1. Adani Rejigs Australia Coal Mine Budget Due To Delays - Reuters
Adani Mining said on Wednesday it was re-jigging the budget on the A$10 billion ($7.72 billion) Carmichael coal mine project in Australia as it faces delays in government approvals.
Adani intends to ship most of the coal from the mine to India for use in generating household power in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s goal to connect all of India to the electricity grid during his tenure.
Adani’s project mainly hinges on environmental approval to deepen a port on the fringe of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef in order to ship the coal, a proposal generating opposition worldwide.
2. Netflix To Enter India, DTH Cos Edgy - TOI
After Singapore based on-demand internet video provider Hooq launched operations here, the pioneer of internet TV , US-based Netflix, has firmed up plans to enter India by 2016, according to people familiar with the matter.
This has sent domestic DTH players into a tizzy with some of the major ones chalking out strategies to diversify beyond television. On the cards are iconic shows including Buniyaad, Nukkad and Malgudi Days on various mobile devices across iOS and Android.
It’s similar to Starbucks entering India. Everybody knew about it but café brands were late to react and Starbucks came and stole the show . We don’t want to be caught on the wrong foot.
– Tata Sky spokesperson
Netflix is one of the leading on-demand internet streaming media companies in the world with around 62 million subscribers.
3. Dhishum-Dhishum Begins: Airtel Files FIR, Accuses Jio - ET
Bharti Airtel has accused a former employee of stealing confidential company data for the benefit of rival soon-to-be launched Reliance Jio Infocomm, in what appears to be a prelude to a bitter battle on the ground between two telcos helmed by India’s top billionaires. The country’s biggest mobile operator has filed a police complaint saying that Yasir Majid, who left its employment in April this year, had before leaving the firm downloaded and copied confidential information for the possible use of Jio.
Sunil Mittal-owned Airtel is a pan India GSM operator and faces a competitive threat from Mukesh Ambani-owned Jio, the telecom unit of Reliance Industries, which is set to launch commercial 4G operations around December this year.
4. New Body to Script Emami Succession Plan - ET
RS Agarwal and RS Goenka, the founder promoters of the Rs 9,000-crore Emami Group, have set up a family advisory board with representation from the younger generation of the two unrelated families as part of a succession plan at the Kolkata-based diversified conglomerate, which has interests ranging from fast moving consumer goods to real estate. Non-family professionals heading various businesses in the group will report to the advisory board, which comprises Agarwal’s children Aditya Agarwal, Harsh Agarwal and Priti Surekha, and Mohan Goenka, Manish Goenka and Prashant Goenka of the Goenka family.
The advisory board will steer the group through the complex task of structuring a succession plan to avoid conflicts in the future. The group will also hire US-based The Family Business Consulting Group to help in this process.
– RS Agarwal, Joint Chairman, Emami Group to ET
5. FSSAI Starves Market of Food Launches - BS
This festive season could see no new food and beverage products hitting the market. Pending product approvals to the tune of about 700 in the last year and a half by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), companies are left with no new products in the pipeline. The result is that food and beverage companies will have to count largely on old products for sales during the crucial festive season.
Nothing is moving in the market. Consignments that are being imported are held up at ports. If you apply for product approvals, that process, too, is getting delayed. A launch requires more than a product approval. It takes at least six to eight months after the approval for a product to hit the market. A delay there sets off a domino effect.
– Amit Lohani, Convener of Forum of Indian Food Importers
Some of the products on the closed file list include Tata Starbucks’ sea salt and caramel sauce; Kellogg’s Hot Chinese Oats; Glaxo SmithKline’s Actigrow and Horlicks Coated Oats; Piramal’s Nicoveg; Hershey’s ice breakers breath freshening mints; Heinz’s phased modified oil; and Hindustan Unilever’s tomato ketchup with modified starch.
6. Economic Recovery More Statistical Than Real: Yashwant Sinha - PTI
Questioning NDA government’s claims of economic recovery since it came to power, senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha has said that growth is up “only statistically” and there are serious issues which still need to be addressed. “We have recovered from the slowdown, at least statistically, if not really, because we have changed the norms,” Sinha, a former Union Finance Minister, said at an industry meet here late last evening.
He said there is a need for debate on this and there should be comparable figures of economic growth from the previous years which can validate the claims of recovery. “It cannot be that you prepare one year’s figures and say that now you’re doing 7.4 per cent or 8 per cent or 20 per cent,” said Sinha,
7. Equity Schemes With Billion Dollar Asset Size On the Rise In India - BS
There’s been a jump over the past year in the number of equity schemes with an asset size of $1 billion (Rs 6,300 crore).
With the 30 per cent stock market rally in 2014, coupled with strong inflow in the equity segment from retail investors, the number has increased from two to nine schemes. There are now six mutual fund (MF) houses with at least one equity scheme having a corpus of over $1 bn.
Last year, HDFC MF was the only house in this club. The country’s largest fund house had two of its schemes here, HDFC Equity and HDFC Top 200, both managed by Prashant Jain. Currently, ICICI Prudential AMC, Franklin Templeton, Reliance MF, Birla Sun Life MF and IDFC AMC also have at least one equity scheme with assets under management (AUM) of over $1 billion to brag about.
8. Lupin’s Readies Rs 7,500 cr War Chest To Aid Acquisitions - HT
Drug maker Lupin is likely to scout for overseas acquisitions to boost sales, especially in Europe, Russia and Turkey, following board approval to raise Rs 7,500 crore through the issue of securities.
The Lupin board on Tuesday approved a plan to raise Rs 7,500 crore through various equity and quasi-equity instruments. This will have to be approved by shareholders at the company’s annual general meeting next month.
Over the past two years, Lupin has been on an acquisition spree, which has given it access to niche-research competencies and product pipelines. It bought into Nanomi BV of Netherlands in February 2014, and acquired assets to enter new markets, including Laboratorios Grin, a leading ophthalmic player in Mexico in March, 2014, and Medquimica Industria Farmaceutica in Brazil in May 2015.
9. Sensex Snaps Eight-Day Rally As Greece Woes Resurface - PTI
The benchmark BSE Sensex slipped by 75 points, its first fall in nine days, to 27,729.67 in late sell-off after news that the creditors rejected Greece’s new proposal took a toll on the market sentiment. After trading in positive zone for most part of the day, the index plunged over 200 from a high of 27,948.24 at the fag-end tracking losses in European stocks.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said some creditors haven’t accepted the country’s proposals for a deal. “The insistence of certain institutions of not accepting parametric measures has never happened before -- not in Ireland, nor in Portugal,” he wrote in a Twitter post.
Participants also preferred to trim positions ahead of tomorrow’s June month’s expiry in the derivatives segment.