Ikea's first India store opens today, aims to reach 200 mn people in 3 yrs

The company's products offering was based on a thorough understanding of the needs and aspirations of Indian households.

 

Companies News: Ikea aims to reach 200 million people in India in the next three years and its journey is going to be based on affordability and accessibility, the Swedish home furnishings chain’s Group Chief Executive Officer Jesper Brodin said on Wednesday on the eve of the launch of the company’s first Indian store in Hyderabad.

Brodin said the company would like to keep the product prices within the reach of various segments of the society without compromising on quality. The furniture retailer, he added, wanted to expand its footprint in other Indian cities as quickly as possible to gain a significant share in one of the largest markets in the world. In 2013, the Centre had cleared Ikea's Rs105-billion foreign direct investment (FDI) proposal to set up 25 single brand retail stores in the country. Of this investment commitment, the company has invested Rs10 billion on the Hyderabad store, which has a 400,000-square-foot built-up area, besides acquiring land in Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Delhi to set up similar stores in the coming years.

Ikea First India Store

He said the company’s products offering was based on a thorough understanding of the needs and aspirations of Indian households, and in this process it had also learnt new things that could be replicated in other stores outside India.

The first store in Hyderabad will be followed by online presence, a store and touch points in Mumbai next year. Subsequently, it will set up one store each in Bengaluru and National Capital Region (NCR). Besides, the company is also planning to invest Rs7.5 billion to build its own warehouses and a large distribution centre in Maharashtra in the next three years, as most of its import consignments reach Indian shores via Mumbai port.

In the next phase, Ikea will expand to other cities, such as Ahmedabad, Surat, Pune, Chennai and…continue reading

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News Source : BS

100-year gift: Britannia to issue bonus debentures of Rs 7.2 billion

Firm to launch 50 products with a refreshed logo and split stock.

 

Companies News : On its centenary year, the board of Britannia Industries has approved issuance of secured redeemable non-convertible debentures as bonus debentures of Rs 60 in the ratio of one such debenture for every equity share. Also, it has proposed a share split that the board will decide in the next meeting on August 23.

Speaking at the company’s annual general meeting on Monday, Britannia Chairman Nusli Wadia said the company would incur Rs 7.2 billion for issuance of bonus debentures and the total payout to shareholders, including bonus, would be more than Rs 10 billion. These debentures will be issued out of the Rs 25.15-billion balance in retained earnings, which was available as on March 31, 2018.

Britannia Bonus Shares

Later, in a filing with BSE, Britannia said it would be issuing 0.12 billion bonus debentures of Rs 7.2 billion. “The firm will utilise balance in retained earnings to the extent of Rs 8.69 billion, including deemed dividend tax,” the filing said. These debentures will be listed in the BSE and NSE after getting nod from the National Company Law Tribunal.

According to the company, there will be no change in the paid-up equity capital of Britannia Industries pre and post issue of bonus debentures.

This apart, it has recommended a dividend of 1,250 per cent, which amounts to Rs 25 per share having a face value of Rs 2 each, bringing the total dividend payout to Rs 3.62 billion.
Varun Berry, Britannia’s managing director, said 50 products would be launched this year to celebrate 100 years of the...continue reading

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News Source: BS

Microsoft becomes third most valuable firm, surpasses Alphabet

The credit for Microsoft’s rise goes to its CEO Satya Nadella who has been strategically restructuring the company towards Cloud and Office offerings.

Company News : Microsoft has surpassed Alphabet, the parent company of Google, in the market capitalisation for the first time in three years, becoming the third most valuable firm after Apple and Amazon globally.

According to a report in Investor’s Business Daily late Tuesday, Microsoft had a market cap of $753 billion at the close of trading, almost $14 billion ahead of Alphabet.

Apple leads with a market cap of nearly $924 billion and Amazon is at distant second, with nearly $783 billion.

The credit for Microsoft’s rise goes to its CEO Satya Nadella who has been strategically restructuring the company towards Cloud and Office offerings.

