luxury brands, said one of the persons cited above. The stakes are high for fashion as the segment is turning out to be the fastest-growing segment for online retailers.
Last year, Flipkart acquired Myntra as part of its fashion push. Even Amazon, a relatively late starter in fashion and lifestyle, is making a concerted effort to build its fashion portfolio. It's planning its own line of private labels for apparel and other lifestyle products, making India perhaps the first country in which the US e-commerce giant will do so.
In December, Snapdeal acquired giftrecommendation site Wishpicker for an undisclosed amount as its first buyout after raising money from Softbank. Last year, Flipkart raised $1.9 billion from its investors, valuing the company at $11 billion. Amazon said last year it would invest $2 billion in the India business. On Saturday, ET reported that Snapdeal is in talks with investors to raise another $400 million that would possibly value the company at $5 billion.
Discounts not viable for e-tailers in long run: Report
MUMBAI: E-commerce companies have incurred combined losses of around Rs 1,000 crore due to heavy discounting strategy and this model is not feasible in the long run, a PwC report said.
"Offering lower prices will not be viable in the long term. Despite luring in customers in the initial stages, lower prices won't be able to retain customers in the long run. While the discounting will continue for some more months, e-tailers are thinking beyond discounts to acquire customers and build loyalty," the report said.
The combined losses faced by e-tailing companies as a result of their discounting strategies now stand at almost Rs 1,000 crore, the report said without giving the timeframe for these losses.
Out of a total of 1,005 respondents surveyed as part of the PwC study from India, almost half the respondents said they preffered to shop online due to better deals and discounts offered by these retailers.
"A majority of e-commerce players are start-ups and, therefore, are working towards rapidly scaling up their market share. They have been aggressively planning and implementing discounting strategies, which would make the customer sit up and take notice," it said.
Pointing out that price has emerged as the biggest differentiator driving consumers to shop online or in-store, it said the customer habits have changed, as they are used to dicounts throughout the year.
The PwC report said the 'predatory' pricing strategy of e-commerce companies isn't helping their stand with the premium brands.
It found that with valuations of e-commerce companies skyrocketing, there is increasing pressure from investor firms to cut down on discounts and concentrate on making profits.
"Offering lower prices will not be viable in the long term. Despite luring in customers in the initial stages, lower prices won't be able to retain customers in the long run. While the discounting will continue for some more months, e-tailers are thinking beyond discounts to acquire customers and build loyalty," the report said.
The combined losses faced by e-tailing companies as a result of their discounting strategies now stand at almost Rs 1,000 crore, the report said without giving the timeframe for these losses.
Out of a total of 1,005 respondents surveyed as part of the PwC study from India, almost half the respondents said they preffered to shop online due to better deals and discounts offered by these retailers.
"A majority of e-commerce players are start-ups and, therefore, are working towards rapidly scaling up their market share. They have been aggressively planning and implementing discounting strategies, which would make the customer sit up and take notice," it said.
Pointing out that price has emerged as the biggest differentiator driving consumers to shop online or in-store, it said the customer habits have changed, as they are used to dicounts throughout the year.
The PwC report said the 'predatory' pricing strategy of e-commerce companies isn't helping their stand with the premium brands.
It found that with valuations of e-commerce companies skyrocketing, there is increasing pressure from investor firms to cut down on discounts and concentrate on making profits.
Infosys: Re-skilling, not layoffs will address new challenges
MUMBAI: Even as the furore over layoffs in the IT sector is yet to die down, Infosys has said re-skilling talent is the answer to rapidly changing technologies in the software landscape.
"It is not that there are tens and thousands of people (available) with experience in new technologies. The idea is to re-skill people. If technology changes and people don't have those capabilities, you've to re-skill them and re-orient them," Infosys, chief operating officer, Pravin Rao told on the sidelines of an industry event last week.
He was responding to a question on recent instances of layoffs in the over $100 billion domestic IT industry.
Last month, India's largest software services provider TCS had said only 1,000 jobs have been axed in the country due to non-performance, clarifying that this is a part of normal working and not due to any mass restructuring exercise as being speculated.
The Tata-group company had said it carries out performance reviews every year, which result in this "involuntary attrition" and added that the overall number of 2,574 includes only 1,000 jobs locally.
TCS chief executive N Chandrasekaran had attributed the action to a performance review, where the employees were found to be wanting in skill sets. He had added that all the companies carry out such exercises.
Infosys' Rao said the Bangalore-based company has made 20,000 offers on campuses for hiring freshers in FY16 and will await to see how many of them actually join.
He, however, conceded that going forward the pace of hiring will trail the revenue growth for the industry.
On industry lobby Nasscom's target of a 12-14% growth in exports for FY16, Rao declined to give Infosys' view on the matter saying its too early to comment on it and the company is assessing the landscape by speaking to clients.
He said Infosys continues to be interested in acquisitions and would look for targets in Japan, Nordic countries and Latin America.
"We're very clear what we want to acquire but it takes time," he said.
Infosys welcomes the pro-activeness of the government in launching initiatives like Digital India and will "actively participate" in the opportunities that come about as part of the same.
"It is not that there are tens and thousands of people (available) with experience in new technologies. The idea is to re-skill people. If technology changes and people don't have those capabilities, you've to re-skill them and re-orient them," Infosys, chief operating officer, Pravin Rao told on the sidelines of an industry event last week.
He was responding to a question on recent instances of layoffs in the over $100 billion domestic IT industry.
Last month, India's largest software services provider TCS had said only 1,000 jobs have been axed in the country due to non-performance, clarifying that this is a part of normal working and not due to any mass restructuring exercise as being speculated.
The Tata-group company had said it carries out performance reviews every year, which result in this "involuntary attrition" and added that the overall number of 2,574 includes only 1,000 jobs locally.
TCS chief executive N Chandrasekaran had attributed the action to a performance review, where the employees were found to be wanting in skill sets. He had added that all the companies carry out such exercises.
Infosys' Rao said the Bangalore-based company has made 20,000 offers on campuses for hiring freshers in FY16 and will await to see how many of them actually join.
He, however, conceded that going forward the pace of hiring will trail the revenue growth for the industry.
On industry lobby Nasscom's target of a 12-14% growth in exports for FY16, Rao declined to give Infosys' view on the matter saying its too early to comment on it and the company is assessing the landscape by speaking to clients.
He said Infosys continues to be interested in acquisitions and would look for targets in Japan, Nordic countries and Latin America.
"We're very clear what we want to acquire but it takes time," he said.
Infosys welcomes the pro-activeness of the government in launching initiatives like Digital India and will "actively participate" in the opportunities that come about as part of the same.
Monday, February 16, 2015
PM inaugurates GE’s multi-modal manufacturing facility at Chakan, Pune
New Delhi: PM: World is taking note of India's economic growth; Government is working towards predictability in policies and laws
PM: Global technology and talent of Indian youth can together create a win-win situation
PM: Government working to improve ease of doing business
The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, today said that the world is taking note of India's GDP growth, which has risen to 7.4 percent - and added that experts are now describing India as the fastest growing economy in the world. He said that he expects this to rise even further, and that the 21st century would be Asia's century, with India playing a key role in it.
Inaugurating GE’s multi-modal manufacturing facility at Chakan, Pune, the Prime Minister said there were immense possibilities for manufacturing in India. He said India's demographic dividend was a magnet to attract investment. He said the Government was working towards creating a skilled talented workforce which would attract the world to India. He said global technology (Vishwa Dhan) and the talent of Indian youth (Yuva Dhan) could together result in a win-win situation for all.
The Prime Minister said the Government was working towards predictability in policies and laws, that would boost confidence of investors.
The Prime Minister said his Government is working towards improving "ease of doing business." He complimented the Maharashtra Chief Minister Shri Devendra Fadnavis for doing a lot to improve ease of doing business, and reducing drastically the number of permissions required for setting up industry. He particularly praised the Chief Minister's initiatives in the hospitality sector.
The Prime Minister congratulated GE for the state of the art manufacturing facility they had set up, and welcomed GE's announcement for further investment. He said this was a big boost to the 'Make in India' initiative.
The Prime Minister said that in India, water, land and sky - jal thal aur nabh - all had great possibilities in manufacturing. He invited GE, which is already present in land and sky, to also invest in water - implying shipbuilding. He invited GE to invest in defence manufacturing, where FDI has been raised to 49 percent.
The Prime Minister said Pune - which was now being called the "Detroit of India" - had immense potential to emerge as a hub of defence production. He also emphasized that the Railway sector could become an engine of economic growth, and offered huge possibilities.
The Governor of Maharashtra Shri Vidyasagar Rao, the Chief Minister of Maharashtra Shri Devendra Fadnavis, and Union Minister Shri Prakash Javadekar were present on the occasion.
PM: Global technology and talent of Indian youth can together create a win-win situation
PM: Government working to improve ease of doing business
The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, today said that the world is taking note of India's GDP growth, which has risen to 7.4 percent - and added that experts are now describing India as the fastest growing economy in the world. He said that he expects this to rise even further, and that the 21st century would be Asia's century, with India playing a key role in it.
Inaugurating GE’s multi-modal manufacturing facility at Chakan, Pune, the Prime Minister said there were immense possibilities for manufacturing in India. He said India's demographic dividend was a magnet to attract investment. He said the Government was working towards creating a skilled talented workforce which would attract the world to India. He said global technology (Vishwa Dhan) and the talent of Indian youth (Yuva Dhan) could together result in a win-win situation for all.
The Prime Minister said the Government was working towards predictability in policies and laws, that would boost confidence of investors.
The Prime Minister said his Government is working towards improving "ease of doing business." He complimented the Maharashtra Chief Minister Shri Devendra Fadnavis for doing a lot to improve ease of doing business, and reducing drastically the number of permissions required for setting up industry. He particularly praised the Chief Minister's initiatives in the hospitality sector.
The Prime Minister congratulated GE for the state of the art manufacturing facility they had set up, and welcomed GE's announcement for further investment. He said this was a big boost to the 'Make in India' initiative.
The Prime Minister said that in India, water, land and sky - jal thal aur nabh - all had great possibilities in manufacturing. He invited GE, which is already present in land and sky, to also invest in water - implying shipbuilding. He invited GE to invest in defence manufacturing, where FDI has been raised to 49 percent.
The Prime Minister said Pune - which was now being called the "Detroit of India" - had immense potential to emerge as a hub of defence production. He also emphasized that the Railway sector could become an engine of economic growth, and offered huge possibilities.
The Governor of Maharashtra Shri Vidyasagar Rao, the Chief Minister of Maharashtra Shri Devendra Fadnavis, and Union Minister Shri Prakash Javadekar were present on the occasion.
