Bullets

Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd. has confirmed its purchase of 100% stakes in Metro AG's cash and carry business in a deal worth ₹2,850 crore. The goal behind the purchase is to integrate Metro's 31 large stores spread across 21 cities in India.

With this purchase, Reliance aims to create fulfilment centres for its online stores using Metro's intricate network of stores.

With Reliance plugging itself into the retail supply chain, the Kirana Dukaan's bread and butter may be in danger.

Paytm has declared a buyback of its shares at ₹810 each, with the buyback value standing at ₹850 crore. The total number of shares being bought back will stand at 1,04,93,827. The current stake being sold will stand at 1.62%.

The payment intermediary's liquidity is unlikely to be affected, as its current position is at ₹9,182 crore.

If you were a pre-IPO shareholder or someone who entered below the ₹810 mark, congratulations. Everyone else, maybe look for cashbacks on Paytm?

iPhone fanatics all across the country have something to look forward to as Apple Inc's focus shifts from China to India, and the company that made the country's most affordable car takes a crack at the premium mobile.

Tata Group has decided to open 100 new stores selling Apple Inc products exclusively under the Infiniti Retail chain of stores. The conglomerate also plans to increase its workforce in its factory in Hosur, which produces iPhone chassis.

Covid-19 really beat the semiconductor industry up, but India finally seems able to say goodbye to it. Or rather, they can say "Tata" to the problem.

Chairman N Chandrasekaran said that Tata Group plans to invest ₹7.4 lakh crore and establish Tata Electronics Pvt Ltd, a greenfield venture in tech, EV and semiconductors.

Both our country and the company could benefit greatly as the semiconductor industry is poised to achieve a market size of ₹5.2 lakh crore by 2026.

A year after declaring its IPO, dwindling e-commerce website Spandeal has finally decided to retract its $152 million IPO. A person directly related to the matter said that the reason for this withdrawal is the declining market sentiment for tech stocks.

While the dates are not disclosed or even seemingly decided, the e-commerce platform has been reported to be planning to refile in the future.

With sharks like Amazon and Flipkart around, Snapdeal is right not to dip its toe.

The RBI, in its Monetary Policy Committee meeting on December 6th, 2022, hiked the repo rate to 6.25%. This was the fifth rate hike for FY2022, with the repo rate at 4.40% on May 2022.

As pre-empted by many financial experts, this MPC meeting marks a slowdown in the rate hike at 35 basis points as opposed to the four 50 basis point hikes for FY2022.

Among slowdowns, the RBI also reduced the GDP growth prediction from 7% to 6.8%.

TVS Motors stocks fell by 3% after a promoter, Srinivasan Trust, sold their share in the company in a bulk deal. Srinivasan Trust sold 25,69,726 or 0.54% stake in the motor company for ₹262.12 crore.

The dump took place at a price of ₹1,020.03 per share, and post-sale, the prices fell to ₹1,009.80 per share.

Is TVS beginning to lose promoter trust?

According to the Finance Ministry, India collected ₹1.46 lakh crore in GST for the month of November. This has been the 9th consecutive month when GST collection has crossed ₹1.4 lakh crore.

While the 3.9% fall was in comparison to last month's collections, the YoY collection has grown by 10.9% from ₹1.31 lakh crore in November 2021.

So the numbers that would be pushed would be the "10.9% increase" and not the 3.9% fall, right?

A month has passed since the release of the e-Rupee in the wholesale segment. Today, the retail segment shall receive the digital currency through a pilot phase. The four banks that will participate in the first phase of the retail launch will be SBI, ICICI Bank, Yes Bank and IDFC First Bank.

The digital rupee shall be a cash equivalent, and won't earn any interest when in the user's wallet. It can, however, be converted to other forms and deposits.

Tata gained its prodigal airline back, and it seems intent on taking over India's skies now.✈

Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines (SIA) declared that they will merge Vistara into Air India by 2024. Post-merger, Tata Sons will hold a 74.9% stake, and SIA will be a 25.1% stakeholder in the new entity.

The merged entity, named AI-Vistara-AI Express-AirAsia India Pvt Ltd (AAIPL) will be worth around $1 billion with SIA investing $250 million in the entity.

While experts may claim that the Indian economy will come out of the possible global recession unscathed, the various startups in India sing a different song.

