Innholdsfortegnelse for 4 September 2022 i Business Today

For those tracking the diversified, Kolkata-headquartered ITC Limited over the past few decades, the transformation of what was primarily a cigarettes company has been nothing short of dramatic. Ever since its iconic former chairman, the Late Y.C. Deveshwar, laid the foundation of the new ITC many years ago by resolving to reduce its dependence on tobacco and move into the FMCG space, the company—now under the stewardship of Sanjiv Puri—has been in the midst of an aggressive strategic plan that has already seen it emerge as India’s third-largest FMCG player, after Adani Wilmar and Hindustan Unilever. Puri, who takes a keen interest in the FMCG play, makes his vision clear when he tells us that his ambition is to make ITC the No. 1 FMCG company in India. Puri has…

UBER, TIGER EXIT ZOMATO INVESTMENT FIRM TIGER Global Management and ride-hailing firm Uber have sold stakes in Indian food delivery firm Zomato as the oneyear lock-in period ended on July 23. While Tiger made a partial exit to reduce its holding from 5.11 per cent to 2.77 per cent, Uber sold its entire 7.78 per cent stake in Zomato. Tiger Global Management had first invested in Zomato in September 2020 at a valuation of $3.4 billion and followed up later in February 2021 at a valuation of $5.4 billion. Uber had picked up the stake when Zomato acquired its local food business Uber Eats in an all-stock deal in 2020. —BINU PAUL THE COMING 5G WAVE Even before 5G has been introduced, the April-June quarter saw one 5G-enabled phone in…

THE PREVENTION OF Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA) is by far the most far-reaching and feared law dealing with financial proceeds associated with a crime. Ever since its promulgation in 2002, the authorities have sought to invoke PMLA time and again, and so the provisions have come up for interpretation before various courts, including the Supreme Court of India (SC). The PMLA has undergone several amendments to broaden its scope and to address some of the issues arising from court judgements. The power of arrest on a nonbailable basis makes the law a potent weapon in the hands of authorities. A recent SC judgement in the case of Vijay Madanlal Choudhary & Others vs. Union of India is a far-reaching one as it deals with the constitutional validity of the…

METROPOLIS HEALTHCARE IS in a sweet spot. No sooner had it indicated that it was looking for strategic partners to grow its business, than it saw investors lining up to partner or buy a stake in the fast-growing diagnostics company. Major companies across sectors are understood to have shown interest in buying stake in Metropolis. The list, sources say, includes names such as Apollo Hospitals along with the Adani Group, Amazon, Flipkart and Trivitron Healthcare, a medical technology firm. What makes Metropolis attractive to investors? “The company is in good standing among the medical fraternity in India,” says Dr Arvind Lal, Chairman and Managing Director of Dr Lal PathLabs, a diagnostics and healthcare testing chain that competes with Metropolis. “On the whole, there is great interest in healthcare companies in…

$100 BILLION+ THE MARKET VALUE OF ACCEL’S INDIA PORTFOLIO $650 MILLION EARLY-STAGE FUND DEDICATED TO INDIA AND SOUTHEAST ASIA SOURCE: ACCEL LONG BEFORE HE JOINED Accel as its first Associate in India, Abhishek Goyal was working as a software developer at Amazon Development Centre (India). Working for an online retailer that has become one of the biggest globally, Goyal understood the concept of e-commerce long before it was a thing in India. The experience of working with Amazon came in handy when, two months after joining venture capital (VC) major Accel, Goyal met Sachin and Binny Bansal in March 2008 at an Open Coffee Club event in Bengaluru, which is an informal gathering of start-up founders, wannabe entrepreneurs, angel investors and VCs to meet and talk shop on weekends. AT…

WINTER IS COMING. This oft-quoted line is the name of the inaugural episode of the widely-watched series Game of Thrones that first aired in April 2011. It is also a dialogue used liberally throughout the series’ long episodes that describes an impending bleak outlook. So profound is its use that it has attained almost cult status in popular culture. But currently, the statement holds a special significance in the world of business as it very aptly captures the upheaval observed among start-ups in India amidst their constant lay-offs and valuation woes. Inviting this scrutiny is the listing of some of the high-profile startups on the bourses in the latter part of last year, following which their valuations fell drastically. It has also prompted many start-ups planning public market debuts to…

