Monday, August 4, 2014

ASBM Business Updates Vol. 3(16) 4 Aug 2014, Monday from Chanakya Central Library, Asian School of Business Management, Bhubaneswar.



ASBM Business Updates is a Weekly Selective Compilation of Business News from Various Sources. To find details follow the link.
ASIAN BUSINESS
Online real estate giant REA Group has acquired a large stake in a South East Asian property business for $106.3 million.
The owner of realestate.com.au has bought a 17.22 per cent shareholding in ASX-listed iProperty Group, an online advertising portal to real estate agents and property developers in Malaysia, Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia and Singapore.
REA Group says it will hold discussions about being represented on iProperty Group's board.
The 31,000,000 plus shares were acquired from SeLoger.com SA, the operator of France's largest property classifieds portal, and were valued at $3.40 per share.
REA Group interim chief executive Peter Tonagh says the company is investing in markets where conditions are strong.
"This acquisition provides us with a strategic stake in one of the fastest growing real estate markets in the world," he said.
He said it also complemented its existing business in Hong Kong and China.
REA Group posts Australian property on China's myfun.com and SouFun.com websites and squarefoot.hk in Hong Kong.

ASIAN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
Dr Pradeep Kumar Panigrahi, Hon’ble Minister, Higher Education, Government of Odisha released on 30th May, 2014 the new edition of Dr. Biswajeet Pattanayak’s largest referred and cited text book on Human Resource Management published by the well known publisher Prentice Hall. The Hon’ble Minister appreciated Prof. Pattanayak’s efforts in bringing out an exhaustive edition covering emerging areas in human resource management.

Hon’ble Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha, Bhubaneswar, Prof. (Dr.) Prassana Kumar Patasani was present on the occasion.
Asian School of Business management conducted a two day faculty development programme on 18th and 19th July, 2014 on research methodology using SPSS. Eminent faculties and research scholars from various universities and institutes had an active participation in the programme.
Prof. (Dr.) Dasarathi Sahoo of Utkal University was the chief resource person who delivered an extensive training on the usage of SPSS in conjunction with ASBM faculty members, Prof. B. B. Das, Prof. M.N. Samantaray, Prof. M. Dash and Prof. P. Mohapatra. They delivered with utmost professionalism the importance of the various applications of Research Methodology in different fields. Prof. (Dr.) Biswajeet Pattanayak, Director ASBM, Prof. (Dr.) Kalyan Shankar Ray, Dean ASBM and Prof. (Dr.) Phalgu Niranjana, Associate Dean, ASBM directly supervised the entire programme which was an immense success.
Coordinators Prof. Susan Das and Prof. Ratikant Biswal made the programme memorable for all participants with careful arrangement of programme details crucial to the total realization of efforts.

BANKING
Banks will not be allowed to trade bonds issued by other lenders for infrastructure lending that would be exempted from mandatory reserve requirements under the guidelines issued last week, said Reserve Bank of India Deputy Governor R Gandhi.
The central bank last week allowed lenders to issue bonds for infrastructure lending, but barred the banks from holding each other's bonds. "Restriction on cross holding does apply to trading also," Gandhi told Reuters.
Gandhi said the central bank would prefer that these bonds for infrastructure lending attract investors from outside the banking sector.
"The idea is funds to come from outside the banking system," he said.
Dealers had been confused about whether the cross holding restriction also meant that the banks were not allowed to trade in these bonds, given that lenders are crucial market makers in this segment.

BUSINESS
The broadcasting regulator has recommended a new licensing regime for direct-to-home TV service providers under which the tenure of permits will be doubled to 20 years, renewable for 10 years at a time, and the licence fee on adjusted gross revenue will be reduced to 8% from 10%. The norms will benefit DTH operators, including TataSky, Dish TV and Sun Direct. Trai, the broadcasting and telecom regulator, on Wednesday further suggested that the adjusted gross revenue should be calculated excluding service tax, entertainment tax and sales tax or value-added tax paid to the government from the gross revenue. All existing DTH providers should be allowed to migrate to the new licensing regime at any point of time during their current licence tenure.
The regulator said six private DTH operators are providing pay TV services to more than 37 million subscribers. Trai has also made recommendations on cross-holdings and control of the broadcasting and distribution sectors, which suggests that vertically integrated broadcasters, or entities that run TV channels as well as distribution platforms such as cable and DTH, must be subjected to a set of additional rules, and that they should be allowed to control only one distribution platform operator (DPO), including cable and DTH firms.

