Innholdsfortegnelse for 9-Jan-22 i Business Today

KUMAR MANGALAM BIRLA’S retail business is undergoing a makeover. After acquiring a majority stake in the Sabyasachi label and joining hands with Tarun Tahiliani for a men’s ethnic wear brand, Birla’s flagship retail company, Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Limited, will now distribute and sell Reebok products in India and Asean nations across formats. With an instant presence in the growing sports and active-wear segments, Birla—who recently won the Global Entrepreneur of the Year Award from The Indus Entrepreneurs—is assured of Reebok’s loyal user base and pull value, and doesn’t need to build a new brand from scratch. In fact, the shoe seems the right fit for Reebok, too—the deal gives it a shot at revival in a market where its turnover has fallen from about ₹800 crore in 2009 to…

He joined Pertech Computers Ltd in Mumbai as a management trainee in 1990, with a monthly salary of ₹2,683 His big break was joining the NASDAQ-listed Delphi Information Systems (now Ebix Inc.) in October 1997 as Vice President (Professional Services); today, he has a 28.4 per cent stake in the company A US citizen of Indian descent, Raina did his schooling and engineering from Patiala He admires Steve Jobs for being a perfectionist and Warren Buffett for his astute business sense A fitness enthusiast, he believes four and a half hours of sleep is enough He has 2 million-plus followers on Facebook Currently writing a book, he has produced a documentary…

Rapid digitisation during the Covid-19 pandemic has led to a massive rise in demand for semiconductor chips This led to shortage of critical third-party components needed to manufacture chips. The restrictions on movement also hit the complex manufacturing process While India is an integral part of the design component of the semiconductor ecosystem, it has practically no chip-manufacturing capabilities. Also, since most design firms are captive centres of global companies, the IP is not registered in the Indian territory, and so doesn’t translate into revenues Commercial semiconductor fabrication operation is almost non-existent in the country. There are two operational fabs: SITAR in Bengaluru, and Semi-Conductor Laboratory in Chandigarh. But both build silicon chips for strategic purposes such as defence and space. An analog fab is expected to be established in…

WITH THE Union Cabinet approving a ₹76,000-crore incentive scheme for semiconductor manufacturing, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, as well as for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, explains the government’s vision behind the decision and its ecosystem-led approach in an interaction with Business Today’s Nidhi Singal. Edited excerpts: After focussing on assembly in India, the government is now looking at growing the overall ecosystem within the country. What is the vision when it comes to semiconductors? India’s ambition is an electronics ambition. The reason that ambition is very relevant is that when Narendra Modi became Prime Minister in 2014, the electronics industry, and more specifically the components industry that fed the electronics industry, had been devastated. If you look at the period up to 2014 and…

THE TIME WAS early 2015. This consumer business functioned without a national sales head or a team driving innovation. There was no research and development to speak of and the business just chugged along without any great sense of direction. Sounds impossible? That’s how things were at Crompton Greaves’ consumer business. To put things in perspective, the business was housed in Crompton Greaves. As a brand, it is over 80 years old with high levels of equity in categories such as fans, lighting and pumps. Owned by the charismatic Gautam Thapar, the problem stemmed from other group businesses (most notably paper) struggling on the back of high debt from expensive buyouts. There was little option but to put the profit-making Crompton Greaves on the block. Concluding a buyout isn’t easy…

When you fall, you get back up again. That’s the lesson in life, business and horse riding for Parle Agro’s Joint MD and CMO Nadia Chauhan. She first rode a horse at age seven when her father Prakash Jayantilal Chauhan—Chairman of the company, which makes Frooti and Appy—took her to Matheran on a family holiday. “My father used to go with his family since the age of seven to Matheran. Thereafter, for almost every family holiday of ours—when we were given a choice between Matheran and Europe—we always chose Matheran because we fell as much in love with the horses as he did growing up around them,” says Mumbai-based Chauhan. “All of us—my mom, dad, sisters and I—were passionate riders. Many fond memo-ries of our childhood, and as a family,…

What was the problem you were grappling with? After 14 years in various sales and marketing roles in 3M India, I relocated to 3M’s global headquarters in a marketing role for a US-focussed industrial segment. I was part of a newly introduced industrial segment marketing organisation, which required me to work across multiple well-entrenched product platforms. This was to be a transformative go-to-market model. The key issue was how to insert myself into the middle of this transformation and bring value. I was also moving from a small subsidiary, with no knowledge of the US markets. Who did you approach and why? I approached the then executive VP of our global industrial business. He had set up a few meetings to support me in my transition. He was the architect…

