1. Merger of Vodafone India and Idea Cellular Gets CCI Approval
The mega merger deal between Aditya Birla Group firm Idea Cellular Ltd and Vodafone India Ltd on Monday crossed a major hurdle with antitrust regulator Competition Commission of India (CCI) approving the proposal, two people aware of the development said.
In March, the boards of Idea and Vodafone India approved a $23 billion merger of the two companies, excluding the latter’s 42 percent stake in Indus Towers Ltd.
The merger is expected to create India’s largest telecom company.
“CCI today has notified both the companies of its go-ahead to the merger. This is the first major regulatory hurdle that the merger deal has crossed. There are more regulatory clearances the deal needs, which will be worked upon in coming months,” said one of the two people cited above, requesting anonymity as he is not authorised to speak to reporters.
The merger is expected to be completed in 2018.
Source: Livemint
2. Microsoft May Invest up to $100 Million in Ola Parent
Microsoft Corp could invest $50-100 million (Rs 320-640 crore) for a small stake in ANI Technologies Pvt Ltd, which runs Ola, in a deal that could see the ride-hailing service switch to Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform from Amazon Web Services (AWS), two people familiar with the matter said.
Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella has been pushing Azure in India to grab market share from AWS and others.
In February, Microsoft announced a long-term cloud services deal with Flipkart Ltd; Microsoft later invested about $200 million of the $1.4 billion round raised by the online retailer.
Ola is in the middle of a fundraise. The home-grown online taxi firm, the third-most valuable start-up in the country, has been trying to raise fresh capital since June 2016. It has so far received Rs 2,345 crore from SoftBank Group Corp and others in the latest round and is in talks with investors to get more cash.
Source: Livemint
3. JioPhone Likely to Expand Reliance Jio Subscriber Base by 100 Million: Fitch
The cheap 4G feature phone offer from Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd is “likely” to help the company add 100 million more subscribers and take its revenue market share to 10 percent by 2018 and help reverse the falling industry revenue trend, says a report.
“Reliance Jio’s plan to introduce a cheap 4G handset from September will accelerate Internet adoption and should help reverse the recent decline in telcos’ revenue,” Fitch said in a note on Monday. “The cheap handset would add 3-4 percent (or around $950 million) to annual industry revenue if adopted by at least 100 million subscribers, which appears likely,” the report said.
Reliance Industries Ltd chairman Mukesh Ambani had last weekend told shareholders that Reliance Jio would introduce the JioPhone at an “effective” price of Rs 0 where the customers will have to pay a refundable deposit of Rs 1,500 to get a feature phone with a 4G connection.
Source: PTI
4. Sensex, Nifty End at Fresh Record High Led by Reliance, TCS
Indian stocks climbed, with key equity benchmarks settling at fresh lifetime high led by index heavyweights Reliance Industries Ltd and Tata Consultancy Ltd.
The S&P BSE Sensex gained nearly 0.7 percent to 32,245 while the NSE Nifty 50 Index rose close to 0.7 percent as well to 9,966. The 51-share index touched an all-time high of 9,982 during the session.
The market breadth, however, was skewed in favour of the sellers at 2:1.
“Earnings will take the centrestage,” Nipun Mehta, founder and CEO, Blue Ocean Capital said. “Investors need to be cautious as while the run up remains intact, valuations are looking a bit frothy.” Mehta advised investors to closely follow the management commentary for investment cues for the next couple of quarters.
Source: BloombergQuint
5. India Will Stay Ahead of China on the Growth Curve in 2017 and 2018, Says IMF
India will stay ahead of China on the growth curve in 2017 and 2018, said the International Monetary Fund (IMF) while retaining the country’s GDP forecast at 7.2 percent for the current fiscal.
“Growth in India will pick up further in 2017 and 2018,” the IMF said in its latest World Economic Outlook Update released in Kuala Lumpur on Monday.
China’s growth, the IMF said, is expected to remain at 6.7 percent in 2017, the same level as in 2016, and to decline only modestly in 2018 to 6.4 percent.
Global output is projected to grow by 3.5 percent in 2017 and 3.6 percent in 2018, said the report.
“While activity slowed following the currency exchange initiative, growth for 2016 – at 7.1 percent – was higher than anticipated due to strong government spending and data revisions that show stronger momentum in the first part of the year,” the IMF said in its latest update.
Source: PTI
6. Nomura India Fund Reaches $3.6 Billion as Japan Bets on PM Modi
The demand is so strong that assets of Nomura Holdings Inc’s India equity fund quadrupled to almost 400 billion yen ($3.6 billion) in just the past year. Japanese investors owned $13 billion of Indian stocks and bonds at the end of June, the most in data going back to 2012, according to India’s regulator.
“It’s not like we put in any special marketing effort for this fund,” said Kazuto Wada, an executive director at Nomura, Japan’s largest brokerage. “Investors are looking at where the growth will be in the medium to long term, without having to worry about short-term swings in the market.”
India’s economy is expanding at about seven times the pace of Japan’s, buoyed by a burgeoning middle class and more one than million young people joining the labour force every month. Indian shares have hit multiple records this year amid optimism about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s policies.
Source: BloombergQuint
7. HDFC Bank Q1 Net up 20% at Rs 3,893 Cr on Strong Revenue Growth
HDFC Bank saw a rise of 20 percent in profit in the first quarter, backed by a rise in revenue and a reduction in cost-to-income ratio.
The private sector lender’s net profit rose 20 percent to Rs 3,893 crore in the quarter ended June from Rs 3,239 crore in the year-ago quarter.
Analysts say that HDFC Bank’s performance exceeded expectations on most operating performances. This was despite the marginal impact on asset quality due to the spate of farm-loan waiver demands across the country.
Net interest income, the difference between interest earned and interest expended, was Rs 9,370 crore in the June quarter, 20 percent more than Rs 7,781 crore in the year-ago period. Other income, mainly fees and commission, grew 25 percent to Rs 3,517 crore in June from Rs 2,806 crore previously. Net interest margin, a key indicator of the bank’s stability, was 4.4 percent for the June quarter.
Source: Business Standard
8. Wipro Ventures Invests in Venture Capital Fund Work-Bench
Wipro Ventures, the $100 million corporate venture arm of India’s third largest software services firm, has invested an undisclosed sum in New York-based venture capital fund Work-Bench as it continues its strategy of investing in start-ups and funds that can help its parent.
This is the second investment by Wipro Ventures in a venture capital fund, after it invested in Israel-based TLV Partners last year.
A spokesperson for Wipro confirmed the investment in Work-Bench, which is focused on the area of enterprise technology.
Wipro Ventures, which is overseen by Rishad Premji, Wipro’s chief strategy officer and director, started operations in 2015 and has invested $32million in 10 start-ups and two venture capital firms. Rival Infosys Ltd has invested in nine start-ups and two venture capital firms.
Source: Livemint
9. Tax Base Widens to 6.26 Crore in 2016-17: CBDT
Income taxpayer base moved up substantially to 6.26 crore at the end of the last fiscal, from nearly 4 crore earlier, CBDT Chairman Sushil Chandra said on Monday.
Clearing the air on disclosure of bank account details of non-resident Indians (NRIs), expats, as well as foreigners with investments in private equity in India, Chandra also said that such accounts need to be disclosed only when a refund is due to the assessee. The chairman of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said that post demonetisation the department has taken a host of measures to increase tax base and the statement of financial transaction (SFT) report filed by banks shows widening of taxpayer base.
Source: PTI
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