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Hitachi Solutions plans to expand India operations

"We see India as a central point for our support system in the global network," said Mike Gillis, President and Global Chief Executive Officer of the Hitachi Solutions America Ltd.


The Chennai expansion will be inaugurated on May 21 and another centre will be added at Hyderabad from July.

Read more at:
Hitachi Solutions plans to expand India operations - The Economic Times
 
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Amazon to open office in Bengaluru - Moneycontrol.com

Continuing with its expansion in India, Amazon has sealed their second largest deal for a mega office space in the last 48 months. After Flipkart, Amazon India has signed a lease for a new campus of over 1.2 million square feet in Bengaluru with IT park developer Bagmane at Outer Ring Road. The deal will be done in expanded phases, said Amazon.

The company will be paying an annual rent of Rs 28 crore for the first phase of 4.5 lakh square feet. Amazon is on an expansion mode and is all set to add over 12,000 new jobs in the next 48 months. They had recently launched its largest fulfillment centre in Telangana
 
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Flipkart, India’s emerging e-tailing giant, is valued by private equity investors at around $11 billion. In its next round of funding, it could get a valuation of $15 billion (that’s more than Rs 95,000 crore at current exchange rates).


Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu. PTI

Snapdeal, another e-tailer, is currently valued at around $4-5 billion. Like Flipkart, it has only made huge losses all its short life, but that has not deterred investors from putting millions of dollars in its kitty for funding growth.

Makemytrip, an e-tailer focusing on the travel segment by allowing users to book airline tickets, hotel rooms and cars online after comparing prices, is valued at around $800 million currently. It is struggling to break even in a crowded market for such services.

Now, what if I were to tell you that there is a future Flipkart-cum-McDonald’s-cum-Makemytrip-cum-brand merchandiser in the government’s kitty and – more importantly – makes money on most things it does, how should it be valued?

When last heard of, the boringly named Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) was given a valuation of Rs 6,000-14,000 crore. Thanks to its public sector status, it is punching far below its weight and worth.

It should be valued around $5 billion now, and, with technology and other investments, could easily be worth $10 billion in five years.

IRCTC is the undiscovered, uncut diamond in the government's haystack. If its profile is raised and it is allowed to raise money to invest in technology and traffic growth, it could even be worth more than Flipkart at some point.

IRCTC is the Indian Railways’ online ticketing agent, and makes Rs 10-20 on every ticket sold from its website. In 2013-14, it sold more than Rs 15,000 crore worth of tickets, earned revenues of Rs 955 crore, and net profits of Rs 72 crore.

That profit figure may sound tiny, but the real jewel in the IRCTC diamond mine is not the cool profits on e-tickets, but the hot customer data it owns and which can be mined to sell even more products and services. BusinessLine quotes IRCTC Managing Director AK Manocha on these stats: “We have 3.1 crore customer data, get over two million hits a day, and book 5.5-6 lakh tickets a day.”

IRCTC knows which of its customers live, and their annual spends on railway or airline tickets. It can leverage this information for growth in multiple directions.

The valuation of Flipkart, Snapdeal or Makebytrip is derived not so much from their sales margins or profits, but from the knowledge they have of their customers and their purchase habits. By this yardstick, IRCTC is India’s real e-commerce giant and future Flipkart.

Consider IRCTC’s many pluses.

First, it is a monopoly. There is no competitor in two core areas of operations –- railway catering services and e-ticketing.

Second, even in online ticketing, half its market is waiting to be tapped. Currently just over 50 percent of railway users buy tickets from IRCTC. This means railway ticketing sales could potentially double. And as the railway network grows, more passengers means more organic growth possibilities.

Third, IRCTC can use some of the vast railway station real estate to not only set up food and other retail operations, but also to vend its own labels. It already has its own mineral water bottling facilities (brand: Rail Neer), and from here to creating packaged food brands is just a step away. At the very least, it can create own labels and franchise them for a fee to scores of small manufacturers across India. Rail travelers are big consumers for your market is captive for several hours during long-distance train journey
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Fourth, IRCTC can potentially diversify into all forms of ticketing. It is already selling airline tickets, but there is almost no marketing here. Moreover, there is no reason why it can’t sell movie or concert tickets online. A few sensible acquisitions can boost its turnover multi-fold.

Fifth, since it already has a database of more than three crore users, it can cross-sell small everyday products to anyone in any place in India. Remember, it already knows where they live. All it needs is a logistics tieup – it is already owned by India’s biggest logistic company, the Indian Railways – for local deliveries, and it could become a poor-man’s Flipkart. If the Flipkarts can use IRCTC to sell, isn't it time IRCTC itself used its database to discover new profits?

Sixth, with the right acquisitions, and strong investments in technology, it can become the Godzilla of Indian e-tailing and e-commerce.

Seventh, an obvious area for diversification is finance - payment banking and e-wallets. One wonders why IRCTC has not applied for a payment bank licence. Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu should do this pronto. If an e-wallet company like PayTM can be valued at $1.5 billion, an IRCTC payment bank can be worth more.

When last attempted, IRCTC was given a potential valuation of Rs 6,000-14,000 crore – that is, $1-2 billion.

This is nonsense. With the right investments it can be worth at least $5 billion in the next one year, and much more than that over three to five years.