INFLATION IS rising in the UK, India, the US and Brazil. And the new Covid-19 variant could further exacerbate it by disrupting global supply chains. Result: In the one month to December 20, the Dow Jones Industrial Average Index on Wall Street declined over 0.50 per cent, Nikkei 225 and BSE Sensex fell 6 per cent, and the UK’s FTSE, around 1 per cent. In India, heavy selling by FIIs has added to the anxiety. Market veteran Vijay Kedia believes indices may continue to consolidate in a range. Tighten your belts.…

The digital age is coming. In the stockmarkets, too. Market veteran Raamdeo Agrawal states that five-six of the top 10 wealth creators in the next 10 years would be digital firms. Here’s why: “replicability, friction-free delivery and near-zero marginal cost” make them highly scalable. The previous 10 years, expectedly, were dominated by traditional majors—Reliance Industries, TCS, HDFC Bank, Hindustan Unilever, Infosys, Bajaj Finance, ICICI Bank, HDFC, Kotak Mahindra Bank and HCL Technologies. Meanwhile, as per the recently unveiled 26th Annual Wealth Creation Study, ₹71 lakh crore of wealth was created from 2016 to 2021. Get this—`10 lakh invested equally in 2016 among the top 10 wealth creators would have grown to ₹1.7 crore in 2021. Striking.…

AMID ITS share price stagnating for over eight years in the ₹200-300 range, ITC finally divulged its business strategies. From unlocking value through the demerger of its non-cigarettes FMCG and hotels business to a possible listing of ITC Infotech, the Sanjiv Puri-led company has a slew of measures planned. The ₹53,000-crore ITC has adopted a “venture capitalist kind of mindset”, Puri says. Delivering new products at an “unparalleled” speed that “crushes” the competition, is now its mantra for success.…

Robin Raina-headed Ebix Inc. set up the local operations of EbixCash, its Indian subsidiary, in 2017 The company had revenues of ₹4,317 crore in 2020-21. EbixCash had a pre-Covid-19 GMV of $18 billion EbixCash has spent $750 million in the past five years to acquire more than two dozen firms across payment solutions, forex and remittances, travel, technology, e-learning, logistics and business process outsourcing Raina aims to build EbixCash into an Indian MNC. The conglomerate will have financial transactions covering forex, payments, remittances, insurance, technology, etc. EbixCash is readying for an IPO. Based on its assumed revenue multiple, its market value could be in billions of dollars SOURCE: COMPANY, REPORTS…

1 There have been multiple failed attempts to set up commercial fabrication facilities in the country 2 A consortium of Jaiprakash Associates, along with the US-based IBM Corporation and Israel’s TowerJazz, was to set up a facility at Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, with an outlay of about ₹26,300 crore. The facility was to have a capacity of 40,000 wafer starts per month of 300-mm size, using advanced CMOS technology 3 A consortium of Hindustan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (HSMC), along with STMicroelectronics (France/Italy) and SilTerra (Malaysia), was to set up a facility at Prantij, near Gandhinagar in Gujarat, with an outlay of about ₹25,250 crore. The facility was to have a capacity of 40,000 wafer starts per month of 300-mm size, using advanced CMOS technology SOURCE: IESA & FROST & SULLIVAN…

The company made a foray into the premium segment. This increased its revenues and ensured higher margins Crompton reduced its interest outgo by going in for an NCD issue, and thus refinanced the earlier component of its loan. That difference went to the bottom line The company also controlled its operating costs. Operating costs as a proportion of sales over a period of five years dropped by around 1.5 per cent…

In 2019, Seattle-based Amazon picked up a 49 per cent stake in the Kishore Biyani-promoted Future Coupons for ₹1,500 crore. The money was handy for Biyani in the midst of liquidity woes, while it gave Amazon an indirect holding of 3.58 per cent in Future Retail, the entity that runs Big Bazaar, Easyday, fbb, etc. The Competition Commission of India has now suspended its own approval of the 2019 deal, charging Amazon of “making false and incorrect statements” and “suppressing the actual purpose of the deal”. That, and a ₹200-crore fine, make for an arduous climb up the reputation ladder for Amazon.…

