Reliance dominates news, Amazon’s new CMO, SEBI disappoints PSBs- Weekly Digest #14

The Government has shortlisted three merchant bankers , Citi, Morgan Stanley and ICICI Securities to divest minority stakes held in listed and unlisted companies through the Specified Undertaking of the Unit Trust of India (SUUTI).
To protect the consumer interests, India is looking to set a maximum cap for surge pricing for cab providers such as Ola and Uber, especially in the economy segment.
Anil Ambani’s plan for Reliance defence may have to face a hurdle as bankers are now seeking his personal guarantee on loans to Reliance Defence and Engineering to replace that of former promoter Nikhil Gandhi. Reliance group took over Pipavav Defence from Gandhi last year and renamed it Reliance Defence.
Amazon India has appointed Ravi Desai of ITC as their Chief Marketing Officer, creating the position for the first time in the country as e-retailers anticipate stiff competition near the festive season.
Reliance Jio Infocomm announced that it has decided to raise an amount of INR 15,000 crores by the issue of 9% non-cumulative optionally convertible preference shares of INR 10 each for cash, at a premium of INR 40 per OCPS.

To counter the competition due to the entry of Reliance Jio in the market, Vodafone is planning to infuse an amount of $3 billion as equity in its India unit to replace debt. Another reason being the upcoming sale of spectrum in the upcoming month.
Naspers-owned online payments service provider PayU has acquired Mumbai-based Citrus Pay for an amount of $130 million, marking one of the biggest deal in the emerging e-wallet market. It will create a new entity to compete with PayTm, Freecharge and others.
Amazon India has expanded its delivery network to 12,500 local stores and retail outlets in 50 cities to address both express and regular deliveries within a radius of 2 to 4 km. This comes ahead of expected competition due to the festive season.
Three foreign funds are looking to invest an amount of $250 million for a 30% stake in Edelweiss Asset Restructuring Company (ARC). This highlights a growing interest of foreign investors in Indian stressed assets

Sovereign wealth funds, private equity firms and family offices are in the race to acquire two Hotel Leelaventure Ltd properties, one in Delhi and the other in Chennai. The combined deal value would be about INR 3,000 crore.
Equitas, a new small finance bank is looking to prepay INR 3,000 crores of its existing loans to reduce the cost of funds.
SunPharma to initiate the buyback of its equity shares for INR 900 per share on 22nd September 2016 and will close the same on October 5 2016. The offer will be up to 75 lakhs shares, thus strengthing the promoters share in the company.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has struck down requests of state-owned banks, such as State Bank of India, to sell perpetual bonds to smaller investors citing potential risks of mis-selling.

Reliance Jio has accused Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular of rejecting most of the requests by customers to port their numbers to the Jio network. It wants regulators to impose a penalty for the same.
Delhi High Court refrained from passing an interim order on Britannia Industries’ plea challenging a single judge’s order restraining them from using the packaging of its ‘Nutri Choice Digestive Zero’ biscuits after it was sued by ITC as the packaging resembled that of Sunfeast ‘Farmlite Digestive All Good’ biscuits.
To lower its debts, Reliance Communication is now looking to narrow down its focus on completing the sale of its telecom tower and optic fibre assets. It has advanced negotiations with Canada’s Bakersfield for a value of $2.5-$3 billion.
L&T Technology’s IPO ended on Thursday, with the issue being subscribed 2.5 times. The IPO was for INR 900 crores for a value of INR 850-860per share.

Reliance Jio has shown his aggressive intent for the upcoming spectrum sale by depositing an amount of INR 6,500 crores ad EMD, which is almost equal to that of top telecoms combined.
The government has replaced SK Roy as chairman of state-owned Life Insurance Corporation of India with Managing Director VK Sharma. Roy had already submitted his request for voluntary retirement from the country’s largest insurer.
Intel to acquire Soft Machines, Silicon Valley-based chip-design company founded by an Indian-origin entrepreneur for nearly $300 million. Cash component of the deal is expected to be $250 million and balance to be equity.
Shares of Reliance Industries (RIL), which has lagged the benchmark Sensex since 2008, moved to a 27-month high of . 1,093.25 on Friday as it has been continuously showing positive results.

Source: The Economic Times