Innholdsfortegnelse for 26 June 2022 i Business Today

IPO RUN HALTED INDIAN COMPANIES had a great run last year in terms of raising money through IPOs. But the same cannot be said about IPO investors, as most newly listed companies have fared badly after listing. The BSE IPO index is down over 21 per cent this calendar year—significantly higher than the 5 per cent fall of the Sensex. Then, the IPO barometer is nearly 30 per cent away from its highs touched last year even as the Sensex is around 11 per cent lower than its record peak. The recent listings of eMudhra, Ethos and LIC, too, have all been tepid. —ASHISH RUKHAIYAR ₹1.39 LAKH CRORE AMOUNT MOBILISED IN THE PRIMARY MARKET IN FY22, UP 26.1 PER CENT OVER THE PREVIOUS FISCAL. THIS INCLUDES IPOs, FPOs AND RIGHTS…

THE INDIAN ECONOMY GREW its slowest in a year with a 4.1 per cent increase in GDP (gross domestic product) during Q4 of 2021-22. The National Statistical Office (NSO) estimates that the economy grew by 8.7 per cent during fiscal year 2021-22, lower than the earlier estimate of 8.9 per cent. It had grown by 20.3 per cent, 8.5 per cent and 5.4 per cent, respectively, in the first three quarters of FY22. According to experts, a favourable base effect helped propel India’s 2021-22 GDP growth rate to one of the highest in the past many years, making it one of the fastest-growing major economies in the world. In Q4 of the previous fiscal, private final consumption expenditure (PFCE) and investment growth were muted, weighing down growth drivers like manufacturing,…

Ola’s 425,000 sq. ft office campus in Bengaluru’s Koramangala exemplifies how the company’s 36-year-old Founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal sees the future of mobility in India. Just like he consolidated different offices in the city into one campus, he wants to build a similar mobility ecosystem so that his ride hailing, electric vehicle, used cars and other businesses can form a mobility super app of sorts. Impressive? Yes. But like most things in life, it’s easier said than done. However, Aggarwal is unperturbed. “Any disruption will have its challenges. Maybe going forward, we have to become better at anticipating them,” he says, in an interaction with Business Today for this story. In February 2021, Aggarwal commenced the ambitious task of building the world’s largest twowheeler factory with 10 million annual…

FOR STARTERS, it wasn’t even a judgement but an observation made by the Justice D.Y. Chandrachud-led Supreme Court (SC) bench while dismissing the central government’s appeal challenging a Gujarat High Court ruling that termed integrated GST (IGST) on ocean freight as unconstitutional. On May 19, the apex court bench remarked that the recommendations of the GST Council are persuasive in nature and, thus, not binding on the centre and the states. The remarks were made while delivering a verdict in the Union of India vs. Mohit Minerals case. “It is not imperative that one of the federal units must always possess a higher share in the power for the federal units to make decisions. Indian federalism is a dialogue between cooperative and uncooperative federalism where the federal units are at…

What was the problem you were grappling with? In March 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic struck us. I had to deal with uncertainties and numerous problems like the scaleability of technology, the dichotomy of caring for colleagues [while] providing uninterrupted service to customers, risk management amid unprecedented volatility, and many more. On top of it, five senior management team members were unavailable due to family issues, resignation, retirement, etc. Who did you approach for advice? The predicament was manifested on my face. At least my father, Prem Sagar Relli, could read it well. What was the advice you received? He told me you cannot extract water by digging 10 holes of 4 ft. each. Instead, you get water by digging deep, and where to dig deep is the starting point! In…

103 PER CENT of long-period average (LPA) rainfall will be received by India this season, says IMD 75 PER CENT of India’s annual rainfall is during this period > 50 PER CENT of India’s farmlands depend on the southwest monsoon to grow crops 87 CM IMD’s new normal LPA for rainfall; it was 88 cm earlier Source: CMIE Economic Outlook, media reports…

R.I.P GOOD TIMES—a memo by Sequoia Capital during the 2008 economic crisis—perfectly portrays the present condition of technology start-ups in India. After years of lavish venture capital (VC) funding and investor tolerance for cash-burning, the halcyon days seem to be ending for these firms. Since January 2022, around 8,000-10,000 start-up employees have received pink slips. How did the start-up story turn sour? A series of global macro events, including stock market crashes, rising inflation, interest rate hikes, and the Ukraine war have significantly eroded the value and volume of VC deals. Both domestic and global funds have been facing delays in raising money, with their investors reassessing financing commitments over concerns of high valuations and lack of profitability, and increasingly demanding more investment discipline. As start-ups sag under economic stress…

OFTEN, IT’S JUST gut feeling. Ask dealmakers how they identify an opportunity and this is the most likely answer. It helps them spot a transaction ahead of time and quickly plan on making that big move. One such instance is the recent buyout of Holcim’s India assets by the Adani group. Narrating the sequence of events, a veteran investment banker says it was clear to him in early 2018 that the Switzerland-headquartered cement major was having a relook at its India business. A year before that, the two companies that Holcim owned here—Ambuja Cements and ACC—independently spoke of considering a merger. Suddenly, everything went cold. The symptoms were all there. “As competition was acquiring assets in a hurry, the lack of action at Ambuja and ACC stood out,” he says.…

SINCE THE START of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020, Sunita Rao has weathered many a storm. From losing her husband during the first wave to gasping for oxygen during the second one, Rao—a homemaker from a lower middle-income household who has two school-going kids—started delivering home-cooked meals around her neighbourhood in Mumbai’s Ghatkopar after her husband passed away. This gritty woman won the battle against Covid-19, but the demon of inflation is giving her sleepless nights. The steady rise in prices of essential items—from vegetables and cooking oil to milk and rice—has not only jeopardised her household budget, but also her business. Add to that the shooting prices of LPG and petrol, essential commodities for her business. While the government has provided some relief on that front, the rising…