India aims US$ 10 billion telecom exports in five years: Rakesh Garg
New Delhi: The Government of India aims to increase exports of telecom products and services at 25 per cent compund annual growth rate (CAGR) in the next five years to reach US$ 10 billion, said Mr Rakesh Garg, Secretary, Department of Telecommunications (DoT), Government of India.
Telecom exports from India currently stands around Rs 32,000 crore (US$ 5.14 billion), of which Rs 20,000 crore (US$ 3.21 billion) comes from products and equipment and the remaining Rs 12,000 crore (US$ 1.92 billion) from services.
The Government of India is making efforts to reduce electronic products imports and to meet requirement of domestic market through indigenous production and has also offered various incentives to the industry to boost domestic manufacturing in the field of electronics.
The Ministry of Commerce and Industry and Ministry of Communications & Information Technology have established the Telecom Equipment and Services Export Promotion Council (TEPC) to promote and develop the export of telecom equipment and services has conducted the sixth edition of buyer seller meet on February 13, 2015, in which 49 buyers from 19 countries participated for sourcing telecom equipment and services. The buyers represent telecom service providers and system integrators largely from South-East Asia, Latin America as well as from Africa.
TEPC has created this platform with the objective to bring potential buyers from across the globe to meet the quality telecom equipment and services suppliers of India to develop long-term business relations.
India's ability in frugal innovation to develop world-class telecom equipments is helping operators to offer services at very low costs, saig Mr Garg. He laid emphasis on the need to build long-term partnerships between overseas buyers and Indian companies, keeping in view the continuous technological changes happening in telecom sector.
Telecom exports from India currently stands around Rs 32,000 crore (US$ 5.14 billion), of which Rs 20,000 crore (US$ 3.21 billion) comes from products and equipment and the remaining Rs 12,000 crore (US$ 1.92 billion) from services.
The Government of India is making efforts to reduce electronic products imports and to meet requirement of domestic market through indigenous production and has also offered various incentives to the industry to boost domestic manufacturing in the field of electronics.
The Ministry of Commerce and Industry and Ministry of Communications & Information Technology have established the Telecom Equipment and Services Export Promotion Council (TEPC) to promote and develop the export of telecom equipment and services has conducted the sixth edition of buyer seller meet on February 13, 2015, in which 49 buyers from 19 countries participated for sourcing telecom equipment and services. The buyers represent telecom service providers and system integrators largely from South-East Asia, Latin America as well as from Africa.
TEPC has created this platform with the objective to bring potential buyers from across the globe to meet the quality telecom equipment and services suppliers of India to develop long-term business relations.
India's ability in frugal innovation to develop world-class telecom equipments is helping operators to offer services at very low costs, saig Mr Garg. He laid emphasis on the need to build long-term partnerships between overseas buyers and Indian companies, keeping in view the continuous technological changes happening in telecom sector.
Cipla to form 40:60 joint venture with Biopharm in Algeria
Mumbai: Cipla Ltd said on Friday that it has signed a binding agreement with its existing foreign distribution partner, Biopharm SPA in Algeria, to form a joint venture company in that market.
The new joint venture, in which India’s second largest generic drug maker will hold 40% equity through its European subsidiary Cipla (EU) Ltd, will manufacture and market respiratory products for Algeria. The new company is expected to make an investment of up to $15 million to build a factory.
Cipla (EU)’s initial investment in cash in the joint venture is expected to be $6 million.
Cipla informed the stock exchanges on Friday that none of the people belonging to promoter or promoter group companies will have any interest in the transaction and it is not a related party transaction for the company.
The transaction is subject to execution of definitive agreement and applicable approvals.
The formation of the joint venture is part of Cipla’s strategy to create a global footprint through direct presence in the foreign markets, moving from its traditional business model of partnering with local companies to enter those locations. In this process the company has had acquired companies as well as formed subsidiaries in Europe, the US, South Africa and Sri Lanka in the past couple of years.
In an unrelated development, Cipla said on Friday that it has been awarded $188.95 million of Global Fund ARV (anti-retroviral) Tender as the Indian drug maker has been selected as a panel supplier. The contract is effective from 1 January and will run for three years. The supply of anti-HIV/Aids drugs under this tender will begin in the current quarter.
“We are extremely proud to have won this tender from Global Fund and this tender offers us a great opportunity to make HIV/AIDS treatment accessible to more than 140 countries,” said Subhanu Saxena, managing director and global chief executive, Cipla.
Cipla has been associated with Global Fund since 2002 and has been one of the suppliers with a long-term contract for supplying anti-malarial drugs.
The new joint venture, in which India’s second largest generic drug maker will hold 40% equity through its European subsidiary Cipla (EU) Ltd, will manufacture and market respiratory products for Algeria. The new company is expected to make an investment of up to $15 million to build a factory.
Cipla (EU)’s initial investment in cash in the joint venture is expected to be $6 million.
Cipla informed the stock exchanges on Friday that none of the people belonging to promoter or promoter group companies will have any interest in the transaction and it is not a related party transaction for the company.
The transaction is subject to execution of definitive agreement and applicable approvals.
The formation of the joint venture is part of Cipla’s strategy to create a global footprint through direct presence in the foreign markets, moving from its traditional business model of partnering with local companies to enter those locations. In this process the company has had acquired companies as well as formed subsidiaries in Europe, the US, South Africa and Sri Lanka in the past couple of years.
In an unrelated development, Cipla said on Friday that it has been awarded $188.95 million of Global Fund ARV (anti-retroviral) Tender as the Indian drug maker has been selected as a panel supplier. The contract is effective from 1 January and will run for three years. The supply of anti-HIV/Aids drugs under this tender will begin in the current quarter.
“We are extremely proud to have won this tender from Global Fund and this tender offers us a great opportunity to make HIV/AIDS treatment accessible to more than 140 countries,” said Subhanu Saxena, managing director and global chief executive, Cipla.
Cipla has been associated with Global Fund since 2002 and has been one of the suppliers with a long-term contract for supplying anti-malarial drugs.
ITC to acquire Savlon, Shower to Shower brands from Johnson and Johnson
Kolkata: In a rare break from its tradition of building brands on its own, ITC Ltd said on Friday that it had agreed to buy Johnson and Johnson’s Savlon antiseptic and Shower to Shower body talc brands, as the company seeks to reinforce its range of personal care products.
In a statement, ITC said it had entered into agreements with Johnson and Johnson Ltd and Johnson and Johnson Pte Ltd for buying the Savlon and Shower to Shower trademarks and related intellectual property for use primarily in India, subject to regulatory approvals.
ITC, India’s biggest cigarette maker, is seeking to expand its personal and home care products range by using its vast distribution reach and to reduce its dependence on its tobacco business. These are its first acquisitions in the personal care products range.
“It takes several years to develop brands in a fiercely competitive personal care segment, and by buying existing brands ITC is now trying to simplify its task at least in some categories,” said Aashish Upganlawar, an analyst at the Indian arm of Elara Capital Plc, a financial services firm.
Investors welcomed the acquisitions. ITC shares rose 2% to end at Rs.378.05 apiece on BSE on a day the benchmark Sensex gained 1% to 29,094.93 points.
The company didn’t disclose the value of the brand purchases, but experts estimated that it may have paid up to four-five times the two brands’ combined annual revenue of nearly Rs.100 crore.
The two brands together clocked revenue of Rs.90 crore in 2013-14, according to an estimate by brokerage firm Religare Capital Markets Ltd. Of this, Savlon with its products including antiseptic soaps and handwash, earned Rs.65 crore, while the balance came from Shower to Shower prickly heat powders.
The two brands made up a mere 1% of ITC’s sales from non-cigarette consumer goods in 2013-14 at Rs.8,099.21 crore.
“We have maintained that we would take every road possible to reach our goal of achieving Rs.1 trillion sales in the new consumer goods segment in the next 15 years (ending 2030) and today’s announcement is in line with that strategy,” said a spokesperson for ITC.
Cigarettes contributed 85% to the company’s profit and 41% to its sales in the first nine months of the year to March. ITC also has a presence in hotels.
While ITC has seen success in categories like foods, its personal care brands like Vivel and Fiama Di Wills have lagged behind more established rivals.
“The deal is expected to increase ITC’s focus and presence in personal care, where it has been facing growth issues,” said Abneesh Roy, associate director (institutional equities research) at Edelweiss Securities Ltd, another brokerage firm.
Still, it will face tough competition from Reckitt Benckiser (India) Ltd’s Dettol, which dominates the antiseptic category and is also among the top five soap brands in the country. Savlon is a distant second to Dettol, which clocked sales of Rs.700-800 crore in 2013-14, according to industry estimates.
Savlon and Shower to Shower were not central to Johnson and Johnson’s portfolio that focuses on baby care and skin care products, oral care and over-the-counter products, such as cough syrup Benadryl, in India, said Roy of Edelweiss.
“While the deal looks relatively cheap and the two brands are largely undersold in India so far, ITC can make money from them if it invests wisely and boosts their sales in the next two years,” said Upganlawar of Elara Capital.
ITC’s move of buying consumer brands is in contrast with its strategy so far of building its own brands. Company chairman Y.C. Deveshwar said in several recent public speeches that ITC would take on competitors by launching more and more new brands.
Friday’s deal with Johnson and Johnson will be ITC’s first purchase in the personal care segment. Last year, it had bought Bengaluru-based Balan Natural Food Pvt. Ltd’s B Natural brand to enter the beverages market. It had also purchased confectionery brand mint-o from Delhi based Candico in 2002.
ITC’s non-cigarette business has been expanding rapidly.
In the first nine months of the current fiscal year, revenue from other consumer goods at Rs.6,444.74 crore was 21% of its total revenue. The category is yet to make a net profit on a regular basis and often slips into the red, depending on cyclical investments.
ITC’s acquisitions in the consumer goods segment comes at a time when its cigarette sales are sliding because of higher taxes and consequent price hikes.
The company’s fiscal third quarter results were dragged down by falling cigarette sales and disappointed many analysts. According to their estimates, cigarette sales contracted 13% by volume year-on-year in the December quarter due to steep hikes in value-added taxes in several states.
ITC’s net profit grew by an annual rate of 10.4% in the December quarter to Rs.2,635 crore and it looks impossible, at least for now, for the company to return to its earlier net profit growth rate of 18-20%, analysts said.
In a statement, ITC said it had entered into agreements with Johnson and Johnson Ltd and Johnson and Johnson Pte Ltd for buying the Savlon and Shower to Shower trademarks and related intellectual property for use primarily in India, subject to regulatory approvals.