FINANCE
In the biggest fund raising ever by an Indian e-commerce site, Flipkart has reportedly raised $1 billion (approximately Rs 6000 crore), effectively having raised a total of $1.7 billion with the company being valued at over $5 billion.
The Economic Times in an exclusive report today said the e-commerce site has raised half the amount from existing investors like Tiger Global, DST and Accel Partners and the rest will come from other investors. Potential investors include Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC and US-based investment firm T Rowe Price.
The report said the company is reportedly set to make the announcement about its fund raising in the next couple of weeks.
In an interview to The Hindu BusinessLine, co-founder and CEO of Flipkart Sachin Bansal made it clear that the company wasn't even looking at profitability at present and is looking to widen its reach across the country.
"...Profitability is definitely not in our top three metrics. Our top three metrics are customers, reach and overall retail space," Bansal told the newspaper.
Bansal said that in terms of competition the Indian markets was not comparable to China or US and believes that the company will grow with the market.

INDIA BUSINESS
Indian industry representatives today called on the UK to examine its visa system to make people to people movement easier for greater economic cooperation between the two countries.
"It is time to review our (India-UK) economic engagement and chart a course for the future. None of this will be possible without promoting people to people exchange," Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) president Ajay Sriram, mission leader of this year's annual CEOs delegation to Britain, said at CII's annual conference at the St James' Taj Hotel in London today.
Sriram, chairman and senior managing director of DCM Sriram Limited added, "The UK has effected changes in policy which curb the movement of technical personnel between India and the UK. There is a need to examine ways to enhance the easier transfer of students and technical experts and address these issues on a priority to increase business engagement.
"We in CII strongly believe that the potential of business growth between the two countries is large. India is seeing a new wave, a new push, a new direction and let's jointly work to capitalise on that and get benefit for both countries going forward."
His views were echoed by delegation member Dhruv M Sawhney, chairman and managing director of Triveni Engineering & Industries Limited which has significant waste-to-energy operations in the UK.

INSURANCE
Renewing car insurance policy is one big task which everyone faces annually. Various insurance companies give pesky calls and we all have to haggle with them in order to get the best deal for our cars.
Soon we may get a solution for this problem, according to an English daily, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) is considering a proposal to allow insurers to offer policies with a one-time, five-year cover and is expected to issue fresh guidelines on such long-term products.
These policies could also be cheaper as compared with the earlier policies. IRDA also aims to use this long-term policy cover to promote insurance, especially in rural areas.
Meanwhile, domestic passenger car sales increased 14.76 percent to 1,60,232 units in June as compared to 1,39,624 units in the year-ago month.
Motorcycle sales last month climbed 9.63 percent to 8, 76,196 units from 7,99,254 units a year earlier, according to data.

RETAIL
Toonz Retail India, a one stop shop for kids aged up to 12, is targetting to set up 200 stores in the country in the next five years, of which at least 10 would be in Kerala, especially in smaller towns.
The company's major presence is in South India with about 35 stores out of 50 spread in Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, according to Managing Director and CEO Sharad Venkta. It also has stores in Delhi, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana. "While we are expanding our reach to other parts of the country we continue to focus on south India and I am of the view that more than 50 per cent business and expansion will be driven by south India," Venkta told PTI.
Investment in every store ranges from Rs 20 lakh to Rs 40 lakh depending on the store size and market, he said.
Asked if they had plans to start stores abroad, Venkta said the company was presently focussing on consolidating its presence in India.
"There are some talks for International business however that largely in line of supplying our brands "Womom' and 'SuperYoung' to our business partners. These talks are in very initial stage and nothing has been crystallised as yet," he said.

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Source of Information for this issue : Google alert accessed on Google alert on July 28th and 29th, 2014

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Compilation
Sabita Sahu
Junior Librarian
Concept, Layout and Editing
Syamaghana Mohanty
Chief Librarian
Information and Documentation Divison, Chanakya Central Library
Asian School of Business Management
Shiksha Vihar Bhola,
Barang Khurda Road, Chandaka
Bhubaneswar-754012
www.asbm.ac.in
Tel: 0674-2374832, 2374833
E-mail: library@asbm.ac.in, chieflibrarian@asbm.ac.in


Sabita Sahu :Junior Librarian Knowledge and Information Services Unit, Chanakya Central Library, Asian School of Business Management, Bhubaneswar. library@asbm.ac.in ; www.asbm.ac.in

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