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ASIAN BUSINESS
The world's biggest food group Nestle's sales growth slowed in the
first nine months of the year as Asian economies deteriorated and prices in
Europe fell, but the maker of coffee and KitKat chocolate bars stuck to its
full-year target.
Food groups are facing tough conditions as prices in developed markets
decline and growth slows in emerging markets.
Sales at Nestle were 66.2 billion Swiss francs ($70.29 billion) in the
nine months to September compared with 68.35 billion Swiss francs, just missing
analysts' average estimate of 66.78 billion francs in a Reuters poll.
Underlying organic growth, which is adjusted for currency swings,
acquisitions and divestitures, slowed to 4.5 per cent in the period under
review from 4.7 per cent in the first half and fell short of a 4.7 per cent
forecast in the Reuters poll.
Nevertheless the company reaffirmed its forecast for organic growth of
around 5 per cent.
"Despite the tough environment, in view of our year-to-date
performance, we are still aiming for organic growth of around 5 per cent for
2014 with improvements in margins, underlying earnings per share in constant
currencies and capital efficiency," Nestle Chief Executive Paul Bulcke
said in a statement.
BANKING
The
world’s oldest bank, Monte dei Paschi di Siena, is racing to find €2.1bn
(£1.65bn) after a health check of Europe’s lenders found it had the biggest
capital shortfall of any institution.
The
bank was one of nine Italian banks deemed to have failed the stress tests
carried out by the European Banking Authority, which published its findings on Sunday and concluded 24 banks out
of 123 it had tested across the European Union needed more capital.
Monte
dei Paschi di Siena, which is already in the midst of a restructuing exercise,
said it had been penalised by the methodology used by the regulators and
appointed UBS and Citigroup to advise it of its options and “explore all
strategic alternatives for the bank”.
The
EBA’s results are based on the position of banks at the end of 2013 and the
regulator said that Italian four banks failed its tests after it took into
account the capital that had been raised in the last nine months.
BUSINESS
Sweden's
Ericsson said
India is among the biggest growth drivers with improved business activity as
the world's largest mobile telecom gear maker posted third-quarter sales above
expectations Friday.
The
company's 9 per cent on-year sales growth at SEK 57.6 billion (Rs
48,354 crore approx) in the third quarter to September, 2014 was "mainly
driven by Middle East, China, India and Russia and partly
offset by lower sales in (its biggest market) North America," Hans
Vestberg, President & CEO of Ericsson, said in a statement. India sales
zoomed a whopping 56 per cent year-on-year to SEK 2 billion (Rs 1678 crore
approx), which is the highest growth clocked across all regions where Ericsson
has operations for the second quarter in a row. India sales revenue
sequentially grew by 22 per cent.
According
to Vestberg, the sharp on-year revenue spurt is also a reflection of
"improving investment climate in India".
Of
the SEK 2 billion India sales revenue, SEK 1.1 billion revenue came from
networks, SEK 0.7 billion from global services and 0.2 billion from support
solutions in the third quarter.
Since
the end of last year, India sales "has recovered, mainly driven by an
increase in operator capex spending in response to greater data uptake,"
the company said, adding that "on-year growth was propelled by its
operations support systems (OSS), business support systems (BSS) and TV &
Media" verticals.
FINANCE
MasterCard is
expanding its development headcount in India to work on processing platforms
and its mobile payments offerings, a play that could make the country the
second-largest tech hub in the world for the payment processor over the next
few years.
The payment network bought Sam Pitroda's C-Sam in February and Electra-Card Services in May. C-Sam, which has its Indian operations in Baroda, will build mobility solutions such as Master-Pass and help MasterCard sharpen services with Apple's digital wallet.
While the initial acquisitions give MasterCard a development base in the country, the Purchase, New York-based company intends to build further on it. "We're going to expand. We will continue to expand our MasterCard employee base here. Over the next 12 months, we'll see a pretty significant increase in both locations — Baroda and Pune," Rob Reeg, president — technology and operations for MasterCard, told ET.
The payment network bought Sam Pitroda's C-Sam in February and Electra-Card Services in May. C-Sam, which has its Indian operations in Baroda, will build mobility solutions such as Master-Pass and help MasterCard sharpen services with Apple's digital wallet.