ITC, India’s biggest cigarette maker, is seeking to expand its personal and home care products range by using its vast distribution reach and to reduce its dependence on its tobacco business. These are its first acquisitions in the personal care products range.
“It takes several years to develop brands in a fiercely competitive personal care segment, and by buying existing brands ITC is now trying to simplify its task at least in some categories,” said Aashish Upganlawar, an analyst at the Indian arm of Elara Capital Plc, a financial services firm.
Investors welcomed the acquisitions. ITC shares rose 2% to end at Rs.378.05 apiece on BSE on a day the benchmark Sensex gained 1% to 29,094.93 points.
The company didn’t disclose the value of the brand purchases, but experts estimated that it may have paid up to four-five times the two brands’ combined annual revenue of nearly Rs.100 crore.
The two brands together clocked revenue of Rs.90 crore in 2013-14, according to an estimate by brokerage firm Religare Capital Markets Ltd. Of this, Savlon with its products including antiseptic soaps and handwash, earned Rs.65 crore, while the balance came from Shower to Shower prickly heat powders.
The two brands made up a mere 1% of ITC’s sales from non-cigarette consumer goods in 2013-14 at Rs.8,099.21 crore.
“We have maintained that we would take every road possible to reach our goal of achieving Rs.1 trillion sales in the new consumer goods segment in the next 15 years (ending 2030) and today’s announcement is in line with that strategy,” said a spokesperson for ITC.
Cigarettes contributed 85% to the company’s profit and 41% to its sales in the first nine months of the year to March. ITC also has a presence in hotels.
While ITC has seen success in categories like foods, its personal care brands like Vivel and Fiama Di Wills have lagged behind more established rivals.
“The deal is expected to increase ITC’s focus and presence in personal care, where it has been facing growth issues,” said Abneesh Roy, associate director (institutional equities research) at Edelweiss Securities Ltd, another brokerage firm.
Still, it will face tough competition from Reckitt Benckiser (India) Ltd’s Dettol, which dominates the antiseptic category and is also among the top five soap brands in the country. Savlon is a distant second to Dettol, which clocked sales of Rs.700-800 crore in 2013-14, according to industry estimates.
Savlon and Shower to Shower were not central to Johnson and Johnson’s portfolio that focuses on baby care and skin care products, oral care and over-the-counter products, such as cough syrup Benadryl, in India, said Roy of Edelweiss.
“While the deal looks relatively cheap and the two brands are largely undersold in India so far, ITC can make money from them if it invests wisely and boosts their sales in the next two years,” said Upganlawar of Elara Capital.
ITC’s move of buying consumer brands is in contrast with its strategy so far of building its own brands. Company chairman Y.C. Deveshwar said in several recent public speeches that ITC would take on competitors by launching more and more new brands.
Friday’s deal with Johnson and Johnson will be ITC’s first purchase in the personal care segment. Last year, it had bought Bengaluru-based Balan Natural Food Pvt. Ltd’s B Natural brand to enter the beverages market. It had also purchased confectionery brand mint-o from Delhi based Candico in 2002.
ITC’s non-cigarette business has been expanding rapidly.
In the first nine months of the current fiscal year, revenue from other consumer goods at Rs.6,444.74 crore was 21% of its total revenue. The category is yet to make a net profit on a regular basis and often slips into the red, depending on cyclical investments.
ITC’s acquisitions in the consumer goods segment comes at a time when its cigarette sales are sliding because of higher taxes and consequent price hikes.
The company’s fiscal third quarter results were dragged down by falling cigarette sales and disappointed many analysts. According to their estimates, cigarette sales contracted 13% by volume year-on-year in the December quarter due to steep hikes in value-added taxes in several states.
ITC’s net profit grew by an annual rate of 10.4% in the December quarter to Rs.2,635 crore and it looks impossible, at least for now, for the company to return to its earlier net profit growth rate of 18-20%, analysts said.
India remains FIIs’ top pick, $2.87 billion pumped in Jan
Mumbai: India continues to be a preferred market for foreign investors. Listed India-focused funds saw record inflows of $1.7 billion in January this year, while most other emerging markets (EMs) saw redemptions to the tune of $3 billion. Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) pumped in $2.87 billion into Indian equities in January, most of this coming from listed funds.
In February so far, FIIs have remained net sellers to the tune of $348 million. Kotak Institutional Equities has a foreign fund tracker, which gives comprehensive view on fund flows of listed funds (passive exchange traded funds, or ETFs, and active non-ETFs) into India and other emerging markets. The tracker intends to monitor both passive and active fund flows to get a sense of intent and direction of foreign investors.
Listed funds account for a large part of FII activity in India, claim experts. According to Kotak, net inflows into India amounted to $1.3 billion with active and passive channels attracting capital in January. India-focused active funds saw inflows worth $800 million while their passive counterparts roped in 880 million during the period. India continues to be an outlier as most other emerging markets have seen outflows during the month. Funds benchmarked against the MSCI EM Index pulled out $2.5 billion in January. Equity strategists believe India and China are benefiting at the expense of other markets such as Brazil and Russia.
Fund flows into ETFs have remained strong in 2014. nearly $150 billion went into US equity ETFs in 2014. Deutsche Bank Research says: “Fund flows to developed country equity and bond funds did much better than those to emerging markets in 2014; the trend seems to have extended into 2015. Importantly, the increase in the stock of global financial assets has not helped the volume of turnover in equity and bond markets, which remain below the 2011 peak.”
In February so far, FIIs have remained net sellers to the tune of $348 million. Kotak Institutional Equities has a foreign fund tracker, which gives comprehensive view on fund flows of listed funds (passive exchange traded funds, or ETFs, and active non-ETFs) into India and other emerging markets. The tracker intends to monitor both passive and active fund flows to get a sense of intent and direction of foreign investors.
Listed funds account for a large part of FII activity in India, claim experts. According to Kotak, net inflows into India amounted to $1.3 billion with active and passive channels attracting capital in January. India-focused active funds saw inflows worth $800 million while their passive counterparts roped in 880 million during the period. India continues to be an outlier as most other emerging markets have seen outflows during the month. Funds benchmarked against the MSCI EM Index pulled out $2.5 billion in January. Equity strategists believe India and China are benefiting at the expense of other markets such as Brazil and Russia.
Fund flows into ETFs have remained strong in 2014. nearly $150 billion went into US equity ETFs in 2014. Deutsche Bank Research says: “Fund flows to developed country equity and bond funds did much better than those to emerging markets in 2014; the trend seems to have extended into 2015. Importantly, the increase in the stock of global financial assets has not helped the volume of turnover in equity and bond markets, which remain below the 2011 peak.”
India offers Cutting Edge it Technologies at Frugal cost- Says it Secretary
New Delhi: Secretary, Department of IT & Electronics, Government of India Shri RS Sharma said that India offered a wide variety of sophisticated IT technologies at frugal cost to the technology acquirers and solution providers. He was Addressing the inaugural of the 15th edition of Indiasoft (India IT Show) which began in Delhi today. The international IT event and conferences are attended by over 400 delegates from abroad. Billed as the one of the largest IT shows focused on small and medium enterprises and organized by Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council (ESC), the show was participated by 150 exhibitors form India.
Sketching the dramatic transformations taking place in the digital eco-system of India, Shri Sharma said that digital India program would be a game changer in India's march towards development. All social welfare and governance programs would be working on digital platform. For instance the unique identification program launched by the Government has so far enlisted 750 million people and it would be covering the entire population. The cost of enlisting an individual in the scheme might work out to be cheapest in the world. While similar ID card program in the UK cost Pound 150 per individual, in India it entailed only Rs 100 only. It could even work out to be cheaper, when the project gets completed. Shri Sharma invited the foreign delegates to adapt the Indian technologies, which combine innovation with frugality, speed and scale. That suited the need and affordability of countries, which are passing through various stages of development. Also, a variety of newer technologies are developed such as digital lockers, digital certificates etc. which would enable a person to store digitally all records and forward them as and when they are required by relevant organizations . Enhanced digitization would also help eliminate the last mile leakages in some of the social welfare programs like employment guarantee, subsidy transfer programs etc. Referring to the financial inclusion programs being launched by the government, Mr. Sharma mentioned that the high mobile phone penetration would be used to reach out the target group. India has over 950 million mobile phones. Since the PC and broadband penetration are not very high, mobile texting would be used for reaching out the target group to inform them about their bank balances and other facilities like direct subsidy transfer etc,. At the same time, every effort will be taken to increase the quality broadband penetration. India would have 250,000 touch points connected with optical fiber , wherein every person would have access to the net.
Shri Nalin Kohli, Chairman, Organizing Committee, Indiasoft Referred to the steady growth in India's software and services exports, which is estimated to touch US 86 billion this year. Shri J K Jadoo, Joint Secretary, Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India said that the IT sector would emerge as a one trillion dollar worth segment by 2025 and India would be home to over 1000 cutting edge technologies. Shri D K Sareen, Executive Director, ESC referred to the innovative approaches of ESC to enhance the presence of Indian IT companies across the global digital eco-system. Later addressing a press conference along with a high-powered delegation from Russia on the potential of the Indo-Russian cooperation in IT, he said that areas like R&D, development of complex products and solutions should merit the attention of both countries not only for each other’s requirements but for third country exports. Importantly, ESC has signed a number of MOUs with important business organizations from various parts of the world and its statistical year book was released.
Sketching the dramatic transformations taking place in the digital eco-system of India, Shri Sharma said that digital India program would be a game changer in India's march towards development. All social welfare and governance programs would be working on digital platform. For instance the unique identification program launched by the Government has so far enlisted 750 million people and it would be covering the entire population. The cost of enlisting an individual in the scheme might work out to be cheapest in the world. While similar ID card program in the UK cost Pound 150 per individual, in India it entailed only Rs 100 only. It could even work out to be cheaper, when the project gets completed. Shri Sharma invited the foreign delegates to adapt the Indian technologies, which combine innovation with frugality, speed and scale. That suited the need and affordability of countries, which are passing through various stages of development. Also, a variety of newer technologies are developed such as digital lockers, digital certificates etc. which would enable a person to store digitally all records and forward them as and when they are required by relevant organizations . Enhanced digitization would also help eliminate the last mile leakages in some of the social welfare programs like employment guarantee, subsidy transfer programs etc. Referring to the financial inclusion programs being launched by the government, Mr. Sharma mentioned that the high mobile phone penetration would be used to reach out the target group. India has over 950 million mobile phones. Since the PC and broadband penetration are not very high, mobile texting would be used for reaching out the target group to inform them about their bank balances and other facilities like direct subsidy transfer etc,. At the same time, every effort will be taken to increase the quality broadband penetration. India would have 250,000 touch points connected with optical fiber , wherein every person would have access to the net.
