Singh brothers down to blows. OYO plans to rule the world. HCL signs its biggest ever deal and more in today’s ‘no-holds-barred’ shot of DKODING Newsline

Quikr raising debt of Rs 55 crore, but when will the cash burn end?

Online classifieds and services firm Quikr India has taken debt financing of Rs 55 crore from Temasek-owned InnoVen Capital in order to grow its business. The company received its last debt infusion of Rs 130 crore in 2016 from Brand Capital, which is the private treaty arm of Bennett, Coleman and Co. Ltd (BCCL), and has also taken equity funding of US$ 350 million till date from investors including Warburg Pincus, Matrix Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, eBay, Nokia Growth Partners and AB Kinnevik.

Quikr has a presence in segments like real estate, auto, jobs, goods and services and is in a tough dogfight with Olx at present.

The company’s real estate segment has seen a growth of 105% in FY 2017–18 while cars and bikes, goods, Quikrjobs and QuikrEasy have seen growth rates of 115%, 90%, 90% and 80% respectively.

Revenue reached Rs 199.98 crore (growth by 52% yoy) and losses fell by 28% yoy to ₹231.2 crore in FY 2017–18. The company has made 13 acquisitions so far, which contribute around 55% of its total revenues, and it aims to double revenue this year to Rs 350 crore.

However, Quikr has found it relatively hard to monetise traffic and make the acquisitions profitable so far.

Ranbaxy brothers’ quarrel gets physical; Malvinder accuses of Shivinder of assault

The mutual animosity between Malvinder Singh and Shivinder Singh, formerly the promoters and owners of Ranbaxy Laboratories, Fortis Healthcare and Religare has taken a turn for the worse.

Malvinder Singh has accused his younger brother Shivinder of physical assault at their Hanuman Road office during preparations for a board meeting at Prius Real Estate. He commented in a video to friends and relatives, “Today is December 5, 2018. Little after 6:00 pm, Shivinder Mohan Singh assaulted me at 55, Hanuman Road. He physically hit me.

He hurt me. He injured me (here). He broke this button. He gave me a bruise here. He bruised me here. And he kept threatening me and refused to budge until the team came together and separated him from me.” Shivinder has called the allegation a ‘fake’ and a ‘lie’. Sources have confirmed the veracity of the incident, but family and friends have managed to cool down both brothers and prevent a police complaint.

The two brothers have been on bad terms since they lost Rs 22,500 crore over the past decade and also lost control over their family businesses Fortis Healthcare and Religare Enterprises.

It intensified when Shivinder accused his elder brother of forging his wife’s signature and taking the company into a high risk death trap. He also took Malvinder to court, but later withdrew the case when their mother Nimmi Singh intervened.

Fuelled by moolah, big on appetite; Swiggy, Zomato & Co in acquisition mode

With fresh investments on their menu, foodtech firms are returning to the negotiating table for strategic acquisitions that can drive their hunger for market leadership. Zomato has recently acquired Lucknow-based drone startup TechEagle, which has been developing customized unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that can carry a payload of up to 5 kg.

Co-founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal commented in a press release, “We are currently at the early stage of aerial innovations and are taking baby steps towards building a tomorrow wherein users can expect a drone to deliver the food they ordered online.”

Swiggy, meanwhile is in talks with several possible acquisition targets according to reports after its acquisition of Scootsy in August. On the other hand, sources also say that at least five foodtech companies including Swiggy, Zomato, Faasos and FreshMenu are on the verge of their next funding round.

Faasos received US$ 30 million in November, and is planning another round of US$ 100 million to become the “largest restaurant company in the world,” according to Jaydeep Barman, CEO of parent company Rebel Foods Ltd.

Freshmenu’s owner Foodvista India Pvt Ltd is planning a round of investment of around US$ 25–30 million.

Swiggy is planning its third funding round this year, and it could possibly look to expand in hyperlocal deliveries and cloud kitchens. Another foodtech startup HungerBox received US$ 4.5 million in its series A round in July 2018, led by South Korean investment firm Neoplux and Indian private equity fund Sabre Partners.

Oyo aims for global leadership by 2023 with 2.5 million more rooms

After taking the honours as India’s most valuable hospitality chain by beating Tata’s Indian Hotels and Oberoi’s EIH, Oyo Hotels clearly has global leadership on its radar. Founder Ritesh Agarwal has proclaimed in an interview to PTI that OYO Rooms plans to become the largest hotel chain in the world by 2023.