THE MUCH-AWAITED IPO of Go First (formerly GoAir) on December 8 did not materialise, putting the Nusli Wadia-backed company’s plans to raise ₹3,600 crore from the bourses in abeyance. Much of the money was to be used for paying off debt. But perhaps the company played safe, considering the subdued investor response to Paytm and Star Health Insurance IPOs.…

Payments June 2017: Bought an 80 per cent stake in ItzCash for ₹522.42 crore Money transfer, forex and remittances Oct 2017: Acquired 100 per cent interest in money transfer business of Wall Street Finance, along with its subsidiary company Goldman Securities, for ₹42 crore Nov 2017: Acquired the money transfer service scheme of Paul Merchants for about ₹262.77 crore April 2018: Acquired Centrum’s forex business called Centrum Direct for around ₹1,209.50 crore Jan 2019: Bought Essel Forex for approximately ₹55 crore Jan 2019: Acquired 89.94 per cent stake in inward remittances provider Weizmann Forex for ₹527.51 crore Travel Nov 2017: Acquired 100 per cent stake in online travel portal Via for ₹492.38 crore July 2018: Acquired Mumbai-based Mercury Travels and Delhi-based Leisure Corp for a total of ₹103.20 crore Dec…

LOOK AROUND YOU. In your pockets, your home, your office. On your way to office or a vacation. Look at how you communicate with colleagues or loved ones. How you cook. How you wash clothes. And shop. Or pay your bills. In fact, look at everything you do when awake. What’s common? It’s something that’s hidden, inanimate, seemingly innocuous, but omnipresent. And it just stopped the world. “A single semiconductor chip has as many transistors as all of the stones in the Great Pyramid in Giza. And today there are more than 100 billion integrated circuits in daily use around the world—that’s equal to the number of stars in our corner of the Milky Way galaxy,” the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), a US trade group, says on its website. Yet…

1 To extend policy support of up to 50 per cent of project cost to execute highly capital-intensive and resource-intensive projects for semiconductor fabs and display fabs 2 To extend policy support of 30 per cent to approved units for compound semiconductors/silicon photonics/sensors (including MEMS) fabs and semiconductor ATMP/OSAT units 3 Design-linked incentive (DLI) scheme—incentive of up to 50 per cent of eligible expenditure, and product deployment-linked incentive of 6-4 per cent on net sales for five years 4 Government to train 85,000 engineers for semiconductor ecosystem 5 India Semiconductor Mission to drive the long-term strategies for developing a sustainable semiconductors and display ecosystem SOURCE: PRESS INFORMATION BUREAU…

The government has set very ambitious export targets. Are these feasible and achievable? These targets are very much feasible because they have not been decided unilaterally. We reached these numbers after consulting many stakeholders and industry people. We spoke to industry [players] irrespective of turnovers. We spoke to a company with over ₹100 crore of turnover and we spoke to a smaller company with less than ₹50 crore of turnover as well. These are not rosy targets, but reality. How do you see the potential of the textile sector? The first basic change we have realised is [that we need a] change in strategy. Earlier, we were planning to boost exports on the basis of cotton because it constitutes a dominant share in textile exports. But the entire world is…

London-based Neeraj Kanwar, the 50-year-old Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Apollo Tyres, has managed to turn the Gurugram-headquartered company into one of the most recognisable auto brands in the world. In the last five years, Kanwar has grown the company’s turnover from $450 million to $2.34 billion. He now has a new mission: sustainable development. But that won’t be a cakewalk, especially since he makes tyres, one of the most polluting auto parts. Tyres are the second-largest source of primary microplastic pollution in the ocean after single-use plastic and account for nearly half of the global road transport particulate emissions. The only way forward, therefore, is to focus on green manufacturing processes, as the industry jumps onto the electric bandwagon. In an interaction with Business Today’s Prerna Lidhoo, Kanwar…

NOIDA-BASED KARAN KUMAR has a daily commute of over 60 km. The 26-year-old software engineer, who drives his own car, travels to work 30 km away in Delhi and back home. Rising fuel prices and a drop in his car’s efficiency, however, have made his monthly fuel bill go up significantly, burning a hole in his pocket. Kumar is, therefore, considering buying a new car. But he hasn’t been able to decide which type he should buy: a petrol-based one like before or an electric vehicle (EV). “I spend at least ₹12,000-15,000 every month on fuel alone. Buying an electric car would help reduce this cost, as well as fight the rising pollution in the city. But I am not sure if it will prove to be an economical decision…