Shri Nalin Kohli, Chairman, Organizing Committee, Indiasoft Referred to the steady growth in India's software and services exports, which is estimated to touch US 86 billion this year. Shri J K Jadoo, Joint Secretary, Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India said that the IT sector would emerge as a one trillion dollar worth segment by 2025 and India would be home to over 1000 cutting edge technologies. Shri D K Sareen, Executive Director, ESC referred to the innovative approaches of ESC to enhance the presence of Indian IT companies across the global digital eco-system. Later addressing a press conference along with a high-powered delegation from Russia on the potential of the Indo-Russian cooperation in IT, he said that areas like R&D, development of complex products and solutions should merit the attention of both countries not only for each other’s requirements but for third country exports. Importantly, ESC has signed a number of MOUs with important business organizations from various parts of the world and its statistical year book was released.
UK’s Rexam to set up plants in Andhra, Rajasthan with £100 mn investment
Hyderabad: Beverage can maker Rexam Plc will build two plants in Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan at an investment of about £100 million, adding 1.6 billion cans to its annual production capacity.
London-based Rexam already operates a plant in Mumbai.
The new plants, which will initially entail an investment close to £50 million each, will come up at Sri City in Chittoor district (about 50km from Chennai), and at Mahindra World City in Jaipur, the company said in a statement on Thursday. The company has secured land for the two projects.
“These investments will support and enable us to take advantage of the continued exciting growth of the beverage can in India. Having plants in different locations across the country will ensure we have a better footprint and position to meet the needs of our customers in the region over the long term,” Craig Jones, sector director of Rexam’s Africa, Middle East and Asia (AMEA) regions said.
The Sri City plant will be operational first—by the second half of 2016, followed by the Jaipur plant. The two plants will generate 150 jobs locally, the company said. Rexam’s Sri City plant will be located in the vicinity of PepsiCo Inc.’s largest beverage manufacturing plant in the country. The beverages and snack maker is investing Rs.1,200 crore in its Sri City plant.
Rexam operates 55 plants in 20 countries, providing employment to 8,000 people.
London-based Rexam already operates a plant in Mumbai.
The new plants, which will initially entail an investment close to £50 million each, will come up at Sri City in Chittoor district (about 50km from Chennai), and at Mahindra World City in Jaipur, the company said in a statement on Thursday. The company has secured land for the two projects.
“These investments will support and enable us to take advantage of the continued exciting growth of the beverage can in India. Having plants in different locations across the country will ensure we have a better footprint and position to meet the needs of our customers in the region over the long term,” Craig Jones, sector director of Rexam’s Africa, Middle East and Asia (AMEA) regions said.
The Sri City plant will be operational first—by the second half of 2016, followed by the Jaipur plant. The two plants will generate 150 jobs locally, the company said. Rexam’s Sri City plant will be located in the vicinity of PepsiCo Inc.’s largest beverage manufacturing plant in the country. The beverages and snack maker is investing Rs.1,200 crore in its Sri City plant.
Rexam operates 55 plants in 20 countries, providing employment to 8,000 people.
Tata Steel to acquire three service centres of SSAB in Nordic region
Mumbai: Tata Steel Europe on Thursday announced the acquisition of three service centres from SSAB, a Swedish steel manufacturer of strip, plate and tubular products, to strengthen its offering to manufacturers in the region.
Tata Steel has acquired the company’s facilities in Sweden, Finland and Norway for an undisclosed amount, it said in a notification to stock exchanges.
“These acquisitions will strengthen our strip products offering to manufacturers in this region. Improving our local processing capability will significantly enhance our product offering and service levels to customers,” said Karl Koehler, chief executive officer of Tata Steel Europe in a press release.
“There is a sophisticated and demanding customer base in the Nordic region which increasingly requires advanced steel products,” Koehler added.
The three centres process strip products offering services such as cutting-to-length, slitting and recoiling. They supply steel to manufacturers in the automotive, construction and electrical supplies industries and heavy and light engineering companies.
The European Commission has approved the sale of these service centres. SSAB was required to sell them as a condition of its takeover by another company. The transactions remain subject to approval from competition authorities in Norway, Sweden and Finland, and their implementation will follow these approvals.
Tata Steel Europe announced a pre-tax operational profit of £74.7 million for the first nine months of 2014-15, compared to a loss of £13.9 million for the same period in 2013-14.
Tata Steel has acquired the company’s facilities in Sweden, Finland and Norway for an undisclosed amount, it said in a notification to stock exchanges.
“These acquisitions will strengthen our strip products offering to manufacturers in this region. Improving our local processing capability will significantly enhance our product offering and service levels to customers,” said Karl Koehler, chief executive officer of Tata Steel Europe in a press release.
“There is a sophisticated and demanding customer base in the Nordic region which increasingly requires advanced steel products,” Koehler added.
The three centres process strip products offering services such as cutting-to-length, slitting and recoiling. They supply steel to manufacturers in the automotive, construction and electrical supplies industries and heavy and light engineering companies.
The European Commission has approved the sale of these service centres. SSAB was required to sell them as a condition of its takeover by another company. The transactions remain subject to approval from competition authorities in Norway, Sweden and Finland, and their implementation will follow these approvals.
Tata Steel Europe announced a pre-tax operational profit of £74.7 million for the first nine months of 2014-15, compared to a loss of £13.9 million for the same period in 2013-14.
EMC to set up 100 centres of academic excellence in India
Chennai: IT storage solutions company EMC Corporation plans to establish 100 centres of academic excellence in India this year.
These centres of academic excellence will be set up in leading IT institutes across the country to give students an opportunity to learn and practise key skills in the areas of cloud, data science, analytics, IT infrastructure and other leading technologies, a statement from the company has said.
Through its Academic Alliance initiative, EMC will offer the technical expertise, resources and study materials required for setting up the centres.
Fast-paced increase in demand has resulted in a massive shortfall of skilled industry-ready professionals.
The private cloud industry alone is expected to create 100,000 jobs in India by 2015 from 10,000 in 2011 and the demand is unlikely to be met.
The EMC Academic Alliance initiative aims at bridging the skill-gap in a rapidly changing IT environment and prepare students for better employability. As a part of the initiative, EMC will invite leading IT institutes from across the country to collaborate and establish these academic centres of excellence.
EMC will be providing training to the faculty of these institutions on a 'no cost' basis and access to the 'open courses' from the EMC Education Services.
The centre of academic excellence will provide students with hands on sessions exposing them to real life work environments. In addition, the access to white papers, study material and other resources along with regular sessions by subject matter experts will provide a holistic development to the students and prepare them for the new roles emerging in the IT industry.
This initiative plans to target about 50,000 students in 2015.
These centres of academic excellence will be set up in leading IT institutes across the country to give students an opportunity to learn and practise key skills in the areas of cloud, data science, analytics, IT infrastructure and other leading technologies, a statement from the company has said.
Through its Academic Alliance initiative, EMC will offer the technical expertise, resources and study materials required for setting up the centres.
Fast-paced increase in demand has resulted in a massive shortfall of skilled industry-ready professionals.
The private cloud industry alone is expected to create 100,000 jobs in India by 2015 from 10,000 in 2011 and the demand is unlikely to be met.
The EMC Academic Alliance initiative aims at bridging the skill-gap in a rapidly changing IT environment and prepare students for better employability. As a part of the initiative, EMC will invite leading IT institutes from across the country to collaborate and establish these academic centres of excellence.
EMC will be providing training to the faculty of these institutions on a 'no cost' basis and access to the 'open courses' from the EMC Education Services.
The centre of academic excellence will provide students with hands on sessions exposing them to real life work environments. In addition, the access to white papers, study material and other resources along with regular sessions by subject matter experts will provide a holistic development to the students and prepare them for the new roles emerging in the IT industry.
This initiative plans to target about 50,000 students in 2015.
Monday, February 9, 2015
‘US to source technology from Indian cities’
New Delhi: The US on Thursday said that US companies will make Bengaluru and Hyderabad “important sources” for cutting-edge technology as co-development and co-production of defence articles was the new course for collaborative partnership between the two countries.
The US also said that talks between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi last month have sowed the seeds that have the potential to make US-India partnership the “defining counter-terrorism relationship for the region in the 21st century”.
Talking about the way forward in India-US ties, US ambassador to India Richard Verma said that perhaps the truest test of a friendship between countries is the degree to which their armed forces trust and collaborate with each other.
“Ties between the US and Indian defence establishments took immense strides forward during President (Obama)’s visit,” he said at a seminar at the Vivekananda International Foundation in New Delhi.
Verma wondered if anyone could have imagined a few years back that the US and India would have agreed to establish a joint working group on aircraft carrier technology.
“No example better illustrates the new course of our collaborative relationship than the decision by the US and Indian defence establishments and private sectors to pursue co-development and co-production of defence articles,” he said, adding that such type of defence collaboration was only done with the closest partners.
“The US defence industry will now make Bengaluru and Hyderabad important sources for cutting-edge technology,” he said.
Talking to reporters, Verma said that identifying four “pathfinder projects” under Defence Trade and Technology Initiative (DTTI) during Obama’s visit, besides agreeing on a working group on aircraft carrier technology is a very significant and exciting moment in ties between the two militaries.
“So let’s get these going. I think to the extent we can address other agreements that are still out there, we will continue to keep those on the agenda,” he told reporters when asked if India will have to rethink its policy of not signing the three “foundational agreements” if it wants high-end technology transfer from the US and their joint production.
Terming the India-US Defence Framework Agreement and the DTTI as very important development in defence ties, he said, “We are going to be focussed on that in the coming weeks and months”.
During Obama’s visit, the two countries had agreed on four “pathfinder projects”. However, India is seeking more than just these. What India wants is co-development and co-production of high-end technology and both sides had during Obama’s visit agreed on a joint working group to explore aircraft carrier technology besides designing and development of jet engine technology.
However, India and US are still not on the same page when it comes to three key pacts, often referred to as “foundational agreements” for greater defence technology cooperation. The three agreements have been pending for over five years and the US has been pushing for bringing them into force.
Of the three, two agreements—the Communications Interoperability and Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA) and Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geospatial Cooperation (BECA)—enhances the capacity of military equipment already bought from the US. The third agreement, the Logistics Support Agreement (LSA), would enable cashless supplies to each other’s armed forces on credit.