While the initial acquisitions give MasterCard a development base in the country, the Purchase, New York-based company intends to build further on it. "We're going to expand. We will continue to expand our MasterCard employee base here. Over the next 12 months, we'll see a pretty significant increase in both locations — Baroda and Pune," Rob Reeg, president — technology and operations for MasterCard, told ET.
LOGISTICS
Indian
carmaker Mahindra,which is set to expand its operations in the Philippines with
the Alvarez auto group, has already gotten approval from some potential
customers. The Alvarez group also distributes BMW, Kia, and Peugeot. Mahindra,
the largest vehicle manufacturer in India, was recently given a thumbs up by
several individuals from different logistics companies after subjecting its
vehicles in a field test.
Chris
Guidotti, vice president for procurement of LBC, said the Mahindra vehicles
they tested passed the durability and reliability standards for vehicles that
need to be on the road almost 24/7 and in different types of terrain.
Mahindra,
which is currently expanding its operations in the Philippines, has been
inviting key officials of different companies to test its vehicles. It is set
to introduce its new models before the end of 2014.
The Indian
vehicle manufacturing giant is bullish about the continued expansion of
presence in the Philippine market due to confidence in the steady and sustained
growth of the domestic economy.
Mahindra,
the largest vehicle manufacturer in India, has a joint venture with Willys
Jeep, a popular US brand of rugged recreational vehicles, since the 1950s.
Mahindra
is the largest seller of tractors in the world and is present in more than 100
countries in the world. It is set to buy a 51-percent stake in Peugeot
Motorcyles.
Originally
set up as a steel trading company in 1945 by brothers KC Mahindra, JC Mahindra
and Malik Ghulam Mohammed, M&M eventually saw a business opportunity in
expanding into manufacturing and selling larger multipurpose utility vehicles
(MUVs), with assembling the Willys Jeep under license in India.
RETAIL
Primark
has struck a surprise deal to take over unwanted retail space in American
shopping malls from retailer Sears as the UK fashion chain looks to kickstart
its US expansion.
In
the spring Primark signalled its ambition to conquer the US, starting with
north-eastern states such as New York and New Jersey, with around 10 stores
planned for the populous metropolitan corridor that runs from Boston to
Baltimore.
The
first outlet is scheduled to open in Boston at the end of next year and Sears
added further detail to Primark’s expansion plan by telling investors that it
had leased enough space for seven stores to the fashion chain as it looks to
reduce the size of its more than 2,000-strong estate. More than 48,310 sq
metres (520,000 sq ft) of space will be handed over to Primark over the next 12
to 18 months, Sears said. Locations that include the King of Prussia mall near
Philadelphia, which with more than 400 stores is one of the biggest in US, and
the Staten Island mall.
Given
the size of the Sears chain, analysts suggested the relationship could lead to
further deals. The US company’s property director, Jeff Stollenwerck, said its
ambition was to strategically transform what was “one of the largest retail
real estate portfolios in the United States”.
SUPPLY
CHAIN
The
country's largest supply chain company Future
Supply Chains is buying food logistics
startup Brattle
Foods in a cash, stock and debt deal aimed at strengthening back-end
processes for its nearly Rs 1,000-crore food business, a top company executive
said.
"This
acquisition and merger will complement the existing modern technology and
automation-based supply chain capability of Future Supply Chains (FSC) in the
food and FMCG
domain,"said Anshuman Singh, managing director at Future Supply Chains,
which is part of Kishore Biyani-owned Future Group. "It will enable FSC to
address the frozen, chilled and cold warehousing requirements, coupled with the
refrigerated container transportation requirements across the country." Both
companies declined to give the financial details of the deal but people aware
of the matter said Brattle Foods, along with its subsidiary Laxman
Logistics, will be merged into FSC for a total consideration of about Rs
125 crore.
Brattle's
shareholders GTI Capital and Epiphany Ventures will get some shareholding in FSC
after the deal is signed in the next few days, they added.
___________________________________________________________________
Source of
Information for this issue : Google alert accessed on Google alert on Oct 27th, 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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