THE CHARMS of springtime Switzerland can distract the most focussed, even the privileged 2,500-odd members of the global elite who trooped into the popular ski resort town of Davos for the 51st annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) over five days towards the end of May. There was rain, but the heaviest drizzle over their deliberations, conducted in person after a two-year hiatus, was that from the ongoing war that rages in Ukraine. Europe has perhaps not been so distracted with war ever since World War II ended some 75 years ago. The health of the global economy has been hit afresh, adding to the pain across two years of the Covid-19 pandemic. The world’s reserve currency— the US dollar—has been weaponised as an instrument of economic sanction,…

Ad guru Piyush Pandey has always loved Lord Ganesha, right since childhood when his parents lived next door to Jaipur’s famous Ganesh temple. “Unlike Mumbai where Tuesday is Lord Ganesha’s day, in Jaipur it is Wednesday. Every Wednesday there used to be a mela (fair) outside the temple and we used to all go for darshan (to pay respects),” says Pandey, Chairman of Global Creativity and Executive Chairman India of Ogilvy. Over the years, his love for Ganesha has continued and all those who know him are well aware of this. As a result, he is often gifted Ganesha idols by friends, family and admirers. So much so that he has over 100 pieces today. “I don’t think of myself as a collector. People have much bigger collections than mine.…

5G ADOPTION IS SET TO SHOOT UP BY 2025, WITH NORTH AMERICA LEADING THE WAY Estimated 5G adoption as a share of total mobile connections Even as India awaits the roll-out of 5G services, the zippy technology will contribute $450 billion to the country’s economy in the next 10-15 years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said recently. With high speeds, superior reliability and negligible latency, 5G will catapult the mobile ecosystem into new realms. It also has the potential to transform every industry—from safer transportation to remote healthcare, and precision agriculture to seamless logistics. Here’s where 5G stands in other parts of the world GLOBAL DEPLOYMENT 198 The number of operators who have already deployed 5G networks globally, according to CLSA 72 countries across 1,947 cities already have 5G networks; China leads with…

AN INTENSE BATTLE for market share in the world’s third-largest domestic aviation market is brewing. Competition is set to intensify as the market gets ready to welcome two more players—low-cost carrier (LCC) Akasa Air, which is set to commence operations in July; and the re-launch of Jet Airways later this year. Recently, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala-promoted Akasa released the first look of its Boeing 737 MAX aircraft. With the lowest seat-mile cost for a single-aisle airplane and high dispatch reliability, the Boeing 737 MAX may provide Akasa with a competitive edge. “Today, passengers seek environmentally friendly options to travel, and Akasa is proud to be an environ-mentally friendly airline with the youngest and greenest fleet in global aviation,” Co-founder and CEO Vinay Dube tells Business Today. The airline’s scheduled launch in June was…

THE WORD Atmanirbhar has recently been thrown around quite a lot, in expressing a general yearning for economic self-sufficiency in a whole gamut of spheres, often in misguided or delusional tones. Such jingoistic dreams aside, the one area where it can indeed be applied for the year gone by, without gross exaggeration, is the Indian stock market. This bears mention as it is perhaps one of the very few instances where the Indian market has not capitulated in the face of relentless selling from foreign investors. While it would be a stretch to suggest that foreign institutional investors or FIIs were always solely instrumental in shaping market trends, in the absence of a solid counter-balance from the domestic investor fraternity, major bouts of selling or buying from FIIs would indeed determine…

CHAPTER 1 RELOCATION A FEW YEARS AGO, Rohit Tomar left his cushy job with a Vietnam-based airline and founded a consultancy with his wife Veena. Tomar picked Mumbai, his city of birth and one of India’s primary aviation hubs, for the headquarters of his firm Caladrius Aero. However, this March, the Tomars decided to shift to Greater Noida in the Delhi-National Capital Region (NCR). “Delhi-NCR has more opportunities in aviation. Most of the country’s major airlines are now based here. With the completion of the upcoming airport in Jewar, the region will have two international airports within two hours of each other. Also, a lot of work in the development of a drone industry is happening, especially in Noida and its surrounding areas, due to the push being given to…

WHEN thirty-two-yearold Yashika Sharma, a Gurugram-based advertising professional, planned her baby shower this April, she was clear about one thing—if she wasn’t going to drink, neither were her guests. At the same time, she didn’t want to serve the regular colas, fruit juices or nimboo pani. “I ordered a selection of zero-alcohol beverages including beer, gin, cocktails and even wine,” says the soon-to-be-mother, adding: “They tasted great, some of them just like the real thing, and we could party without getting drunk.” Globally, there is a spike in the consumption of zero-proof or non-alcoholic beverages. With a growing number of teetotallers, health-conscious millennials and the ‘sober curious’—those exploring elements of a booze-free lifestyle without fully abstaining—the market for crafted beverages with organic ingredients and avant-garde flavour profiles is growing. Non-alcoholic…

“I have always believed sports teaches you a lot more. It teaches you the importance of timing, the value of teamwork and also humility. Losing is fine. It teaches you perseverance. Don’t give up till the last point. You never know when the match may turn around,” says Srikanth Iyer, Co-founder and CEO of interior design firm HomeLane, who loves racquet sports and has been playing tennis for the past four years. Iyer was introduced to sports at a young age when he started playing table tennis in school. He went on to play competitively and represented Bangalore University and Karnataka state. “But then life took over and sports was given a break for almost a decade,” says the 51-year-old. When he returned to court, it was for squash. “I…