The US also said that talks between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi last month have sowed the seeds that have the potential to make US-India partnership the “defining counter-terrorism relationship for the region in the 21st century”.
Talking about the way forward in India-US ties, US ambassador to India Richard Verma said that perhaps the truest test of a friendship between countries is the degree to which their armed forces trust and collaborate with each other.
“Ties between the US and Indian defence establishments took immense strides forward during President (Obama)’s visit,” he said at a seminar at the Vivekananda International Foundation in New Delhi.
Verma wondered if anyone could have imagined a few years back that the US and India would have agreed to establish a joint working group on aircraft carrier technology.
“No example better illustrates the new course of our collaborative relationship than the decision by the US and Indian defence establishments and private sectors to pursue co-development and co-production of defence articles,” he said, adding that such type of defence collaboration was only done with the closest partners.
“The US defence industry will now make Bengaluru and Hyderabad important sources for cutting-edge technology,” he said.
Talking to reporters, Verma said that identifying four “pathfinder projects” under Defence Trade and Technology Initiative (DTTI) during Obama’s visit, besides agreeing on a working group on aircraft carrier technology is a very significant and exciting moment in ties between the two militaries.
“So let’s get these going. I think to the extent we can address other agreements that are still out there, we will continue to keep those on the agenda,” he told reporters when asked if India will have to rethink its policy of not signing the three “foundational agreements” if it wants high-end technology transfer from the US and their joint production.
Terming the India-US Defence Framework Agreement and the DTTI as very important development in defence ties, he said, “We are going to be focussed on that in the coming weeks and months”.
During Obama’s visit, the two countries had agreed on four “pathfinder projects”. However, India is seeking more than just these. What India wants is co-development and co-production of high-end technology and both sides had during Obama’s visit agreed on a joint working group to explore aircraft carrier technology besides designing and development of jet engine technology.
However, India and US are still not on the same page when it comes to three key pacts, often referred to as “foundational agreements” for greater defence technology cooperation. The three agreements have been pending for over five years and the US has been pushing for bringing them into force.
Of the three, two agreements—the Communications Interoperability and Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA) and Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geospatial Cooperation (BECA)—enhances the capacity of military equipment already bought from the US. The third agreement, the Logistics Support Agreement (LSA), would enable cashless supplies to each other’s armed forces on credit.
Alibaba to pick up 25% in Paytm for $500 mn
New Delhi: The world’s biggest e-commerce company, Alibaba, will acquire 25% stake in One97 Communications for $500 million (Rs 3,050 crore), as the Chinese company forays into the rapidly-expanding Indian mCommerce market.
One97 Communications runs Paytm —India’s largest mobile payment and commerce platform.
Alibaba’s arm Ant Financial Services will pick up the stake.
“Paytm will use the funds to grow its mobile payment ecosystem and boost commerce user base. The deal represents Ant Financial’s first-ever investment in an Indian company,” the company said in a statement.
The deal will give Paytm the much-needed fillip to scale up operations. “I believe that together, we will change the landscape of mobile payments and commerce in our country,” One97 Communications founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma said.
Along with funding, Ant Financial will bring in technical and operational expertise, and the experience of working in a global market like China, providing Paytm with an international exposure.
Ant Financial and Paytm will also build on synergies in the mobile wallet front to offer Indian consumers comprehensive product and services, and tap the significant potential of the India mobile payment market.
The Indian e-commerce market is expected to grow 37% to $20 billion (Rs 122,000 crore) by next year (from the current $11 billion or Rs 67,100 crore) on the back of growing internet population and increasing number of online shoppers.
“With over 1 billion people, India’s payments market has vast untapped potential,” Ant Financial vice-president Cyril Han said.
Citi and Goldman Sachs served as financial advisers on the deal.
One97 Communications runs Paytm —India’s largest mobile payment and commerce platform.
Alibaba’s arm Ant Financial Services will pick up the stake.
“Paytm will use the funds to grow its mobile payment ecosystem and boost commerce user base. The deal represents Ant Financial’s first-ever investment in an Indian company,” the company said in a statement.
The deal will give Paytm the much-needed fillip to scale up operations. “I believe that together, we will change the landscape of mobile payments and commerce in our country,” One97 Communications founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma said.
Along with funding, Ant Financial will bring in technical and operational expertise, and the experience of working in a global market like China, providing Paytm with an international exposure.
Ant Financial and Paytm will also build on synergies in the mobile wallet front to offer Indian consumers comprehensive product and services, and tap the significant potential of the India mobile payment market.
The Indian e-commerce market is expected to grow 37% to $20 billion (Rs 122,000 crore) by next year (from the current $11 billion or Rs 67,100 crore) on the back of growing internet population and increasing number of online shoppers.
“With over 1 billion people, India’s payments market has vast untapped potential,” Ant Financial vice-president Cyril Han said.
Citi and Goldman Sachs served as financial advisers on the deal.
IBM signs nine year IT outsourcing deal with Birla Sun Life Insurance
IBM has announced that Birla Sun Life Insurance (BSLI), the life insurance arm of the Aditya Birla Financial Services Group, signed a nine year IT outsourcing deal with IBM to consolidate, redesign in-scope applications and use analytics to provide client insights that build competitive advantage. BSLI will leverage mobility and cloud solutions developed by IBM Research and the IBM India Software Lab to achieve increased revenues, reduce costs and enhanced profitability.
BSLI in this partnership with IBM will adopt a first-of-a-kind technology solution to the insurance sector that will radically transform the business technology model. BSLI will leverage IBM's business consulting, application development and maintenance services to drive process efficiencies and transform the business towards better outcomes for customers and employees. Tailor-made solutions from IBM will bring process maturity best practices, IT portfolio consolidation and introduce innovative tools.
This deal could help BSLI realize a cost reduction advantage from consolidation of IT vendors. IBM's flexible pricing model will enable dynamic ramp up/down and consumption based operational spending along with a roadmap to modernize, consolidate and rationalize the application portfolio, bringing in speed and reduced time to market.
Speaking on the occasion, Mayank Bathwal, Dy. CEO, Birla Sun Life Insurance said, "We at Birla Sun Life Insurance are committed to offering an enhanced experience to our customers while improving on efficiencies and profitability of the business. We believe that this winning partnership with IBM will help us excel and stay ahead of the curve in this fast evolving life insurance industry, while addressing all business needs. IBM's vast experience and technology capabilities will add tremendous value to our business."
"IBM remains committed in the transformation of the BFSI industry catalyzing growth and inclusion. We are pleased to partner with BSLI to help leverage leading technology solutions like cloud and analytics to make critical strides in achieving business transformation, improving service delivery and increasing customer satisfaction,"said Vanitha Narayanan, Managing Director, IBM India. "We will bring our local and global expertise and capabilities to fuel BSLI' expansion and growth in this dynamic Insurance industry in India." she further added.
BSLI in this partnership with IBM will adopt a first-of-a-kind technology solution to the insurance sector that will radically transform the business technology model. BSLI will leverage IBM's business consulting, application development and maintenance services to drive process efficiencies and transform the business towards better outcomes for customers and employees. Tailor-made solutions from IBM will bring process maturity best practices, IT portfolio consolidation and introduce innovative tools.
This deal could help BSLI realize a cost reduction advantage from consolidation of IT vendors. IBM's flexible pricing model will enable dynamic ramp up/down and consumption based operational spending along with a roadmap to modernize, consolidate and rationalize the application portfolio, bringing in speed and reduced time to market.
Speaking on the occasion, Mayank Bathwal, Dy. CEO, Birla Sun Life Insurance said, "We at Birla Sun Life Insurance are committed to offering an enhanced experience to our customers while improving on efficiencies and profitability of the business. We believe that this winning partnership with IBM will help us excel and stay ahead of the curve in this fast evolving life insurance industry, while addressing all business needs. IBM's vast experience and technology capabilities will add tremendous value to our business."
"IBM remains committed in the transformation of the BFSI industry catalyzing growth and inclusion. We are pleased to partner with BSLI to help leverage leading technology solutions like cloud and analytics to make critical strides in achieving business transformation, improving service delivery and increasing customer satisfaction,"said Vanitha Narayanan, Managing Director, IBM India. "We will bring our local and global expertise and capabilities to fuel BSLI' expansion and growth in this dynamic Insurance industry in India." she further added.
Zomato: India’s first global app
New Delhi: It was June 2014. It had been 11 months since Zomato Media Pvt. Ltd, which owns the eponymous online restaurant search service, had launched the New Zealand version of the website and founders Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah were running somewhat low on gas.
Goyal, who is now 32, and Chaddah, three years younger, had then been hoping to overtake MenuMania, the New Zealand market leader in online restaurant search and discovery service, but it looked like they had to wait a couple of more years before they could pull it off.
The two men had already spent close to four exhausting years in emerging as the leaders in their own home market—India—by taking the lead over Burrp and TimesCity and were impatient for faster growth.
They finally decided to call MenuMania. The discussion was straightforward. Was MenuMania ready to be acquired? After a 15-minute call, the two companies agreed on the basics, including a price. After a month of paperwork, the deal was done and an announcement made, in July 2014. The value of the deal wasn’t disclosed.
“That was the first deal and it really worked for us. We merged the two entities and we got a lot of leverage with the user base. The New Zealand business suddenly jumped about three times,” said Goyal.
“This gave us the idea that there must be a lot of large local dominant players in different countries which had not got funded and were running on their own money for a long time. We started to identify companies that might have been looking to exit businesses which they had run for a long time on their own boot-strapping capital.
Gurgaon-based Zomato, which has acquired seven companies in a six-month binge, is currently present in 22 countries. In January, the company, in one of the biggest overseas deals by an Indian start-up, acquired larger rival Urbanspoon, the Seattle-based bar and restaurant guide.
The deal, estimated to be close to $50 million, gave Zomato a toehold in the competitive US market and put the company in direct competition with market leader Yelp Inc., which crowd-sources menus, contact details and pictures. The deal also established Zomato’s presence in Australia and Canada and enhanced its position in the UK and New Zealand, countries where Urbanspoon has a presence.
It helped Zomato expand its presence to 500-plus cities in 22 countries and increased its restaurant coverage from about 300,000 to more than 1 million. According to Zomato, its traffic will more than double—from nearly 35 million visits per month to more than 80 million visits per month—as a result of the acquisition, making it the largest restaurant search company in the world, reinforcing its position as India’s first truly global app, with a valuation of $660 million.
Rapid moves
To be sure, Zomato isn’t sitting back. It plans to invest $50 million more in the US to stay in the game and expects to overtake Yelp within 12 months. The company expects its biggest differentiator to be content.
