Weekly Newsletter

1. Top Headlines
RBI moots $800M refinance to SIDBI to ease liquidity
stress on small businesses.
New M&A policy for telcos to facilitate acquisition of
smaller rivals.
Piramal Group, Canada Pension Plan may join hands to
build realty focused NBFC in India.
Accel-backed Trivone acquires Bangalore-based content
services company Godot Media.
US-based mobile payments firm Boku acquires mobile
billing aggregator Qubecell .
JPMorgan's legal troubles weigh on employee pay.
SEBI reviews ban on employee trusts to buy shares from
secondary market for ESOP.
Etihad completes deal to buy 24% of Jet Airway
Inside The Story
RBI moots $800M refinance to SIDBI to ease liquidity
stress on small businesses
The Indian central bank has decided to provide refinance of an amount
of Rs 5,000 crore ($800 million) to the Small Industrial Development
Bank of India (SIDBI) to ease the liquidity stress to micro and small
enterprises (MSE). The MSE sector is employment-intensive and is also
a critical generator of exports.The refinance will be available for direct
liquidity support to finance receivables, including export receivable, to
MSEs by SIDBI or for liquidity support to MSEs through selected
intermediaries, i.e., banks, non-banking financial companies (NBFCs)
and state finance corporations (SFCs), according to a statement issued
by RBI on Monday.The refinance will be available against receivables,
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2. Including export receivables, outstanding as on November 14, 2013
onwards. The facility will be available at the prevailing 14-day term
repo rate for 90 days.
New M&A policy for telcos to facilitate acquisition of
smaller rivals.
Even as the government prepares to announces the much awaited
guidelines for mergers and acquisitions (M&A) for the telecom sector in
the coming weeks, a report says that new norms make it more
conducive for top players to acquire smaller rivals.The telecom
commission has already cleared the new rules, which has increased the
subscriber market share of the combined entity from 35 per cent to 50
per cent. The new policy also allows the combined entity to hold up to
50 per cent of the spectrum allotted in any particular frequency band
and 25 per cent of the spectrum across bands in the service area. Also in
case the target operator has administered spectrum, the acquirer will
pay the market price for the same.
Piramal Group, Canada Pension Plan may join hands to
build realty focused NBFC in India.
Ajay Piramal-led Piramal Group and Canada Pension Plan (CPP), the
largest Canadian pension fund and one of the top 10 retirement funds in
the world, are joining hands to build what could be one of the largest
real estate finance companies in India, as per a report in The Economic
Times citing sources. The new venture will be led by Piramal Group
flagship and cash-rich firm Piramal Enterprises and will start operating
next year, it added. The two partners will invest $500 million in the
50:50 joint venture which will be engaged in providing debt finance
besides doing structured investment deals.Piramal Enterprises (earlier
Piramal Healthcare) struck a blockbuster deal three years ago and sold
the domestic formulation business to Abbott in a staggered transaction
worth $3.7 billion. Since then, the cash-rich group has been investing in
new businesses besides deploying cash in various assets.
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3. Accel-backed Trivone acquires Bangalore-based content
services company Godot Media.
Bangalore-based digital content services company Trivone Digital
Services Pvt Ltd has acquired another Bangalore-based content services
company Godot Media, for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition will
enable Trivone to provide a full service offering in the digital content
services market in India and overseas.This will comprise content,
creative and design, application development, social media management
and digital content management services, including inbound and
outbound marketing.He revealed that the company is positioning the
combined offering to existing customers of both the entities, besides
extending the same to its overseas customer base.
US-based mobile payments firm Boku acquires mobile
billing aggregator Qubecell
Mumbai-based Spunk Media Pvt Ltd, which runs the online mobile
billing aggregator Qubecell, has been acquired by San Fransisco-based
mobile payments company Boku. This is Boku’s first acquisition and it
will allow the company to get all major carriers in India and enhance its
presence in Asia.The specifics of the deal have not been disclosed. As
per a report in Techcrunch Boku stated that Qubecell already has deals
with four of the largest mobile networks in the country, which enables it
to reach around 75 per cent of the country’s mobile phone users
(pegged to be around 550 million). This user-base will in turn become
Boku’s potential market. The deal will make Boku the country’s largest
carrier billing provider. Qubecell’s reach in Indian market was the
biggest trigger for the acquisition.
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4. JPMorgan's legal troubles weigh on employee pay.
JPMorgan Chase & Co plans to keep overall compensation per employee
roughly flat this year from last year, lagging gains at rivals, as the bank's
massive legal settlements weigh on its results, two sources familiar with
the matter said.Bonuses were largely set early this week, though
payouts could change in unusual situations or if there is an unexpected
change in the company's results during the last six weeks of the year,
said the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. It is not yet
clear what Chief Executive Jamie Dimon's bonus for 2013 will be.Pay
increases have been muted across much of the banking sector in the
aftermath of the financial crisis, but JPMorgan's plans are on the low end
of what experts forecast for the industry this year.
SEBI reviews ban on employee trusts to buy shares from
secondary market for ESOP
Within a year of prohibiting employee trusts of public- listed companies
to buy shares of their firms from the secondary market as part of
employee stock options (or ESOP) schemes (ESOS), market regulator
Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) is looking to review the
ban.SEBI said on Thursday that reconsidering its policy as secondary
market acquisitions by trusts is an internationally accepted practice
subject to necessary safeguards to prevent misuse. It noted that such
transactions allow companies to grant options to employees without
having to dilute their existing share capital.
Etihad completes deal to buy 24% of Jet Airway
Abu Dhabi-based Etihad has completed the deal to buy 24 per cent in Jet
Airways through a preferential allotment and appointed two nominees
on the board of the India’s second largest carrier by passengers, making
Jet the first operational Indian airlines with strategic investment by a
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5. foreign carrier.This follows an approval from the Competition
Commission of India (CCI) last week which gave the final ground
clearance, around seven months after the two sides announced a deal
early this year.Jet Airways has issued 27.2 million shares at a price of Rs
754.73 each aggregating to Rs 2057.66 crore.The deal was struck at a
sharp premium to the market price then and over twice the share price
now.Jet Airways scrip was up 1.62 per cent to close at Rs 325.75 a share
on the BSE in a weak Mumbai market on Wednesday.
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