Business Today 8 December 2024

The past few weeks have been marked by transformative developments spanning business, geopolitics, and a shocking corporate scandal. On November 14, Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) and Disney finalised a merger at a valuation of ₹70,352 crore. The joint venture combines RIL’s technological prowess with Disney’s rich content library, creating a media juggernaut. The entity boasts over 100 television channels in nine Indian languages, two OTT platforms, and 30,000 hours of annual TV content in the general entertainment space. It is the scale and reach—750 million viewers come to these platforms collectively every week—that causes some concern around competition. Reliance-Disney now commands a 33% market share through its OTT platforms JioCinema and Disney+ Hotstar, making it the largest player. Uday Shankar, Vice Chairperson of the merged entity, envisions using this scale…

DELIVERY PARTNERS OF SWIGGY AND ZOMATO SOURCE BAIN-SWIGGY REPORT ₹ 2.12 LAKH CRORE Expected size of India’s online food delivery market by 2030 20 PER CENT Expected penetration of online food delivery in 2030, an increase from 12% in 2023 18 PER CENT Annualised expected growth the online food delivery market is likely to witness by 2030 110 MILLION Expected customers to be added to the Indian food services market by 2030…

PAIN POINT IN OCTOBER, RETAIL INFLATION SURPASSED THE RBI THRESHOLD OF 6% FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE AUGUST 2023 SOURCE CMIE ECONOMIC OUTLOOK 6.50% CURRENT REPO RATE, WHICH RBI HAS MAINTAINED SINCE FEBRUARY 2023. INFLATION IS EXPECTED TO DECLINE FROM JANUARY 2025, PER SBI’S ECOWRAP; IT BELIEVES THE FIRST RATE CUT HAS EFFECTIVELY BEEN POSTPONED BEYOND FEBRUARY 2025 4.62% GROWTH IN CONSUMER SENTIMENT INDEX IN OCTOBER 2024, WHICH IS THE LOWEST IN 43 MONTHS, ACCORDING TO THE CENTRE FOR MONITORING INDIAN ECONOMY (CMIE) 161.27% TOMATO INFLATION IN OCTOBER, UP FROM 42.9% IN SEPTEMBER, ATTRIBUTED TO SUPPLY DISRUPTION CAUSED BY HEAVY RAINFALL IN KEY PRODUCING STATES, SUCH AS KARNATAKA AND MAHARASHTRA RURAL STRESS RURAL CONSUMERS EXPERIENCED INFLATION THAT WAS 106 BASIS POINTS (BPS) HIGHER THAN URBAN INFLATION. THE GAP WAS AS…

BOUNTIFUL RAINS AND the festive season seem to have lightened the mood of India Inc., which is hopeful of better demand conditions and profits in the coming months. But external challenges and the spectre of escalating conflict in the Middle East are keeping sentiments in check. There are also concerns about urban demand and potentially slower economic growth in the second half of the fiscal. This mood of guarded optimism is reflected in the BT-C Fore Business Confidence Survey of 500 chief executive officers (CEOs) and chief financial officers (CFOs) for the September 2024 quarter, which revealed that the business confidence index (BCI) has increased to a nine-year high of 56.7 from 55.6 in the previous quarter. Prior to this, the BCI had risen to 56.5 in the December 2023…

THE RECENT INDICTMENT of the Adani Group Chairman Gautam Adani (in photo) and seven others in the US on charges of fraud and bribery have triggered global repercussions for the ports-to-retail conglomerate, apart from a steep initial fall in stock prices. Prosecutors in New York have indicted Adani, his nephew Sagar Adani, and six others, including a former executive of Adani Green Energy, on counts of fraud over an alleged scheme to bribe Indian officials around $250 million to corner solar power contracts. In a separate development, the US Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil lawsuit against Adani and his associates for “conduct arising out of a massive bribery scheme”. It alleges that the group raised funds from US investors without revealing this alleged scheme. This comes almost two…

FIVE GRUELLING YEARS of trials and tribulations are what it took for Jet Airways’ fate to be decided. The once-leading airline, which had filed for bankruptcy in 2019, got a final resolution on November 7, when the Supreme Court ordered its liquidation. But the apex court’s order points fingers at the credentials of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), a comprehensive law that governs insolvency and bank-ruptcy proceedings in the country. The liquidation order set aside the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal’s (NCLAT) order for the transfer of the cash-strapped airline’s ownership to the Jalan-Kalrock Consortium (JKC) as it failed to make even the full first tranche payment of ₹350 crore as directed by the apex court. What went wrong in an insolvency case of this scale, involving over ₹7,800…