“We have much better and relevant content and we will continue to follow the model of collecting and publishing the content ourselves rather than crowd-sourcing it,” said Chaddah.
Within weeks of the Urbanspoon acquisition, Zomato bought Turkish rival Mekanist for an undisclosed sum, continuing its acquisition spree in international markets. Most of these deals were outbound transactions where Zomato approached competitors in new markets. The company’s strategy here is to move rapidly, without allowing the acquisition target to go out and shop for a better buyer.
The acquisition of Urbanspoon was different. “We would have never reached out to Urbanspoon. They are three times our size in terms of traffic. They reached out to us saying they wanted to sell the business and then there was a bidding process where a lot of companies bid but finally we got the deal,” adds Goyal.
In 2015, the company expects to go slow in expanding into newer markets. “The focus in 2015 will be to grow in the markets we are present in. All our bandwidth will go into consolidation and to ramp up our revenue,” said Chaddah.
Chaddah’s goal for 2015 is to triple the company’s revenue. “He has done that for last three years and he is hoping to do that for the next three years,” explains Goyal.
For the year ended 31 March 2014, Zomato posted a loss of Rs.37.2 crore on revenue of Rs.36.11 crore. For the previous year, the company posted a loss of Rs.10 crore on revenue of Rs.12.30 crore.
Zomato, whose 100% revenues comes from restaurant ads, now plans to experiment with other revenue generation models as well. The company last week introduced a payment option in its mobile app in Dubai. Every time a consumer pays via Zomato, the merchant will pay the company a percentage cut on the overall transaction amount.
The beginnings
Goyal and Chaddah started Zomato, then known as Foodiebay, in 2008. The idea originated when they saw their colleagues at consultancy firm Bain & Co. queuing at the cafeteria every day to go through a file of restaurant menu cards to order food.
“We had a rule that no one will take these menu cards at their desk because if you lose them no one will be able to order food. So it was always crowded around the menu cards,” recalls Goyal.
One day he decided to scan them and put them online. “It started from there essentially and a lot of people at Bain started using the service and then we eventually expanded it to Delhi NCR (national capital region). It was a very slow growth curve in early years,” adds Goyal.
Foodiebay was re-branded to Zomato in November 2010 because of a conflict with e-commerce marketplace eBay Inc. over use of the word ebay in its name.
“We were also unsure if we would just stick to food at that time so we wanted a more neutral name,” said Chaddah. A year ago, Zomato tried to sell event tickets too. The idea did not click and was rolled back.
During the first year, Goyal and Chaddah ran the business alongside their jobs and it was in late 2009 when they quit Bain to make Foodiebay a full-time calling. Families were worried and even Goyal and Chaddah were unsure if the risk they were taking was worth it. “Our parents did not want us to quit Bain. It was a stable job…many people aspired to work at Bain,” said Chaddah.
For the initial few months after quitting Bain, the duo got monetary help from their brothers and a couple of friends at Bain. In mid-2010, the company was struggling to convince investors to write them their first cheque.
“It was a time when e-commerce was taking the entire mind share so nobody had the time to look at us. It is only now that food tech is hotter than anything else,” smiles Goyal.
Soon after they received an email from one of their customers, Sanjeev Bikhchandani, who was also the founder of Info Edge (India) Ltd, an online classifieds company that runs job portal Naukri.
“The day we went to meet him, he asked if we were looking for money. We told him yes and within 15 minutes he promised a $1 million cheque for a 33% stake in the company,” said Goyal.
Since then Info Edge has done most follow-up rounds of funding and currently holds a more than 50% stake in Zomato.
According to Bikhchandani of Info Edge, it was the team and the business idea that made him bet on Zomato in its early days. “We wrote them a small cheque to see how they would grow the company further and they kept taking the business further which was impressive,” he adds.
India is yet to produce a global consumer Internet business and Zomato could well be the first big global consumer Internet company out of India, said Bikhchandani.
“When it comes to US market, I think they will proceed cautiously and slowly,” he said.
Vy Capital and Sequoia Capital are some of the other investors who have backed the company. Zomato, which has thus far raised $113 million, might need to raise fresh capital as the company spent close to $50 million on the Urbanspoon acquisition out of the $60 million it raised in its last round.
The future
But, according to Goyal, the company is in no hurry to raise more capital. “The next round will give us fuel to grow faster but there is no timeline…it could happen tomorrow, it could take six months. Right now the focus is on integration.
The company is also looking to double its headcount in the next 12 months. It employs more than 1,000 people across the globe. The firm this year will focus on growing its sales team in markets such as Australia, Canada, Turkey and the US.
“I think the next year will go into building the organization and really building the foundation of the scale that we have taken up. The most difficult task here is integrating the teams in other geographies while maintaining its culture,” said Goyal.
Though for the founders the goals of the company change almost every day, there is a long-term vision of Zomato becoming a full-fledged communications platform between restaurants and consumers.
“You should be able to search and discover platforms, you should be able to interact with restaurants for placing an order, to book a table or even to communicate with the waiter when you are sitting at a table,” said Goyal. “But it is going to take us a lot of years to get there. So achieving this in this particular vertical is not easy.”
The company already provides table booking services in markets such as the UK where it has partnered with online restaurant real-time reservation service OpenTable and Book a Table.
In India and other markets, the company is taking a wait-and-watch approach. “There are no acquisitions to make in India at this moment. There are no strong players so either we will have to wait for someone to do this or we will have to do it on our own,” said Goyal.
According to Goyal, Zomato in seven years has grown from a plain vanilla pile of menu cards in blue HTML links, the JPEG files, to a restaurant discovery portal and app which rates and reviews restaurants.
“Back then we did not even have a search option on Zomato. One had to use the browser search option for it. Today as a product Zomato is very very different… it was only 1% of what it is right now. And the focus of what we are trying to do actually changes every day.”
Goyal, who is now 32, and Chaddah, three years younger, had then been hoping to overtake MenuMania, the New Zealand market leader in online restaurant search and discovery service, but it looked like they had to wait a couple of more years before they could pull it off.
The two men had already spent close to four exhausting years in emerging as the leaders in their own home market—India—by taking the lead over Burrp and TimesCity and were impatient for faster growth.
They finally decided to call MenuMania. The discussion was straightforward. Was MenuMania ready to be acquired? After a 15-minute call, the two companies agreed on the basics, including a price. After a month of paperwork, the deal was done and an announcement made, in July 2014. The value of the deal wasn’t disclosed.
“That was the first deal and it really worked for us. We merged the two entities and we got a lot of leverage with the user base. The New Zealand business suddenly jumped about three times,” said Goyal.
“This gave us the idea that there must be a lot of large local dominant players in different countries which had not got funded and were running on their own money for a long time. We started to identify companies that might have been looking to exit businesses which they had run for a long time on their own boot-strapping capital.
Gurgaon-based Zomato, which has acquired seven companies in a six-month binge, is currently present in 22 countries. In January, the company, in one of the biggest overseas deals by an Indian start-up, acquired larger rival Urbanspoon, the Seattle-based bar and restaurant guide.
The deal, estimated to be close to $50 million, gave Zomato a toehold in the competitive US market and put the company in direct competition with market leader Yelp Inc., which crowd-sources menus, contact details and pictures. The deal also established Zomato’s presence in Australia and Canada and enhanced its position in the UK and New Zealand, countries where Urbanspoon has a presence.
It helped Zomato expand its presence to 500-plus cities in 22 countries and increased its restaurant coverage from about 300,000 to more than 1 million. According to Zomato, its traffic will more than double—from nearly 35 million visits per month to more than 80 million visits per month—as a result of the acquisition, making it the largest restaurant search company in the world, reinforcing its position as India’s first truly global app, with a valuation of $660 million.
Rapid moves
To be sure, Zomato isn’t sitting back. It plans to invest $50 million more in the US to stay in the game and expects to overtake Yelp within 12 months. The company expects its biggest differentiator to be content.
“We have much better and relevant content and we will continue to follow the model of collecting and publishing the content ourselves rather than crowd-sourcing it,” said Chaddah.
Within weeks of the Urbanspoon acquisition, Zomato bought Turkish rival Mekanist for an undisclosed sum, continuing its acquisition spree in international markets. Most of these deals were outbound transactions where Zomato approached competitors in new markets. The company’s strategy here is to move rapidly, without allowing the acquisition target to go out and shop for a better buyer.
The acquisition of Urbanspoon was different. “We would have never reached out to Urbanspoon. They are three times our size in terms of traffic. They reached out to us saying they wanted to sell the business and then there was a bidding process where a lot of companies bid but finally we got the deal,” adds Goyal.
In 2015, the company expects to go slow in expanding into newer markets. “The focus in 2015 will be to grow in the markets we are present in. All our bandwidth will go into consolidation and to ramp up our revenue,” said Chaddah.
Chaddah’s goal for 2015 is to triple the company’s revenue. “He has done that for last three years and he is hoping to do that for the next three years,” explains Goyal.
For the year ended 31 March 2014, Zomato posted a loss of Rs.37.2 crore on revenue of Rs.36.11 crore. For the previous year, the company posted a loss of Rs.10 crore on revenue of Rs.12.30 crore.
Zomato, whose 100% revenues comes from restaurant ads, now plans to experiment with other revenue generation models as well. The company last week introduced a payment option in its mobile app in Dubai. Every time a consumer pays via Zomato, the merchant will pay the company a percentage cut on the overall transaction amount.
The beginnings
Goyal and Chaddah started Zomato, then known as Foodiebay, in 2008. The idea originated when they saw their colleagues at consultancy firm Bain & Co. queuing at the cafeteria every day to go through a file of restaurant menu cards to order food.
“We had a rule that no one will take these menu cards at their desk because if you lose them no one will be able to order food. So it was always crowded around the menu cards,” recalls Goyal.
One day he decided to scan them and put them online. “It started from there essentially and a lot of people at Bain started using the service and then we eventually expanded it to Delhi NCR (national capital region). It was a very slow growth curve in early years,” adds Goyal.
Foodiebay was re-branded to Zomato in November 2010 because of a conflict with e-commerce marketplace eBay Inc. over use of the word ebay in its name.
“We were also unsure if we would just stick to food at that time so we wanted a more neutral name,” said Chaddah. A year ago, Zomato tried to sell event tickets too. The idea did not click and was rolled back.
During the first year, Goyal and Chaddah ran the business alongside their jobs and it was in late 2009 when they quit Bain to make Foodiebay a full-time calling. Families were worried and even Goyal and Chaddah were unsure if the risk they were taking was worth it. “Our parents did not want us to quit Bain. It was a stable job…many people aspired to work at Bain,” said Chaddah.
