Future group may buy Aditya Birla’s Retail.

Yes you heard it right. Future group’s Owner Kishore Biyani is in advanced talk to buy Aditya Birla Group’s Retail arm Aditya Birla Retail. Future Group plans to consolidate its position in the supermarket brick and mortar business and this move would help him consolidate groups position.  According to top sources , the two groups got into a discussion last year but had to shelve off their plan due to some valuation issues. Both the groups have resumed their negotiation in this regard and are in final stage to crack the deal.  While the discussions are exploratory , Future group is doing a due diligence for a possible merger or acquisition.  If the deal materialize , this will be their fourth acquisition in last 5 years and would make them the leader in retail chain with Reliance Retail being their close competitor.

The Pole Position

Aditya Birla gourp is the fourth largest retail chain after Future group , Reliance retail and D Mart . The Aditya  Reatail group has more than 500 odd stores covering more than 2 million square feet of retail space .The group registered a gross revenue of Rs 2948 crores  in year 2014-15. The group is backed by High margin brands like Allen Solly and Van Heusen.

The Debt Burden

With the acquisition , group would increase its total debt from 4941 crore to a substantial amount as ARBL in itself have a total debt of 5232 crore in Fy 2014-15.

 

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No Brick and Mortar business will survive post 2023 : Amitabh Kant

Chief Architect of startup India campaign and CEO of Niti Ayog feels that brick and mortal businesses will be dead by 2023.  Speaking at an event organized by TIE, Mr Kant Said “India is the only country with a billion mobile phones and biometrics. In the last 6-7 months we have added almost 28 crore bank accounts. In the last 45 years we have given license to 19 banks but in the last nine months we have given license to 23 payment banks, and many of them are telecom companies including Paytm and Airtel. The brick and mortar sector will go dead”.

According to Kant Banking sector will be see a major hit with the launch of many payment banks like PAYTM and Airtel.  According to him it will be more of a technology show and technology will take the driver’s seat. Currently 350 million people use internet via mobile and internet and 1 billion people will be online by 2023.  According to him “It will all be mobile, telephonic transaction. India will leap frog again. This is because today we are about 350 million using the Internet but 2020-23 there will be about 1 billion people in India using the Internet. Similarly, usage of the Internet will increase with more people on smart phones. A billion Indians with access to the Internet, biometric and using the smart phones we will radically alter the world.”

He added that “Across the world, whether you look at trends in Japan, US or Germany, everywhere is getting digitized. It is inevitable.”

Dewan housing to buy Andromeda for $37 million

Dewan housing finance limited has decided to buy  Andromeda’s loan distribution , mortgage , financing and financial instruments business.  Mumbai based holding company CASA holding holds 80% of Andromeda’s stake . The total deal value will be amounted somewhere between 200 and 250 crores.

Altamount capital is advising CASA capital for the deal . The deal comes  4 years after Malaysians capital fund Navis Capital sold Andromeda for Rs 180 crore to CASA capital holding.  Andromeda currently operates in 16 cities across India and has disbursed loans worth more than Rs 5000 crores.

Andromeda is facing tough competition from competitors like Bank Bazar and Loan adda. These two banking and financial platform boasts more than 9 million visitors per month and offer more than 11 financial products with a collaboration of 40 banking partners

Snapdeal on a mission to capture ‘Bharat’.

In order to capture a bigger pie in Indian Ecommerce market Snap deal today initiated “Project Bharat”. The company plans to launch the site in 11 different Indian Languages in a bid to appeal the Non-Metro Audience. The project would enable 130 miilion Indian citizens to access and explore various products on the platform.

The company aims to attract more and more local vendors from different cities across the country and this move would help them connect to deeper cities across the country. In a statement issued on the launch of project the company said that 10% of the Indian population converse in English while 30% of them have access to internet. Thus the company want to join the remaining 20% in the main stream commerce economy.

This is one of its kind initiative by the company and other e-tailers are also expected to follow the suite.

 

Please welcome “Baby Uber “.

So we have the first baby Uber in town. Yes you heard it right , a woman gave birth to a child in an Uber cab last week. The lady who was going towards Safdarjing Enclave in Delhi went into labour . The cab driver initially panicked but then took the matter in his hands and delivered the baby in the can itself. It was a difficult situation for the cab driver, Shahnawaz, and the onlookers but it all ended well when a healthy baby was born.

“I asked them to get an ambulance”, says Shahnawaz. But even after repeated calls no ambulance was seen in sight and the driver had to take the important decision.

This is a positive news for the cab provider after the unfortunate rape incident in an uber cab last year. The woman wanted the cab the driver to name the baby and the cab driver decided to name him Uber.

After this news we wish to hear about the ‘OLA’ baby soon :).

Zomato adds in app customer service.

Food e-tailer  Zomato has added a new feature in their app by which the users can chat with the restaurant owners regarding reservations and menu details. User can also connect to Zomato executives and can get updates on promo codes , offers and discounts. User can interact with the Customer service executives between 9 AM to 11 PM.

This a another step by Zomato to convert into a full service food app where users can browse and order food anytime anywhere. The app is available in many countries while the in app customer service is only launched in India and middle east.

Flipkart won’t sell ebooks anymore.

Country’s top etailer Flipkart has decided to stop selling ebooks on their platform. All the existing orders will be served by Canadian E-book supplier Rakuten Kobo.

“The Indian book market is overwhelmingly dominated by physical books and this is a market that is growing at a fast clip. Flipkart will continue to be a leading player in the overall books market in India,” the company said in a statement. “In its overall strategy for books, Flipkart does not see the e-Books service as a strategic fit and hence the decision of transitioning the e-Books service to Kobo.”

This seems to be an interesting move as the rival ecommerce giant is focusing hard on selling e-books through their iconic reading tablet kindle. This is the third biggest category close by flipkart after music service “Flyte”  and payment gateway payzippy.

Flipkart has recently grossed a loss of 200 crore and company is focusing on high value products like electronics  goods.

GO Air Announces special flights to GOA.

GO Air has announces special flights to GOA in order to tap the growing rush of passengers from Metro like Delhi,Mumbai , Kolkatta and Chennai.The flights will be introduced in December 18th and will ply till 5th of January 2015.The airline has recently announced tickets starting from Rs 603 and has an offer where every 25th passenger gets a chance to win a free ticket.

Chennai airport to resume its services on 6th of December 2015.

After suffering from worst rain and flood situation in 100 years  Chennai Airport is set to resume its services on Sunday 6th of December 2015. The airport was closed on Wednesday night due to heavy rain and water lodged runway.

“The DGCA has termed it fit and day-time operations will begin from tomorrow morning. We are working resume night-time operations too in a couple of days,” a senior civil aviation ministry official told ET. As per the standard procedure a notice to airmen or NOTA has been issued.

The Airport is ready as the water has been drained but the flight equipments need to checked before the start of operation.

Corporate Loans in demand as companies focus on spending.

HDFC bank has said that it beginning to see green shots in Corporate loans as the companies started to borrow and spend again after two years . With governments current focus on Make in India campaign and reduction in bureaucracy  or red tape culture has shown a positive demand in the market .According to Managing Director Aditya Puri he sees an early recovery of money among automobiles . telecom and consumer goods.

“This is more working capital (demand) at the beginning, but we are starting to see term loan growth in the last month or two,” he said in an interview at the bank’s Mumbai headquarters.

He is optimistic on the current market sentiment and that he sees his bank 5 – 6 points ahead of other competitors. “There is no need to go up the risk ladder or down the margin ladder,” he said, adding HDFC Bank focuses on India’s “middle and upper middle”.