In a big blow to Cyrus Mistry, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) on Monday said that the former chairman's family firms are not qualified to file a petition alleging mismanagement of Tata Sons and oppression of minority shareholders.
Tata Sons argued that Mistry's family firms – Cyrus Investments Pvt Ltd and Sterling Investments Pvt Ltd – hold only 2.17 % shares of the total share capital (equity + preference shares) of Tata Sons, which makes them unqualified to allege any charges. Mistry's office declined to comment.
(Source: Economic Times)
India’s richest man is looking at ways of insulating his family’s holdings in Reliance Industries Ltd from the government’s efforts to tax some long-term capital gains, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
Mukesh Ambani’s plan to revamp his stake in the nation’s second most-valuable company, by transferring shares between entities affiliated with his family, is aimed at reducing their potential bill following changes in Indian levies, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing private matters.
The move may help contain liabilities from the sales at about $45 million compared with nearly $4.5 billion if they were to do a similar deal after 1 April once the tax changes take effect, according to Bloomberg calculations.
(Source: BloombergQuint)
Popular online video streaming service Netflix on Monday said it has formed three separate strategic partnerships with telcos Bharti Airtel Ltd and Vodafone India and direct-to-home (DTH) television operator Videocon d2h.
The announcement was made in New Delhi by Netflix co-founder and chief executive Reed Hastings, who is visiting India for the first time.
While the company did not reveal the details of these partnerships, Hastings said that Netflix would do more partnerships with both mobile and set top box operators to make it easier, particularly on the billing side.
(Source: Livemint)
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Mumbai-based polymer emulsions maker Visen Industries Ltd is in talks to raise at least Rs 200 crore from Edelweiss Special Opportunities Fund, two people aware of the development said.
“Visen is in advanced talks with the Edelweiss fund to raise structured credit of around Rs 200 crore, which will be used specifically to provide an exit to its existing private equity investor Carlyle Group,” one of the two people cited above said requesting anonymity, as the talks are private.
Carlyle, which invested in the company more than five years ago, is keen on exiting, he added. It had invested $25 million in Visen Industries in 2011 through an affiliate—First Carlyle Ventures III, which was part of part of the Carlyle Asia Growth Partners IV, a $1 billion sector-agnostic fund.
(Source: Livemint)
Vodafone India and Idea Cellular could be the most vulnerable to Reliance Jio Infocomm’s push for a 50% revenue market share (RMS) by FY2021, analysts and industry experts said, but added that the 4G entrant’s aggressive ambitions will not be a cakewalk.
Vodafone and Idea's relatively smaller on-ground 4G presence coupled with challenges of working around the complexities of their potential merger with possible cuts in capex spends over the next 12-to-15 months in the merger lead-up, could be big RMS drags, going forward, they said.
Some fear they may see their combined RMS shrink to under 20% from nearly 44% now. They though expect market leader Bharti Airtel to maintain a 30% RMS, albeit a tad lower than its present 33% level, on grounds that it is ahead both on 4G spectrum holdings and coverage versus its closest incumbent rivals.
(Source: Economic Times)
IT services company Tech Mahindra on Monday said it would acquire US-based healthcare IT services and consulting firm The HCI Group for about $110 million.
“The acquisition will not only position Tech Mahindra as a significant player in the healthcare provider space but will also provide an opportunity to go deeper in this space via EMR implementation and surrounding services route,” said CP Gurnani, MD & CEO, Tech Mahindra.
As part of the transaction, the company will make an upfront payment of $89.5 million for the purchase of 84.7% stake in the HCI Group. The balance will be acquired over three years.
(Source: The Hindu)
India improved its ease of doing business ranking last year – moving up from 131 to 130 in a list of 190 countries – by reducing the average time taken to start an enterprise and secure a permanent electricity connection, according to 2016 World Bank data. However, an IndiaSpend analysis of these data shows that India still ranks among the worst performers on other key parameters.
Using five parameters, IndiaSpend picked 10 nations across seven regions to compare India’s ease of doing business – south and east Asia (including China), developed countries, sub-Saharan Africa, lower middle income countries such as India (with per capita incomes between $1,026 and $4,035) and the European Union. In most indicators, India ranked low, coming closest to sub-Saharan African countries.
The one area where India has made considerable improvement is provision of electricity to new businesses. It has overtaken three major economies and lags only behind Germany in this aspect.
(Source: BloombergQuint)
Radio City FM station operator Music Broadcast Ltd’s initial public offering (IPO) was subscribed 51% on the first day of the offer.
On Friday, the company raised Rs 146.5 crore by allotting shares to anchor investors as part of the so-called anchor book allocation. The IPO closes on 8 March.
(Source: Livemint)
The Delhi High Court told former Ranbaxy promoters Malvinder and Shivinder Singh that they will have to seek its permission before selling any of their unencumbered assets. That could complicate reported plans to sell stakes in companies such as Fortis Healthcare and their Religare units, although the court didn’t pass any outright injunction against such an exercise.
The Court of Arbitration in Singapore had granted the award to Daiichi as damages for not disclosing relevant information to the Japanese company during the sale of Ranbaxy Laboratories. The Singh brothers are contesting this arbitration award in the Delhi High Court.
(Source: Economic Times)
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