Suresh Prabhu is sitting on huge potential wealth here. If he invests in it, IRCTC can be a potential source of not only future revenues, but huge disinvestment cash in future. IRCTC can provide the fuel for further investment in Indian Railways.

Of course, he has to make a deal with Arun Jaitley to ensure that any IRCTC disinvestment money comes into his pocket and not Jaitley’s.

Suresh Prabhu has a goldmine in his kitty that could be worth more than Flipkart
 
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India eyes $1.1 billion solar loan from German bank KFW
New Delhi: German development bank KFW could lend India $1.1 billion for rooftop solar projects, on top of another loan it has extended to help the Asian country fund its ambitious green energy plans, India’s top renewable energy bureaucrat told Reuters.

KFW has already offered India a loan of about €1.38 billion ($1.55 billion) to help build a “green corridor” of power lines through nine states, and Modi’s visit last month to Germany helped advance talks on the rooftop plans, said Upendra Tripathy, secretary in the ministry of new and renewable energy.
 
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Narendra Modi’s First Year by Numbers: What India’s Markets Show

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A year after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s landslide election victory, financial markets have given him a positive report card though enthusiasm is cooling.

Sovereign bonds delivered the best returns in Asia amid record inflows from global investors, while the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex index of shares rose more than an emerging-market gauge and the rupee weakened less than most peers. Even so, the currency’s first-year performance was the worst of any Prime Minister in two decades. With opposition parties hindering Modi’s economic push in recent months, investors are reassessing the outlook for Indian assets.

Modi, who campaigned on promises of reviving growth in Asia’s third-largest economy, improving public finances and curbing what was then the region’s fastest inflation, took oath on May 26, 2014 amid much fanfare. He remains popular with voters but businesses and investors appear less enchanted than they were a year ago, according to Rajeev Malik, a senior economist with CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets.


“He remains the person most capable of bringing about a transformational change in India,” Singapore-based Malik wrote in an e-mailed response to questions. “However, investors will have to be patient.”

Here is a look at how Indian assets and some key market metrics evolved in the past year:

1. Bonds

Sovereign bonds returned 14 percent in local-currency terms since May 26 last year, the most in Asia, Bloomberg indexes show. Modi joined the Reserve Bank of India’s efforts to tackle inflation by raising subsidized grain supplies and setting stockpile limits to prevent hoarding of onions and potatoes. He also reaped a windfall as Brent crude prices tumbled 41 percent since he took office, cutting costs for India, which imports about three quarters of its oil.

Slowing inflation aided debt gains and prompted the RBI to lower interest rates twice this year, further boosting the appeal of bonds. Overseas investors raised their holdings of the Indian government and corporate notes by $25.6 billion in the past 12 months, more than double the tally of any previous year. Net purchases in April were the lowest of any month under Modi and so far in May global funds have sold more local debt than they’ve bought.

“People are getting a little frustrated with the pace” of reforms, “which is unrealistic to begin with,” said Steve Drew, the London-based head of emerging-market credit at Henderson Global Investors, which manages about $133 billion globally. “We have to give him more time.”

2. Equities

The Sensex rallied 13 percent in the past year, compared with a 0.7 percent retreat for the MSCI Emerging Markets Index. The period has seen gains in 19 of the Indian gauge’s 30 constituent stocks.

Modi’s first-year performance scored an average 7.4 out of 10 in a Bloomberg TV India poll of equity brokers, who lauded his government for reviving investor sentiment, freeing up diesel prices to improve public finances, as well as taking steps to rein in price gains and curb the fiscal and current-account deficits. Slow progress on kickstarting infrastructure projects and the non-clearance of certain bills were seen as the major drawbacks, according to the poll.

Overseas investors boosted their holdings of Indian equities by $15.3 billion in the past year, though May is poised to record the first monthly outflows of 2015.

3. Rupee Loss

The rupee’s 7.9 percent retreat against the greenback in 12 months is its worst performance in the first year of any Prime Minister since 1997, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The partially-convertible currency ranks 8th among more than 20 emerging-market exchange rates for the period.

That said, the rupee has been weighed down by broad dollar strength in the past few months as the Federal Reserve prepares to raise interest rates, and as the RBI has been buying dollars to build up its foreign-exchange reserves. The currency had tumbled to a record low of 68.845 a dollar in August 2013 after the Fed’s signal to withdraw monetary stimulus saw an exodus of funds from developing markets.

“The RBI’s focus on accumulating reserves hasn’t allowed the rupee to appreciate against the dollar,” said Divya Devesh, Standard Chartered Plc’s Asia foreign-exchange strategist in Singapore. “However, the rupee’s real-effective exchange-rate versus currencies of 36 trading partners is still almost 5 percent higher compared to May 2014.”

4. Bond Risk

The cost of insuring India’s debt against default using credit-default swaps has fallen during Modi’s term. Contracts protecting the notes of State Bank of India, a proxy for the sovereign, against non-payment for five years have dropped 36 basis points to 152 basis points, according to data provider CMA. They slumped to a five-year low of 143 in March.

Moody’s Investors Service raised India’s rating outlook to positive from stable in April 2015, seeing off a pre-election risk that the nation’s assessment would be cut to junk. Faster growth, slowing inflation and a narrower budget deficit prompted Moody’s decision. Fitch Ratings also affirmed India’s BBB-rating with a stable outlook in the same month.

From Narendra Modi’s First Year by Numbers: What India’s Markets Show - Bloomberg Business
 
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