A FUNDING WINTER In April-June, start-up funding fell on a quarterly as well as yearly basis Start-up funding amount in $ million Figures in brackets indicate number of deals STAR PERFORMERS The top five sectors made up around 77 per cent of total funding in April-June 2022 BIGGER AND BETTER Growth- and late-stage funding deals accounted for 88 per cent of the funding activity in Q2CY22 Funding amount in $ million START-UP CITIES Bengaluru, Delhi-NCR and Mumbai continue to be the key start-up cities, accounting for 95 per cent of the total VC/PE funding activities in Q2CY22 MAPS ARE FOR REPRESENTATION ONLY AND NOT TO SCALE RAINMAKERS Players that garnered over $100 million in the top three cities during April-June 2022 BIG DEALS The top three acquisitions during Q2 of…

Start-up Champion INDIA IS HOME to 75,000 start-ups in the 75th year of Independence and this is only the beginning, Union Minister Piyush Goyal tweeted. Over 750,000 jobs have been created by start-ups. As per data from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the latest 10,000 start-ups were recognised in 156 days, compared to 808 days for the initial 10,000. India, the third largest start-up ecosystem in the world, raised a record $35 billion and 43 start-ups turned into unicorns in 2021, according to PwC data. —BINU PAUL TELECOM WARRIOR During a recent interaction with employees of BSNL, Ashwini Vaishnaw, Minister of Communications, was heard warning them to start delivering results within two years or face the axe. In a leaked five-minute clip, the minister was heard saying that their…

NOT FOR A MOMENT DOES SANJIV PURI TAKE HIS EYES OFF YOU. “DO YOU LIKE THE MISHTI DOI?” HE ASKS IN A TONE THAT IS QUIETLY CONFIDENT. ONCE YOU REPLY IN THE AFFIRMATIVE, HE SMILES AND OFFERS YOU SOMETHING MORE TO EAT. IN HIS TASTEFULLY DONE UP OFFICE IN KOLKATA, THE CHAIRMAN & MD OF ITC IS THE QUINTESSENTIAL CURIOUS MIND ON CONSUMER TASTES AND WANTS TO PUT THAT TO SOUND MARKETING USE BY LAUNCHING THE RIGHT PRODUCT. QUALITY IS PARAMOUNT and in two decades, the company, once synonymous with cigarettes, has become a large player in India’s high-growth fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) business. Now, it has got to revenues of ₹16,000 crore in FY22 spread across four segments—branded packaged foods, personal care, education and stationery, and matches and agar-battis.…

TWO DAYS BEFORE the first nationwide lockdown in March 2020, the Godrej Group, best known for its locks and soaps, saw its first employee fall ill as it was finalising its financial services venture. Soon, everybody was asked to work from home. As things came to a halt, its non-banking finance company (NBFC) licence was also delayed. “We finally got started when the second wave struck. We have had nothing but adventures [since then],” says a beaming Manish Shah, MD & CEO of Godrej Capital, from the group’s headquarters in Vikhroli in suburban Mumbai. Not far away in Kurla, another Mumbai suburb, healthcare and pharma giant Piramal Group was in the midst of a perfect storm. Even before Covid-19 struck, the group’s wholesale lending business in the real estate space…

IN LATE FEBRUARY this year, Anirudh Damani, Managing Partner at Artha Venture Fund, sent out a message on the WhatsApp group he shares with the founders of his investee companies, predicting “a tough winter lasting for two to three quarters”. The advice was sound and it spoke of conserving cash, and if a company was close to raising funds, “the deal had to finish quickly”. For at least eight years, the flow of money into India’s start-ups saw no abatement, leading to astronomical valuations, often without a robust business model. Damani, who runs an early-stage thematic micro-venture capital (VC) fund, says the indicators were clear much before he sent the missive. “There has to be a collaborative relationship between the investors and the founders with high levels of transparency,” he…

