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Kishore Biyani sold the retail business by selling the ‘crown jewel’ of the Future Group to Reliance retail owned by Mukesh Ambani. This bulk transaction with a combined value of Rs 24,713 has established Reliance retail as the undisputed market leader n the organised retail segment. It is a huge advantage for reliance retail, since the retail firm is currently in a vigorous battle with Amazon in the e-commerce sector. Leading retails such as Big Bazaar, Food Hall, and Brand factory come under Future group.

Under this acquisition scheme future group is merging certain business to Future Enterprises Limited (FEL). It was also under this scheme the future group transfer its retail business to Reliance Retail and Fashion Lifestyle Limited (RRFLL). Kishore Biyani built a strong retail business under Future groups with painstaking efforts over the past three decades. His exit is due to the overflowing debts and the effects by pandemic. On the other side through this deal, the retail business of Future business has been saved from its collapse and falling into the chaos of India’s bankruptcy court.

The deal also showed the world the importance of Indian retail business to the world. The lenders and investors of Future group will feel secured about their investment after it is taken over by Reliance retail. The employees of the Future group have also escaped from a pity situation from the future and also has the possibilities of enjoying welfare since the reliance retail is expanding in a greater dimension across India.

What do you think about this great acquisition scheme? What will be the upcoming situation of the Future group? To what extent Reliance retail will get benefitted through this acquisition? Ideas popping up?

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ICICI Lombard General Insurance and Bharti AXA General Insurance have signed definitive agreements to combine their insurance businesses through a share swap deal. The completion of this deal would result in the emergence of the country’s third-largest general insurance entity.

Bharti Enterprises currently owns a 51% stake in Bharti AXA General Insurance and the French insurer AXA owns a 49 % stake. As per the share exchange ratio recommended by independent valuers, Bharti AXA shareholders will receive 2 shares of ICICI Lombard for every 115 shares of Bharti AXA held by them. They will receive the shares when the scheme of arrangement is approved by the board of directors of ICICI Lombard and Bharti AXA.

At present, promoter ICICI Bank Ltd holds 51.89% stake in ICICI Lombard, while the rest is with the public. After the proposed deal, the promoter stake will come down to 48.11%.

As a part of the deal, shareholders of the demerged company (i.e.) Bharti and AXA will be allotted equity shares of the combined entity of Rs10 each with Bharti shareholders receiving 18.23 million shares and AXA receiving 17.52 million shares.

ICICI Lombard is a listed insurance firm, and Bharti and AXA will be public shareholders in the combined entity after the deal.
According to a Press Release, the proposed merged non-life insurance company is expected to earn a total annual premium of at least Rs.16,447 crore on a combined basis with a market share of around 8.7%.

ICICI Lombard has said that this deal will create an opportunity for the combined entity to leverage Bharti AXA’s growing distribution platform through existing partnerships and augmentation of agency force.

The proposed agreement is subject to regulatory approvals from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India, Competition Commission of India, Reserve Bank of India, Securities and Exchange Board of India, National Company Law Tribunal and approval of shareholders of ICICI Lombard and Bharti AXA.

ICICI Lombard has also added that they are expected to gain from an enhanced product suite and deeper customer connect touch points through this Acquisition. They have also stated that the employees of the combined business will also benefit via greater opportunities across functions and geographies.

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Harley Davidson – A culture more than a brand

The iconic brand Harley Davidson is in a talk to close its operations in India due to poor sales and no demand in future. And the growth of the brand was also not good. The idea to exit operations in India is a part of Harley Davidson’s rewire strategy. The upcoming new strategy by Harley Davidson will be focussing on 50 markets. New products and brand strengths of Harley Davidson will also be focussed as a part of the rewire strategy. The new, sportier motorcycle Harley Davidson Bronx will be removed from the company’s future model.

The model is removed after the company’s quarter-finals result since the profits are not showing good signs and it also continues to plan to exit from the international markets. Gradually Harley Davidson is losing its market in India. The company sold less than 2500 units during the last financial year. India is one of the international financial markets where the company’s performance is poor. Heavy discounts were also offered to best selling models. Even the company’s performance is poor in its market US. In the international markets like India consumers who preferred heavy motorcycle has moved to sports and adventure types.

Following the success of Harley-Davidson Street 750, the company has decided to launch a 300-350 cc model in India to cover the middle-class customers. Over the years Harley Davidson has become a culture more than a brand. Even though it has poor sales will you think that Harley Davidson will be neglected? What will be the impact of Harley Davidson’s decision to exit from the international markets? Will that be a positive side for other brands?

Ideas rushing through your mind?  Here is the platform for you. Drop your valuable thoughts in the comment box.

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The net worth of Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has touched $100 billion after the launch of TikTok rival called Instagram Reels this week.

Instagram Reels

Similar to TikTok, Reels allows people to create short-form videos, set to music that can be shared with friends and followers and discovered while browsing the App. It lets people record videos up to 15 seconds, add popular music along with an array of filters and effects. Reels can be recorded in a series of clips one at a time, all at once, or using video uploads from the phone’s gallery.

After the launch of Instagram Reels, the stocks of Facebook rose by more than 6%. Mark Zuckerberg holds a 13% stake in the Social Networking Giant.

Mark Zuckerberg joins “Centibillionaire Club”

According to reports by BBC, Mark Zuckerberg has joined the Amazon Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos and Microsoft’s Bill Gates in the exclusive “Centibillionaire Club”, with this rise in his personal wealth. It is known that Zuckerberg is planning to donate 99% of his Facebook shares over his lifetime through the charitable foundation he set up with his wife Priscilla Chan.