Driven by consistent growth in its Office and Cloud solutions, Microsoft posted a revenue of $26.8 billion and net income of $7.4 billion in its third quarter that ended on March 31.

“We are innovating across key growth categories of infrastructure, AI, productivity and business applications to deliver differentiated value to customers,” Nadella said.

Office commercial products and Cloud services revenue increased 14 per cent — driven by Office 365 commercial revenue growth of 42 per cent.

The Azure cloud offering had 93 per cent revenue growth. Revenue in Productivity and Business Processes was $9 billion and increased 17 per cent in the quarter.

Microsoft now has over 135 million active Office 365 business users, with 30.6 million Office 365 consumer users.

Revenue in Intelligent Cloud was $7.9 billion and increased 17 per cent.

Read More → Most Valuable Firm

Walmart Flipkart $16 bn Deal: All your important questions answered here

How big is the deal, who will benefit, who has opposed it, and what comes next? Business Standard answers key questions on the Walmart-Flipkart deal.

Companies News India : US retailer Walmart Inc said on Wednesday it will pay $16 billion for roughly 77 per cent stake in e-commerce firm Flipkart, as it competes with Amazon Inc in India, which is an important growth market.

With the deal done, Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal will be exiting the Bengaluru-based company. According to his Facebook post addressing Flipkart employees, Bansal plans to catch up on gaming and brush up his coding skills.

Here are some key things to know about the deal:

• How big is the deal in dollar terms?
  Walmart will pay $16 billion for a roughly 77 per cent stake in Flipkart. According to Reuters, Walmart has said that it plans to fund the Flipkart deal through a combination of newly-issued debt and cash on hand. The investment will also include $2 billion of new equity funding.
  This is the US retailer’s biggest deal ever.

Why is Walmart buying a majority stake in Flipkart?

• From Walmart Inc, $16 billion is a small price to pay as it aims to compete with global e-commerce giant Amazon, Karan Choudhury writes for Business Standard.
  With this deal, Walmart hopes to finally prop up a formidable opponent against the Jeff Bezos-run juggernaut. According to the report, Walmart hopes that Flipkart will help it understand the e-commerce business better and take on Amazon, not only in India but globally as well.

What does Flipkart get out of the Walmart deal?

• Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal said Walmart is the ideal partner for the next phase of Flipkart journey as he saw e-commerce having great potential to grow from its current status of being a relatively small part of retail in India.
  Walmart will also expand Flipkart’s online marketplace capabilities by bringing in a host of new products and private labels.

What happens to the Flipkart brand now?

• Walmart and Flipkart will remain separate brands, according to agency reports. Further, the Indian e-commerce company will have an independent board. However, the board will be revamped to give representation to the US firm.

Who will head Flipkart after the Walmart deal?

• Walmart’s Krish Iyer will be the CEO of the company, according to agency reports. The company will continue to be based out of Bengaluru.

What about Flipkart’s founders, are they staying onboard?

• Binny Bansal, who co-founded Flipkart with Sachin Bansal 11 years ago, will retain his 5.5 per cent stake in the company and will be chairman of the company’s board, according to news agencies.
• Sachin is exiting the Bengaluru-based company post the Walmart deal. According to his Facebook post, he plans to catch up on gaming and brush up his coding skills as he takes time off to finish few pending personal projects.

Read More on → Walmart Flipkart Deal

Story of Flipkart: From modest start to Walmart nuptial and everything in between

Flipkart has given India its big startup success story — the one which is likely to be quoted by starry-eyed entrepreneurs for years to come.

Companies News : From selling books online to striking a jaw-dropping USD 16 billion deal with the world’s largest retailer Walmart, all within 11 years, Flipkart has given India its big startup success story — the one which is likely to be quoted by starry-eyed entrepreneurs for years to come. Former employees of US e-commerce giant Amazon, Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal had met in 2005 at IIT-Delhi. Flipkart was launched in October 2007.

The idea was simple. Consumers could shop online and get books delivered to their doorstep. Flipkart registered 20 shipments in the year of its debut. It wasn’t an easy road as Internet penetration was abysmally low and e-commerce, unheard of. Bricks and mortar retailers were not threatened and many dismissed e-tailing as a foreign concept saying that Indians want to touch and feel’ whatever they buy.

