Business Today 31 December 2017

The number of companies that have been referred to the National Company Law Tribunal for resolution under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) has crossed 400. A great many of these are small and medium companies that are most likely to go into liquidation. However, all the attention is on the big 12 companies that have been taken to the Tribunal by the banks after being nudged by the Reserve Bank of India. (See The Dangerous Dozen, BT, August 13, 2017). These 12 companies accounted for an estimated 25 per cent of the total non-performing assets (NPAs) of roughly ₹8 lakh crore in the banking system. Though they defaulted on their loans, the market consensus is that most of them have good assets and the businesses ran into trouble because…

STAY CONNECTED WITH US ON www.facebook.com/BusinessToday@BT_India All Well, Says FM; GST Pains Persist: Exporters Finance Secretary Adhia attributes the delay to errors in refund claim submissions of exporters under the new tax regime. businesstoday.in/gst-exporters What Good Comes from Putting Kharola at the Helm of Air India? P.S. Kharola is a turnaround expert. And there is no point in appointing a turnaround expert when AI is up for sale. businesstoday.in/kharola-ai Kirana Stores in Tier-II/III Towns Embracing Digital Payment Modes It is mobile payment that is actually seeing a surge. Even consumers living in smaller towns are quite excited about buying through mobile wallets. businesstoday.in/kiranastores-digital.payment Did Zomato Learn a Lesson, or Did It Get Away with Its Pun on Cuss Words? Before any ad campaign, there are always internal debates, and Zomato…

18-19 SUSTAINABLE ENERGY WHAT: Workshop on Sustainable Energy and Managing Green Technology WHEN: December 18-19, Seoul WHAT TO LOOK FOR: High economic growth in Asia and the Pacific has spurred rising demand for energy. Tackling the energy shortage in developing countries in the region needs systematic, sustainable energy policies and energy-efficient industries. It will discuss how policies to make solar, wind, geothermal and hydropower energy sources marketable. 19 CONNECTING WITH SMEs WHAT: NASSCOM SME SESSION WHEN: December 19, Hyderabad WHAT TO LOOK FOR: Nasscom wants to bring the eMarketplace portal discussion with SMEs. The event will look at helping create market access for SMEs so that they can take advantage of market opportunities. It will also look at how SMEs can train and reskill their workforce to handle new solutions.…

US TAX CUT The US Senate approved a tax overhaul that brings Republicans and President Donald Trump a big step closer to slashing taxes for businesses and the rich. It aims to reduce corporate taxes from 35 per cent to 20 per cent and encourage repatriation of earnings. It offers Americans a mixed bag of changes. In what would be the largest change to US tax laws since the 1980s. CVS' AETNA ACQUISITION Chain drugstore operator CVS will be buying health insurer Aetna in the largest corporate acquisition of the year – at $69 billion. CVS intends to use its existing network of budget clinics to cater to Aetna’s 23 million members. Industry experts have been quoted as saying that CVS would effectively become a one-stop-shop where patients could get…

Despite warnings from central banks and prominent investors from across the world, Bitcoin, which has a market capitalisation of over $300 billion (the total value of the 16.6 million Bitcoins in circulation) is breaking new price barriers on a daily basis. Even as the status of Bitcoin – whether it’s a commodity or a currency – is still being debated, what’s causing this meteoric rise? One of the biggest reasons is the inherent nature of Bitcoins. There can only be 21 million Bitcoins in the world. Even the process of creating new Bitcoins is tedious and complex. The coins are “mined” through high-end computer machines (and software programmes) and then stored in a digital wallet. People are betting on Bitcoins for various reasons – some compare it with gold since…

The government has set in motion the process to build an institutional framework for dealing with bankruptcy of banks and insurance companies, akin to the newly operational bankruptcy code for the corporate sector. The Financial Resolution Deposit Insurance Bill 2017 provides for setting up of a Resolution Corporation to deal with financial institutions which are on the verge of collapse by way of restructuring, merger, acquisition or eventual liquidation. But the biggest question depositors are asking is – why is the government not bailing out these institutions and instead leaving them to market forces? What it also means is that depositors’ money will be used to pay for the liabilities in a liquidation scenario. India hasn’t seen any bank failure. Instead, there have been mergers of weak banks with stronger…