THE FIRST TIME I met Rakesh Jhunjhunwala was at the turn of the millennium in January 2000, as the global technology bull run was galloping to its heady climax. I was only a young TV anchor in my late twenties and he had already quite a reputation, though not quite the multi-billionaire yet. I had walked in to his office, with some trepidation, to find a portly man staring intently at a trading screen, furiously chewing paan, the run-off from which had stained his trademark white shirt. When he turned to me, I may have nervously asked if he didn’t tire of staring at the same screen all day. I still remember his reply. With a gleam in his eye, he shot back, “My friend, it’s like having sex for…

GET READY TO pay more for your dream home. Following a repo rate hike of 50 basis points (bps) by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) at its recent monetary policy meeting, banks have started passing on the burden to home loan borrowers. Lenders such as ICICI Bank, Bank of Baroda and Canara Bank have already increased interest rates on their home loans, while others are expected to follow suit. “The RBI has hiked the repo rate for the third time in a row, as the government tries to control inflationary pressures. In the past three months, the repo rate has increased by 140 bps to 5.4 per cent and is [now] hovering above the pre-pandemic levels,” says Ramesh Nair, CEO, India and Managing Director (Market Development), Asia, of Colliers.…

FOR A COMPANY that entered the FMCG business at the turn of the century, ITC has had quite a run. With brands such as Sunfeast, Aashirvaad, Engage, Kitchens of India and Savlon, not only has it made a mark, it has also managed to create a business cutting across several categories. ITC has made full use of its agri backend, with a strategy that is a combination of organic and inorganic growth. This has helped it snap at the heels of competition, either by expanding an existing market or often creating a new one. In a freewheeling conversation at Virginia House, ITC’s head office in Kolkata, Chairman & MD Sanjiv Puri, 60, outlines how the company has gone about this intensely competitive business and still managed to carve a unique…

Chief Economic Adviser V. Anantha Nageswaran, who took charge earlier this year, is at a loss to understand the pessimism among global think tanks on India’s medium-term growth prospects. India, the CEA says, may be poised to repeat the credit boom it had witnessed between 2003 and 2008, though the magnitude may not be the same. In an exclusive interview with Business Today’s Global Business Editor Udayan Mukherjee, Nageswaran says inflation has peaked in India and financing the current account deficit for the next two years isn’t an insurmountable challenge, adding that he is optimistic about the country’s economy. Edited excerpts: Q: The two big problems facing the world today are inflation and a growth slowdown. Till a couple of months ago, all the worry seemed centred around inflation, but…

EVERY DOCUMENT IS the outcome of a negotiation. In the world of venture capital (VC) funding, the character of this negotiation changes with cycles. After a year of breakneck pace of investing, which saw a record $35 billion of investor money flowing into Indian companies, the start-up ecosystem is staring at a dry spell. From what has been a founder’s market, the slowdown has caused a paradigm shift where the investors are deciding deal terms. What has led to this shift? For that, a bit of history first. What we saw in the 24 months leading up to 2022 was a massive influx of capital into India due to excessive money in the global markets. Some of that capital ended up with large investment funds and big capital allocators globally,…

START-UPS IN India had a ball of a time in 2021. Emerging from the pandemic, they attracted $35 billion in private funding, produced a record 44 unicorns (start-ups with a valuation of $1 billion or more) and went on a hiring spree to pursue their ambitious growth targets. They were the toast of the town and it seemed like the party would never end. But a cloud of geopolitical and macroeconomic factors has proved to be a party pooper and Indian start-ups have sacked more than 11,000 employees since the beginning of the year. Those pulling down the streamers and blowing out the remaining candles include some of the most well-known names such as Ola, Blinkit (formerly Grofers), Unacademy, Vedantu and BYJU’S-owned White-Hat Jr and Toppr. “I expected the lay-offs…