For the initial few months after quitting Bain, the duo got monetary help from their brothers and a couple of friends at Bain. In mid-2010, the company was struggling to convince investors to write them their first cheque.
“It was a time when e-commerce was taking the entire mind share so nobody had the time to look at us. It is only now that food tech is hotter than anything else,” smiles Goyal.
Soon after they received an email from one of their customers, Sanjeev Bikhchandani, who was also the founder of Info Edge (India) Ltd, an online classifieds company that runs job portal Naukri.
“The day we went to meet him, he asked if we were looking for money. We told him yes and within 15 minutes he promised a $1 million cheque for a 33% stake in the company,” said Goyal.
Since then Info Edge has done most follow-up rounds of funding and currently holds a more than 50% stake in Zomato.
According to Bikhchandani of Info Edge, it was the team and the business idea that made him bet on Zomato in its early days. “We wrote them a small cheque to see how they would grow the company further and they kept taking the business further which was impressive,” he adds.
India is yet to produce a global consumer Internet business and Zomato could well be the first big global consumer Internet company out of India, said Bikhchandani.
“When it comes to US market, I think they will proceed cautiously and slowly,” he said.
Vy Capital and Sequoia Capital are some of the other investors who have backed the company. Zomato, which has thus far raised $113 million, might need to raise fresh capital as the company spent close to $50 million on the Urbanspoon acquisition out of the $60 million it raised in its last round.
The future
But, according to Goyal, the company is in no hurry to raise more capital. “The next round will give us fuel to grow faster but there is no timeline…it could happen tomorrow, it could take six months. Right now the focus is on integration.
The company is also looking to double its headcount in the next 12 months. It employs more than 1,000 people across the globe. The firm this year will focus on growing its sales team in markets such as Australia, Canada, Turkey and the US.
“I think the next year will go into building the organization and really building the foundation of the scale that we have taken up. The most difficult task here is integrating the teams in other geographies while maintaining its culture,” said Goyal.
Though for the founders the goals of the company change almost every day, there is a long-term vision of Zomato becoming a full-fledged communications platform between restaurants and consumers.
“You should be able to search and discover platforms, you should be able to interact with restaurants for placing an order, to book a table or even to communicate with the waiter when you are sitting at a table,” said Goyal. “But it is going to take us a lot of years to get there. So achieving this in this particular vertical is not easy.”
The company already provides table booking services in markets such as the UK where it has partnered with online restaurant real-time reservation service OpenTable and Book a Table.
In India and other markets, the company is taking a wait-and-watch approach. “There are no acquisitions to make in India at this moment. There are no strong players so either we will have to wait for someone to do this or we will have to do it on our own,” said Goyal.
According to Goyal, Zomato in seven years has grown from a plain vanilla pile of menu cards in blue HTML links, the JPEG files, to a restaurant discovery portal and app which rates and reviews restaurants.
“Back then we did not even have a search option on Zomato. One had to use the browser search option for it. Today as a product Zomato is very very different… it was only 1% of what it is right now. And the focus of what we are trying to do actually changes every day.”
Huawei launches R&D centre in Bengaluru
Bengaluru: Chinese telecom gear maker Huawei on Thrusday launched a research and development (R&D) campus in Bengaluru with an investment of $170 million. The campus, being the first by any Chinese company, has a capacity to accommodate 5,000 engineers but at present 2,700 people are working here, with 98% being local workers.
“The India R&D centre will continue to focus on development and delivery of high quality software platforms, components and applications for the various product lines of the parent company,” Huawei India R&D center CEO Wilson Wang said. The company, which has completed 15 years in the Indian market, said the R&D campus will play a key role in component development and delivery center for the global markets and has ownership of almost all software platforms, components and products being developed in India.
The Bengaluru centre is also the largest R&D facility of Huawei outside China. Huawei has invested around $300 million in R&D in India in the last 15 years. “Huawei has played an important role in the evolution of telecom ecosystem in the country and its investment in new facility further showcases Huawei’s commitment to the India market,” department of industrial policy & promotion (DIPP) secretary Amitabh Kant said.
“The India R&D centre will continue to focus on development and delivery of high quality software platforms, components and applications for the various product lines of the parent company,” Huawei India R&D center CEO Wilson Wang said. The company, which has completed 15 years in the Indian market, said the R&D campus will play a key role in component development and delivery center for the global markets and has ownership of almost all software platforms, components and products being developed in India.
The Bengaluru centre is also the largest R&D facility of Huawei outside China. Huawei has invested around $300 million in R&D in India in the last 15 years. “Huawei has played an important role in the evolution of telecom ecosystem in the country and its investment in new facility further showcases Huawei’s commitment to the India market,” department of industrial policy & promotion (DIPP) secretary Amitabh Kant said.
PM announces constitution of three sub-groups within NITI Aayog; asks all states to set up two task forces under aegis of NITI Aayog
New Delhi: The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, has announced that the NITI Aayog would constitute three sub groups: of Chief Ministers on the following themes:
Sub-group to study the 66 Centrally Sponsored Schemes and recommend which to continue, which to transfer to states, and which to cut down.
Sub-group to recommend how NITI Aayog can promote skill development and creation of skilled manpower within states.
Sub-group to decide on institutional mechanisms to be evolved, and technological inputs, for ensuring that commitment to Swachh Bharat becomes a part of our life in perpetuity.
In his concluding remarks at the first meeting of the Governing Council of NITI Aayog, the Prime Minister also asked all states to create two task forces under the aegis of the NITI Aayog One task force would focus on poverty alleviation, and the other would focus on future development of agriculture in the state, and how the Centre can assist the state in this regard.
The members of the sub-groups will be decided later, after Chief Ministers indicate their preferences.
The Prime Minister urged all states to use the upcoming school vacations as an opportunity to build and upgrade toilets, so as to ensure that the target of toilets for all schools is achieved. He also suggested that a portion of the funds under the MPLAD and MLALAD schemes can be earmarked for cleanliness-related activities, until 2019.
The Prime Minister appreciated the team spirit shown by all participating Chief Ministers in the thoughts and vision expressed by them during the meeting.
Sub-group to study the 66 Centrally Sponsored Schemes and recommend which to continue, which to transfer to states, and which to cut down.
Sub-group to recommend how NITI Aayog can promote skill development and creation of skilled manpower within states.
Sub-group to decide on institutional mechanisms to be evolved, and technological inputs, for ensuring that commitment to Swachh Bharat becomes a part of our life in perpetuity.
In his concluding remarks at the first meeting of the Governing Council of NITI Aayog, the Prime Minister also asked all states to create two task forces under the aegis of the NITI Aayog One task force would focus on poverty alleviation, and the other would focus on future development of agriculture in the state, and how the Centre can assist the state in this regard.
The members of the sub-groups will be decided later, after Chief Ministers indicate their preferences.
The Prime Minister urged all states to use the upcoming school vacations as an opportunity to build and upgrade toilets, so as to ensure that the target of toilets for all schools is achieved. He also suggested that a portion of the funds under the MPLAD and MLALAD schemes can be earmarked for cleanliness-related activities, until 2019.
The Prime Minister appreciated the team spirit shown by all participating Chief Ministers in the thoughts and vision expressed by them during the meeting.
India set to become world's fastest growing e-commerce market
New Delhi: India is on route to becoming the world’s fastest growing e-commerce market, if current projections are anything to go by. This growth story is being driven by robust investment activity in the sector and the rapid increase in internet users. Internet users in India have gone up from 50 mn in 2007 to 300 million in 2014.
Last year, smart phone shipments doubled to 80 mn from a year-ago period. The prospect of connecting 1.24 billion people to the internet may be an opportunity in itself. But what analysts are excited about is the prospect of selling products and services to this digital population. Investment banks believe India is on way to becoming one of the largest internet markets in the world, with implications for consumers and investors.
Morgan Stanley expects the size of the Indian internet market to rise from $11 bn in 2013 to $137 bn by 2020 and market capitalisation of these internet businesses could touch $160-200 bn from the $4 bn at present. Currently, only three internet companies are listed in India but with the pace at which venture capital (VC) firms and private equity (PE) firms are pumping money into India, several internet companies could possibly look at listing in the next couple of years. India’s internet market was at $11 bn (gross merchandise value) in 2013, of which $11 bn was online travel and e-commerce was $3 bn.
As the market matures and more companies get listed, the market cap of internet companies will expand too. Analysts at Morgan Stanley believe that India's internet market can grow to $137 bn by 2020 (a CAGR of 43 per cent) and e-commerce will form the largest part of the internet market at $102 billion. In relatively more advanced markets like China and the US, top 30 listed internet companies account for 12 per cent and four per cent, respectively, of the total market capitalisation. Internet commerce tends to account for more than 50 per cent of the market cap among listed internet firms. Morgan Stanley expects India’s e-commerce market (revenues) to grow from $2.9 bn in 2013 to over $100 bn by 2020, making it the fastest growing e-commerce market in the world.
The basis of this argument is the kind of equity investments made by PE and VC firms in 2014. The total equity investments made in Indian internet companies is $4.5 bn. The growth in internet businesses will also give a fillip to other related businesses like logistics and payment solutions.
Last year, smart phone shipments doubled to 80 mn from a year-ago period. The prospect of connecting 1.24 billion people to the internet may be an opportunity in itself. But what analysts are excited about is the prospect of selling products and services to this digital population. Investment banks believe India is on way to becoming one of the largest internet markets in the world, with implications for consumers and investors.
Morgan Stanley expects the size of the Indian internet market to rise from $11 bn in 2013 to $137 bn by 2020 and market capitalisation of these internet businesses could touch $160-200 bn from the $4 bn at present. Currently, only three internet companies are listed in India but with the pace at which venture capital (VC) firms and private equity (PE) firms are pumping money into India, several internet companies could possibly look at listing in the next couple of years. India’s internet market was at $11 bn (gross merchandise value) in 2013, of which $11 bn was online travel and e-commerce was $3 bn.
As the market matures and more companies get listed, the market cap of internet companies will expand too. Analysts at Morgan Stanley believe that India's internet market can grow to $137 bn by 2020 (a CAGR of 43 per cent) and e-commerce will form the largest part of the internet market at $102 billion. In relatively more advanced markets like China and the US, top 30 listed internet companies account for 12 per cent and four per cent, respectively, of the total market capitalisation. Internet commerce tends to account for more than 50 per cent of the market cap among listed internet firms. Morgan Stanley expects India’s e-commerce market (revenues) to grow from $2.9 bn in 2013 to over $100 bn by 2020, making it the fastest growing e-commerce market in the world.