Ritesh commented during the interview, “Our belief is that if we just keep opening 50,000 keys a month, then by 2023 we would have opened roughly 2.5 million more rooms, which will be at least 2 times of what the world’s largest hotel chain is today.”

Oyo started in 2013 with one hotel in Gurugram, Haryana and currently has tie-ups for more than 330,000 rooms across the globe. In India, Oyo has operations in more than 180 cities with 143,000 rooms, while in China, the company has an even larger presence within a span of one year with 180,000 rooms across more than 265 cities.

Growth in India is trending at around three times currently according to Ritesh, while the company is opening around 40,000 franchise or leased rooms every month in China. Oyo also raised US$ 1 billion recently for expansion into China as well as other territories, and this investment valued the company at US$ 5 billion.

It has a presence in Malaysia, Nepal and Britain and is looking to expand into new markets in the Middle East, South East Asia and Europe.

HCL Technologies to acquire software assets owned by IBM for US$ 1.8 billion in its largest ever deal

Software giant IBM has agreed to sell US$ 1.8 billion worth of software assets to HCL Technologies Ltd, as the former plans to increase its focus on cloud computing. The assets include seven businesses that are focused on markets like e-commerce and human resources, and the deal could get consummated by mid-2019.

They represent a combined potential market of over US$ 50 billion, and the products include Appscan for secure application development, BigFix for secure device management, Unica for marketing automation, Commerce for omni-channel eCommerce, Portal for digital experience, Notes & Domino for email and low-code rapid application development, and Connections for workstream collaboration.

Simultaneously, an existing licensing partnership between the two companies is expected to continue for five products.

John Kelly, Senior Vice President, IBM, commented, “The time is right to divest these select collaboration, marketing and commerce software assets, which are increasingly delivered as stand-alone products.” IBM is shifting its energies to the hybrid cloud market, which propelled it to acquire Red Hat Inc for US$ 33 billion.

This is HCL’s largest acquisition ever, and the company is confident that these products will provide a huge boost to its strategic segments like security, marketing and commerce.

CCD Founder V G Siddhartha could exit Mindtree investment and refocus on coffee business

V G Siddhartha, founder of Café Coffee Day and largest investor in Mindtree Ltd is expected to divest his stake in the software company. Sources claim that two firms controlled by Siddhartha and some other large shareholders could also exit Mindtree in tandem.

According to the sources, private equity firm KKR and Co. could be looking to step in instead with a major shareholding in Mindtree. Siddhartha had joined the board of Mindtree in 1999 and resigned as independent director in March this year. This had led to speculation that he would also divest his stake in the company and use the surplus money to ramp up CCD’s business, and discussions have been apparently on for over five months on the matter.

Currently, Siddhartha holds 21% stake in Mindtree along with Coffee Day Enterprises Ltd and Coffee Day Trading Ltd hold around 21% and the company commands a six-month average market cap of ₹16,000 crore on BSE. Its revenues stood at Rs 5,463 crore in FY 2017–18, growing by 4.3% yoyand profits grew by 36% to Rs 570 crore, growing by 36% yoy.

Surat leads, India home to top 10 fastest growing cities in the world

top 10 fastest growing cities in the world | dkoding |dkodingnews |los angeles

A report by Oxford Economics concludes that the top 10 cities in terms of growth between 2019 and 2035 will hail from India, even as their economic output will be relatively small compared to leading metropolises.

Surat, the diamond processing and trading centre in Gujarat is expected to see the fastest growth of 9.17% during the period.

Other cities in the top 10 rank-wise will be Agra (8.58%), Bengaluru (8.5%), Hyderabad (8.47%), Nagpur (8.41%), Tirupur (8.36%), Rajkot (8.33%), Tiruchirapalli (8.29%), Chennai (8.17%) and Vijaywada (8.16%).

Aggregate GDP of Asian cities will be higher than that of North American and European metropolises combined by 2027.            

By 2035, the GDP will be 17% higher, and Chinese cities will be the highest contributors. In terms of size, New York, Tokyo, Los Angeles and London will remain on top, however, while Shanghai and Beijing will move past Paris and Chicago.