Today, Indian e-commerce industry is already close to USD 30 billion in size and analysts expect this to zoom to USD 200 billion by 2026. The growth of the sector was comfortably in sync with the meteoric rise of Flipkart.

From a modest two-bedroom apartment in Koramangala, the Bengaluru-headquartered company now has multiple offices across the country. A bulk of its operations are run out of a plush campus in the city that is spread over 1 lakh sq ft and houses 6,800 employees.

It was almost two years after starting the business that Flipkart got its first full-time employee in Ambur Iyyappa, who went on to become a millionaire, thanks to the ESOPs. The headcount was rapidly scaled to 150 that year.

In October the same year, Accel Partners came on board as an investor and pumped in USD 1 million. A few months later, US hedge fund Tiger Global bought into the vision and Flipkart received a funding of USD 10 million.

A number of funding rounds later, Flipkart raised USD 1.4 billion from Tencent, eBay and Microsoft, followed by USD 2.5 billion investment by SoftBank Vision Fund last year. The year 2010 was an important one for Flipkart with the company shipping among other things, electronics and mobile phones. This category now makes up for a significant portion of the sales for the online platform.

It was also the year when Flipkart pioneered ‘Cash on Delivery’ in India, which changed the course of online retail in the country as consumers now paid for items only after receiving them, adding a layer of comfort to online shopping. Flipkart launched its logistics unit, eKart to smoothen deliveries.

In 2016, Flipkart achieved the milestone of 100 million registered customers and saw Sachin and Binny earning a spot among TIME magazine’s list of 100 most influential people. The company made its first acquisition with WeRead and since then, it has acquired a number of companies including Letsbuy, FX Mart, fashion e-tail player Myntra and UPI-based payments startup PhonePe. It also bought a majority stake in companies like Jeeves and ngpay.

At the beginning of last year, Kalyan Krishnamurthy was named as the new CEO, moving Binny Bansal to the role of Group CEO. Reports suggested that Tiger Global wanted better control of the organisation and hence, the decision. Bansals’ e-commerce bet finally has paid off big time and set the 2018 M&A counters ringing with US retailer Walmart buying about 77 per cent stake in Flipkart for USD 16 billion.

→ Flipkart Walmart Deal , Walmart Flipkart Deal ←

Seven to one: How Cyrus Mistry was removed from Tata Sons on October 24

Ratan Tata said what Mistry had done in the past four years should be recognised

Monday, October 24, is a day former Tata Sons chairman Cyrus Mistry is unlikely to forget. The minutes of that day’s board meeting, which were included in Cyrus Mistry’s petition submitted to the National Company Law Tribunal, throw light on Mistry’s ouster.

The meeting, which was held at Bombay House to remove Cyrus Mistry, was chaired by the Tata Trusts’ nominee director on the Tata Sons board, Vijay Singh, and two other Trusts’ Stock Market news nominee directors on the Tata Sons board, Amit Chandra and Nitin Nohria. Ratan Tata attended the meeting as chairman emeritus. 

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The sacking

According to the minutes of the meeting, before the commencement of consideration of items in the agenda that was circulated to the directors on October 15, 2016, Nohria mentioned that the Trusts had asked its nominees on the board to bring a motion to the board of Tata Sons.......

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New agenda

Singh, as chairman of the meeting, proposed including additional matters that were not on the agenda but were circulated to the board of directors. His resolution was seconded by Sen......

Read our full coverage on Tata vs Mistry

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Recognise Mistry’s contribution: Tata

After the resolutions were approved, Tata said there was a need to recognise what Mistry had done in the last four years and the group needed to move forward as seamlessly as it could....

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Metlife deal

The board was informed by Hussain that Tata Sons and AIA planned to buy a 70 per cent stake in PNB Metlife, except the 30 per cent held by Punjab National Bank. Hussain is also chairman of Tata AIA Life Insurance Company news....

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