1. Essar Pitches for Deeper Ties with Russia’s Rosneft
Months after signing a strategic crude sourcing agreement with Russian energy giant OAO Rosneft, Essar, the steel-to BPO conglomerate is now pitching for a deeper equity alliance that may lead to the Russian firm buying a stake in Essar Oil. As part of the plan that is under discussion, Essar, controlled by Shashi Ruia and his brother Ravi, has offered a strategic stake of 50% minus 1 share in Essar Oil, to Rosneft, the world’s largest oil company. However, it is not yet known if Rosneft will agree to the hefty premium sought by Essar . Read more.
2. Corrections in Market Won’t Change Outlook on India: Anand Radhakrishnan
India stands out among emerging markets despite the recent volatility, says Anand Radhakrishnan, chief investment officer, Franklin Equity, Franklin Templeton Investments, India. He says that India still stands out among emerging markets in terms of economic growth and stability in corporate earnings.
While growth may be below expectations, the existing pool of profits is reasonably stable, which makes foreign investors more confident about India than countries like Russia, China and Brazil. His advice is that he would urge investors not to look at short-term returns and invest according to their risk profile. They also need to stay for a longer duration and it’s advisable to invest money through SIPs. Read here.
3. Gen Next Pads up: Akshay Dhoot Takes Over Videocon’s Tech Wing
Videocon, one of the country’s oldest consumer durables company, is planning to rejig its product portfolio and take the battle straight to its Japanese and Korean rivals.
Leading the charge is Akshay Dhoot, the 23-year-old scion of the 30,000- crore Videocon Group, who has readied a range of innovative products based on disruptive technology that could well be his trump card.
While Akshay Dhoot, son of Rajkumar Dhoot, younger sibling of group chair man Venugopal Dhoot, was this month officially announced as the head of technology. Read here.
4. Accel Partners Raises Rs 1,890-cr Fund New
Venture capital firm Accel Partners has raised a new fund of Rs 1,890 crore ($305 million), the largest corpus earmarked for India by the Silicon Valley fund, coming at a time when interest among global investors in the country’s booming startup sector is at an all-time high. Accel, best known as an early investor in Flipkart, expects to make more investments in consumer, enterprise software, mobile and healthcare sectors. Accel Partners has been focusing on early-stage deals in India. Read here.
4. FIIs’ Interest in Indian Equities is Peaking: CLSA
CLSA, an Asian brokerage and investment group, has said the interest of foreign institutional investors in India is nearing a short-term peak due to the lack of market triggers and heavy overweight positions. Although India’s structural story remains compelling for long-term investors, the risk of a near-term pullback is rising.
After interacting with 80 investors in the US, CLSA said that there is an increasing uneasiness about weak corporate earnings in India. Several investors appeared to be seriously re-evaluating their portfolios and as a result, incremental foreign fund inflows seem unlikely in the near term. FIIs have invested over $5.7 billion in Indian stocks so far this year after pumping in about $16 billion in 2014. Read here.
5. Twitter Launches Partnership with Govt to Spread out in India
Twitter CEO Dick Costolo met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday and announced a partnership that would increase the microblogging site’s reach in India by using missed calls to link tweets from select government handles that would go as text messages to those who are not its users.
The service, called “Twitter Samvad” would help Modi’s Digital India Initiative potentially reach more than 700 million mobile phone users, while Twitter’s own India base is estimated at around 33 million. Read here.
6. India to Grow at 7.8 % in 2015-16; Surpass China: ADB
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) today projected India’s growth rate to surpass China and improve to 7.8 % in next fiscal and further to 8.2 % in 2016-17. India is expected to grow faster than the People’s Republic of China in the next few years. The government’s pro-investment attitude, improvements in the fiscal and current account deficits, and some forward movement on resolving structural bottlenecks have helped improve the business climate and make India attractive again to both domestic and foreign investors. – ADB Chief Economist Shang-Jin Wei. Read here.
7. We Trust the Indian economy, We’ll Invest Here, says Qatar Emir
In his first-ever interview to any publication in the world, the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, told Times of India on the eve of his summit with Narendra Modi (the Prime Minister’s first with a leader of the Arab world) that his energy-rich country wanted to invest big in India. Read here.
8. Tata Plan to Buy Out DOCOMO Hits a Wall
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has denied a request by Tata Sons to acquire Japanese telecom giant NTT DOCOMO’s stake in Tata Teleservices Ltd (TTSL) at a price higher than the current fair value of TTSL shares. RBI’s denial followed the finance ministry opposing the proposal, on the grounds that it would set a wrong precedent for all such transactions. Read here.
9. Equity Fund Raising at 5-year High as India Inc Anticipates Turnaround
India Inc’s equity fund raising rose to a five-year high in FY15 as companies rushed to raise money for corporate expansion as well as debt reduction, sensing a turnaround in the economic cycle following the general election results. Companies raised a little over Rs 90,124.38 crore from public investors in 12 months of FY15, up 105.64% from the previous fiscal. The number could touch the six-digit mark if bulk/block deals on the stock exchanges are taken into account. Read here.
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