Instagram Reels was first introduced last year as a pilot in Brazil. The test was later expanded to several markets like Germany, France and most recently, India. Instagram announced the extension of the testing of Reels in India, barely a week after India announced the ban of 59 Chinese apps including TikTok.

Recently, US President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order stating that Apps from China “threaten the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States” and prohibiting the China-based company Byte Dance, the parent company of TikTok from doing business with the US firms after 45 days.

TikTok had threatened legal action against this Executive Order issued by Donald Trump claiming that it “was issued without any due process”. While Beijing and ByteDance have rejected the allegations, Microsoft is now pursuing talks to acquire TikTok’s US business.

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In the current new normal, several online educational platforms are flourishing with high revenues. And it is no doubt that Byju’s is one among those companies. WhiteHat Jr is an online learning platform which offers online coding classes. Byju’s reported that it acquired WhiteHat Jr for $300 million. And it has been one of the most uncommon all-cash deals in the startup ecosystem. This deal has been in the progress for the past few months and it will definitely boost the growth of this Unicorn startup. On the other hand, WhitHat Jr claims for the annual revenue of $150 million.

The two-year-old WhiteHat Jr will give its Mumbai based investors and founders one of the most profitable exits in the startup ecosystem. WhiteHat Jr was founded by former Discovery Networks India CEO Karan Bajaj and backed by few others. WhiteHat Jr was already in the discussion of raising venture capital funds and they have also got many offers. But WhiteHat Jr chose the deal with Byju’s. The Unicorn also recently reported about their expansion across Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand. But their main revenue was from the US.

Recently Byju’s was valued at $10 million after raising funds from Mary Meeker’s Bond Capital. It claimed that it doubled its revenue in the financial year 2019. Byju’s also reported that it has 64 million registered students, over 4 million paid subscribers. On the other hand, Byju’s has also signed up with Walt Disney to teach the kids through cartoon characters and it has also been a lead cricket sponsor.

What do you think of the Byju’s acquisition of Whitehat Jr? Having any idea on Byju’s further moves after this deal with WhiteHat Jr? Ideas popping up? Here is the platform to express your views.

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Weeks after imposing a ban on popular Chinese mobile applications, the government of India has now imposed restrictions on the import of colour television sets from China. The move is aimed at boosting domestic production.

India restricts import of TVs

The restrictions were announced by the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT). The notification issued by the DGFT said that the import policy of colour television sets has been changed from “free” to “restricted”. The import of TVs in certain categories will now require a licence from the government.

The import of Colour TV sets that will be impacted by the new import policy are:

• Colour television sets of screen size up to 36 cm
• Television sets of screen size of 36 cm but not exceeding 54 cm
• Television sets of screen size of 54 cm but not exceeding 68 cm
• Television sets of the screen size of 68 cm but not exceeding 74 cm
• Television sets of screen size of 74 cm but not exceeding 87 cm
• Television sets of screen size of 87 cm but not exceeding 105 cm
• Television sets of screen size exceeding 105 cm
• Liquid crystal display television set of screen size below 63 cm

The notification said that the actual user conditions would not be applicable for importers applying for an authorization to import the goods ‘restricted’ in this notification. The procedure for grant of license will be separately issued by DGFT.

Colour television sets worth USD 781 million were imported in the year ended 31 March, most of which came from Vietnam (USD 428 million) and China (USD 292 million). With this, the government has brought this restrictions in a measure to encourage domestic production. This notification comes as Chinese imports and investments continue to face immense scrutiny in India after the recent India-China border clash.

The government has earlier cancelled railway and road tenders secured by Chinese companies. It also imposed a ban on banned 59 Chinese apps, including TikTok, UC Browser on national security grounds. The Prime Minister of India has said that India needs to end its dependence on the import of gadgets, equipment, solar panels and technology from foreign countries, apparently pointing to imports from China.

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Russia says that the country will register its first vaccine by August 12 which is developed by Moscow’s Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology. The health ministry of India stated that two of the indigenous vaccines are in clinical trials. One will be tested on 11,050 subjects at 8 sites and the other will be on 1000 subjects at 5 sites. In the meantime, more than 165 potential COVID vaccines and 27 experimental vaccines have been tested at different stages across the world.

UK’s Oxford-AstraZeneca, US-based Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech, Chinese firms Sinovac and Sinopharm, and India’s indigenous COVAXIN are the vaccines which grabbed more attention from the public. The phase 1 and phase 2 trials of Covaxin has experimented across 12 places in India with different candidates.

The Gamaleya vaccine in Russia is likely to receive the conditional registration by August. The vaccine will be first administered only to health professionals and the production is likely to begin by September. The CEO of Serum Institute of India Aadar Poonawalla has already stated that Astra Zeneca’s vaccine cost will be around 1000 in India and the vaccine will be out with its name ‘Covishield’. On the other hand, Monderna’s vaccine is expected to be out with the price around Rs 3700- Rs 4500. But the vaccine with this price will be affordable only in high-income countries.

various scientists and pharma companies are breaking their heads all over the world to fight against this pandemic. Even if the vaccine is out in the future will people accept it completely? many issues even after the release of vaccines will arise definitely. Will countries like India will be able to afford the facilities for the whole country. Pool of ideas using in your mind? Be free to express and the platform is here. Drop your valuable suggestions in the comment box.

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