1. SBI Asks Goyal, 3 Others to Step Down from Jet Board
State Bank of India asked Jet Airways chairman Naresh Goyal and three fellow directors to step down from the board of the airline as it edged closer to the brink with more planes likely to be grounded due to lease rental defaults, said people with knowledge of the matter.
The lead lender, which insisted that keeping the struggling airline afloat was vital, also signalled it was unlikely to pick up the 24% stake belonging to Etihad in Jet.
The airline can turn around quickly if it gets an infusion of cash, said a senior government official. “The fundamentals of the airline are intact and it only needs funding to revive,” he said.
(Source: The Economic Times)
2. Vodafone Idea Rights Issue at ₹12.50 A Share
Vodafone Idea’s board on Wednesday priced its rights issue at ₹12.50 a share, a sharp discount to the current market price, as the country’s largest telco aims to raise as much as ₹25,000 crore to boost its countrywide 4G push to effectively counter Reliance Jio Infocomm and Bharti Airtel.
The rights issue will open on 10 April and close on 24 April. The rights entitlement ratio is at 87 equity shares for every 38 held by eligible shareholders of the company on the record date of 2 April, the company said in a statement.
The promoters – UK’s Vodafone Group and the Aditya Birla Group – will infuse up to ₹11,000 crore and ₹7,250 crore, respectively, via the rights issue.
(Source: The Economic Times)
3. Rupee Goes from Asia's Worst to Best Currency as Market Sees Modi Returning
Asia’s worst-performing currency took five weeks to become its best.
The turnaround has been fuelled by the improved chances of Prime Minister Narendra Modi winning a second term amid recent tensions between India and Pakistan.
The optimism has led to local shares and debt luring robust flows, which have turned the carry-trade returns on the rupee to the highest in the world in the past month.
(Source: Business Standard)
4. Consider L&T Offer, Mindtree Board Tells Promoter Group
Mindtree board members asked the promoter group to consider Larsen & Toubro’s offer to increase its stake in the software company and deferred a decision on buying back shares, citing legal and commercial challenges, people familiar with the developments said.
Some directors advised the founders to negotiate a higher price for the shares instead of stonewalling the engineering company’s overtures, they said.
(Source: The Economic Times)
5. No Stay on Funds Distribution at Essar Steel
The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal has directed Essar Steel’s resolution professional to call a meeting of the Committee of Creditors and work out the distribution of the ₹42,000 crore offered by Arcelor-Mittal in line with the decision of the Ahmedabad bench of the National Company Law Tribunal.
The NCLAT clarified that it had not stayed the order of the Ahmedabad bench of the NCLT and that the resolution professional could continue with the process of fund distribution.
The NCLT, while approving ArcelorMittal’s resolution plan, suggested distributing 85% of its offer to financial creditors on a pro-rata basis and the remainder to operational creditors.
(Source: The Economic Times)
6. Embassy Office Parks REIT IPO Gets Fully Subscribed on Day 3
The initial public offering (IPO) of Embassy Office Parks REIT got fully subscribed on Wednesday.
The Rs 4,750 crore issue, which was opened for subscription on Monday, was subscribed 1.2 times till 2 pm on Wednesday, NSE data showed. Total bids received for the offer stood at 8,49,76,000 against total issue size of 7,12,56,400 units.
The quota for institutional investors got subscribed 1.43 times, NSE and BSE data showed. Other Investors category saw a subscription of 1.05 times at the time of reporting.
(Source: Business Standard)
7. Bill Gates Joins Jeff Bezos as the Only Two Members of the $100bn Club
Bloomberg tracks the fortunes of some 2,800 billionaires. Of those, 145 are worth at least $10 billion, making them deca-billionaires. Now, the world contains two centi-billionaires simultaneously.
Microsoft Corp co-founder Bill Gates, once the world’s richest person, has again eclipsed the $100 billion threshold, joining Amazon.com Inc’s Jeff Bezos in the exclusive club, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Gates’s fortune, now $100 billion on the nose, hasn’t reached such heights since the dot-com boom, when Bezos was only beginning his march up the world’s wealth rankings.
(Source: Business Standard)
8. Disney Closes $71 Billion Acquisition of Twenty-First Century Fox’s Assets
Walt Disney Co closed its $71 billion acquisition of Twenty-First Century Fox Inc’s film and television assets on Wednesday, giving its upcoming streaming service a range of popular content as it takes on Netflix Inc.
The deal will expand Disney’s portfolio of some of the world’s most popular characters, uniting Mickey Mouse, Luke Skywalker and Marvel superheroes with Fox’s X-Men, Avatar and The Simpsons franchises.
The streaming service, Disney+, aims to make up for the continuing loss of subscribers from ESPN and other cable networks.
(Source: Financial Express)
9. DBT Transfers Increase 47%, But Little Growth in Saving
Transfers of assorted subsidies and sops to the beneficiaries through the direct benefit transfer (DBT) route stood at Rs 2.8 lakh crore so far in FY19, 47 percent higher than such transfers during the whole of the previous year.
Savings to the government due to DBT in the first 11 months of this fiscal was Rs 30,457 crore.
DBT-enabled savings were Rs 32,984 crore in FY18 and Rs 20,885 crore in FY17.
(Source: Financial Express)
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