The company behind media and news aggregator platforms Josh, PublicVibe and Dailyhunt, VerSe Innovations, is set to lay off 150 employees. This layoff will compromise 5% of the company's current workforce. The company is also going to be reducing salaries by 11% for personnel with annual incomes above ₹10 lakh per annum.

Apple's manufacturing partner, Foxconn, is looking to hike employee salaries by up to $1,800 to retain them amidst violent protests in China against the rising Covid threat. Foxconn reported around 20,000 employees leaving after the protests.

Due to Apple's dependence on a single point of production, the phone manufacturer has warned customers of reduced shipments. As the peak holiday season approaches, this fall in sales is expected to cut Foxconn's iPhone revenue by 36% and overall sales by 20%.

Paytm might be losing the game as a payment aggregator, but it's banking its hopes on loans now.

While the fintech company's history has not been the greatest since it was listed, its loan distribution network has scaled up to reach 3.4 million loans disbursed during October 2022 worth ₹3,056 crore. The number of loans experienced a Y-oY increase of 161%, and the value rose by 387% Y-o-Y.

Merchant payments volume rose by 42%, reaching ₹1.18 lakh crore for October.

Zomato shareholders might finally experience an end to the bitter taste left by the food-delivery company in their portfolios. Zomato experienced a 62% YoY increase in its operating revenue reaching ₹1,661 crore for the last quarter ended September 2022.

The company's Total Adjusted Revenue (Revenue from Operations+Delivery Charges), jumped by 48% YoY to reach ₹2,107 crore. At an average exchange rate of $1=₹80, Zomato's annualised return crossed the $1.05 billion threshold, making the stocks climb by 15% over the week.

HUL and GSK are ending their distribution contract initiated after HUL acquired GSK Consumer in 2020 in a deal worth ₹31,700 crore. As a result of the termination, GSK Consumer's products, such as Crocin, Eno, Iodex, Ostocalcium, Otrivin, and Sensodyne, will no longer be sold by HUL.

The termination shall have a notice period of 1 year starting from November 9th, 2022.

Is HUL losing valuable products from its offerings? Or is GSK losing a strong distribution channel?

Reliance Industries Limited's wholly-owned subsidiary, Model Economic Township (MET), has started developing a Greenfield Smart City near Gurugram, Haryana. The smart city shall be developed on a property of over 8,000 acres.

MET city will be a Japan Industrial Township that will house four Japanese companies; namely, Nihon Kohden, Panasonic, Denso and T-Suzuki. Nihon Kohden is looking to build its biggest medical facility in MET city, which would be 4 times bigger than its establishment in Gujarat.

Edtech is in for a bitter lesson. Unacademy has decided to fire 350 employees in the second round of layoffs as it struggles to maintain its financial health.

Citing financial shortfalls, the edtech platform implemented pay cuts for management and employees as well as scaled-down operations by stopping global test preps, complimentary meals etc.

“We need to keep optimising and building efficient systems for leaner and unprecedented times,” these words by the CEO do not bode well for the employees.

Reliance Retail is looking to enter the beauty and salon space by acquiring a 49% stake in the Chennai-based Naturals Salon & Spa. Naturals aims to open 3,000 stores by the year 2025, a goal that seems more achievable with this improvement in funding.

Reliance seems really bent on making its portfolio beautiful as it is reported to be in deals to acquire Indian rights to LVMH's Sephora as well as opening its first in-house fashion and lifestyle store, Azorte.💅

India has become the apple of Apple's eye. As China implements Covid Zero Policy, its major manufacturing facility in Zhengzhou faces lockdown restrictions. These restrictions, in turn, affect Apple's supply chain, causing the tech giant to look for other options.

This is where India swoops right in with its Pegatron manufacturing facility in Tamil Nadu. The facility had already started producing iPhone12 earlier this year and had employed over 7,000 employees by September end.

The USA is turning into a DJ, but instead of hyping the crowd and dropping the bass, it is hiking interest rates and dropping the financial markets.

The US Fed hiked interest rates by 75 basis points from 3.75% to 4.00% and hinted that this hike might be the last phase of its attempt to curb inflation in the country. Nasdaq, S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial each fell by 3.36%, 2.5% and 1.55%, respectively, after this decision.📉