The basis of this argument is the kind of equity investments made by PE and VC firms in 2014. The total equity investments made in Indian internet companies is $4.5 bn. The growth in internet businesses will also give a fillip to other related businesses like logistics and payment solutions.
MF assets rose 12% in Jan to all-time high
Mumbai: Assets under management (AUM) of India's mutual fund (MF) sector hit a record high of Rs 11.8 lakh crore in January, a rise of nearly 12 per cent from the previous month. Continuous inflow in a majority of the asset categories, particularly equity, along with a rally in the stock markets, is helping the sector gain in size.
“The industry is targeting a total AUM of Rs 20 lakh crore by 2020. It appears we can achieve it much ahead of that,” said Sundeep Sikka, chairman, Association of Mutual Funds in India. Income funds saw a net inflow of Rs 12,163 crore in January.
Equity-related schemes saw inflow of Rs 7,663 crore. Balanced funds got Rs 835 crore and gilt funds a net inflow of Rs 1,813 crore. However, gold exchange-traded funds could not keep pace and continued to see outflows, worth Rs 131 crore in January.
According to Milind Barve, managing director of HDFC MF, “Equity as an asset class is gaining attraction among investors. Last year was a year of the return of hope. Optimism was back after the landmark election result in May. The good part is those who for many years had been buying into gold and other physical assets are now interested in buying financial assets, like equities.”
The smaller cities and towns are also contributing more to the overall AUM. According to sector executives, the investors' base beyond the top 15 (B-15) cities is now at par with the top 15. In equities, they put the figure at a little over Rs 1 lakh crore of the Rs 3.4 lakh crore of overall equity assets.
Nimesh Shah, managing director of ICICI Prudential MF, said: “There is increased enthusiasm for distributing MFs in B-15. The equity markets generating superior returns over the past few months has resulted in building a reasonable breadth of B-15 investors, content with their investments, and the momentum is catching up.”
Investor awareness and education programmes by fund houses, coupled with the incentive scheme introduced by the market regulator, have yielded results, say those in the sector. The Securities and Exchange Board of India allows MF houses to charge an additional 30 basis points in the total expense ratio if 30 per cent of the new flows are from B15.
There are 43 fund houses. The total folio count, across categories, is about 40 million.
“The industry is targeting a total AUM of Rs 20 lakh crore by 2020. It appears we can achieve it much ahead of that,” said Sundeep Sikka, chairman, Association of Mutual Funds in India. Income funds saw a net inflow of Rs 12,163 crore in January.
Equity-related schemes saw inflow of Rs 7,663 crore. Balanced funds got Rs 835 crore and gilt funds a net inflow of Rs 1,813 crore. However, gold exchange-traded funds could not keep pace and continued to see outflows, worth Rs 131 crore in January.
According to Milind Barve, managing director of HDFC MF, “Equity as an asset class is gaining attraction among investors. Last year was a year of the return of hope. Optimism was back after the landmark election result in May. The good part is those who for many years had been buying into gold and other physical assets are now interested in buying financial assets, like equities.”
The smaller cities and towns are also contributing more to the overall AUM. According to sector executives, the investors' base beyond the top 15 (B-15) cities is now at par with the top 15. In equities, they put the figure at a little over Rs 1 lakh crore of the Rs 3.4 lakh crore of overall equity assets.
Nimesh Shah, managing director of ICICI Prudential MF, said: “There is increased enthusiasm for distributing MFs in B-15. The equity markets generating superior returns over the past few months has resulted in building a reasonable breadth of B-15 investors, content with their investments, and the momentum is catching up.”
Investor awareness and education programmes by fund houses, coupled with the incentive scheme introduced by the market regulator, have yielded results, say those in the sector. The Securities and Exchange Board of India allows MF houses to charge an additional 30 basis points in the total expense ratio if 30 per cent of the new flows are from B15.
There are 43 fund houses. The total folio count, across categories, is about 40 million.
Govt announces capital infusion of Rs6,990 crore in public sector banks
New Delhi: The government on Saturday announced a capital infusion of Rs.6990 crore in nine state run banks, including State Bank of India (SBI) and Punjab National Bank (PNB), but based on new efficiency parameters such as return on assets and return on equity.
In a statement, the finance ministry said, “This year, the Government of India has adopted a new criteria in which the banks which are more efficient would only be rewarded with extra capital for their equity so that they can further strengthen their position."
The government had budgeted to infuse more than Rs.11,000 crore as capital in the current financial year. It is not clear if the government plans to infuse capital in the other state run banks that have not performed well on the listed parameters.
While State Bank of India will get Rs.2,970 crore as capital in the current fiscal, Bank of Baroda will get Rs.1,260 crore, Punjab National Bank Rs.870 crore, Canara Bank Rs.570 crore, Syndicate Bank Rs.460 crore, Allahabad Bank Rs.320 crore, Indian Bank Rs.280 crore, Dena Bank Rs.140 crore and Andhra Bank Rs.120 crore.
Though the government has specified its intention to bring down its stake in state run banks to 52% to give them more avenues to raise funds, most banks are expected to approach the market to raise capital only next fiscal.
In a statement, the finance ministry said, “This year, the Government of India has adopted a new criteria in which the banks which are more efficient would only be rewarded with extra capital for their equity so that they can further strengthen their position."
The government had budgeted to infuse more than Rs.11,000 crore as capital in the current financial year. It is not clear if the government plans to infuse capital in the other state run banks that have not performed well on the listed parameters.
While State Bank of India will get Rs.2,970 crore as capital in the current fiscal, Bank of Baroda will get Rs.1,260 crore, Punjab National Bank Rs.870 crore, Canara Bank Rs.570 crore, Syndicate Bank Rs.460 crore, Allahabad Bank Rs.320 crore, Indian Bank Rs.280 crore, Dena Bank Rs.140 crore and Andhra Bank Rs.120 crore.
Though the government has specified its intention to bring down its stake in state run banks to 52% to give them more avenues to raise funds, most banks are expected to approach the market to raise capital only next fiscal.
Foodpanda acquires food ordering portal Just Eat India
New Delhi: Online food delivery marketplace Foodpanda.in said on Friday that is had acquired food ordering portal Just Eat India in an all-stock deal as it seeks to strengthen its presence in India.
Just Eat Plc., the largest shareholder in Achindra Online Marketing Pvt. Ltd that runs Just eat India, will receive a minority stake in Foodpanda.in as part of the deal, whose valuation wasn’t disclosed. Foodpanda will assume full ownership of Just Eat India, the company said in a statement.
Gurgaon-based Foodpanda is backed by Berlin’s Rocket Internet AG, an e-commerce-focused venture capital firm and start-up incubator. The purchase is the second in four months by the company, which in November acquired food delivery business TastyKhana.in for an undisclosed amount. The latest deal comes in at a time when restaurant search portal Zomato is looking to enter the online food ordering space in India.
“We have a very clear focus of being the largest player in every country that we operate in. Though we were already a dominant player, this will further help consolidate our position as a leader,” Rohit Chadda, co-founder and managing director at Foodpanda, said .
According to Chadda, the two companies will continue to operate independently and the Just Eat brand will continue to exist separately.
He does not rule out an integration of the two platforms going forward. “I can’t rule it out and we will take a decision in due course of time. As of today, we will keep the brands and teams separate,” he added.
Just Eat Plc. was launched in Denmark in 2001 and was traded publicly on the London Stock Exchange. It entered India by acquiring a majority stake in Hungry in Bengaluru in 2011. Hungry was launched in 2006.
Today, the company partners with more than 2,000 restaurants.
“Foodpanda has built a great company in India and around the globe and we are very excited to partner with them going forward. We believe that we can combine (to) bring an even better service to our customers in India,” said Ritesh Dwivedy, chief executive, Just Eat India.
Foodpanda.in, which launched in India in May 2012, operates in 39 countries across five continents. Together with TastyKhana and Just Eat, the brand is present in more than 200 cities and partners over 12,000 restaurants, the company said in a statement.
According to Chadda, the online food ordering business in India is in its nascent stage. “Share of online food ordering would be in single digits of the overall food ordering business which in 2014 was estimated to be around Rs.5,000-6,000 crore. We are growing at 20-30% month-on-month,” he added.
The company currently gets more than 100,000 unique visitors daily on its platform.
In August last year, Foodpanda raised $60 million in new financing from a group of investors and existing backer Rocket Internet.
Just Eat Plc., the largest shareholder in Achindra Online Marketing Pvt. Ltd that runs Just eat India, will receive a minority stake in Foodpanda.in as part of the deal, whose valuation wasn’t disclosed. Foodpanda will assume full ownership of Just Eat India, the company said in a statement.
Gurgaon-based Foodpanda is backed by Berlin’s Rocket Internet AG, an e-commerce-focused venture capital firm and start-up incubator. The purchase is the second in four months by the company, which in November acquired food delivery business TastyKhana.in for an undisclosed amount. The latest deal comes in at a time when restaurant search portal Zomato is looking to enter the online food ordering space in India.
“We have a very clear focus of being the largest player in every country that we operate in. Though we were already a dominant player, this will further help consolidate our position as a leader,” Rohit Chadda, co-founder and managing director at Foodpanda, said .
According to Chadda, the two companies will continue to operate independently and the Just Eat brand will continue to exist separately.
He does not rule out an integration of the two platforms going forward. “I can’t rule it out and we will take a decision in due course of time. As of today, we will keep the brands and teams separate,” he added.
Just Eat Plc. was launched in Denmark in 2001 and was traded publicly on the London Stock Exchange. It entered India by acquiring a majority stake in Hungry in Bengaluru in 2011. Hungry was launched in 2006.
Today, the company partners with more than 2,000 restaurants.
“Foodpanda has built a great company in India and around the globe and we are very excited to partner with them going forward. We believe that we can combine (to) bring an even better service to our customers in India,” said Ritesh Dwivedy, chief executive, Just Eat India.
Foodpanda.in, which launched in India in May 2012, operates in 39 countries across five continents. Together with TastyKhana and Just Eat, the brand is present in more than 200 cities and partners over 12,000 restaurants, the company said in a statement.
According to Chadda, the online food ordering business in India is in its nascent stage. “Share of online food ordering would be in single digits of the overall food ordering business which in 2014 was estimated to be around Rs.5,000-6,000 crore. We are growing at 20-30% month-on-month,” he added.
The company currently gets more than 100,000 unique visitors daily on its platform.
In August last year, Foodpanda raised $60 million in new financing from a group of investors and existing backer Rocket Internet.
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