- Sunday, May 19, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
HERE are news in brief on Indian economy and business for Tuesday, May 7, 2024:
Bollywood actor Suniel Shetty and the Indian IT ministry-backed startup Regrip on Tuesday said it has raised $2 million, about Rs 16.7 crore (£1.5 million), in a funding round co-led by Qatar-based venture capital Sirious One, Inflection Point Ventures, and Let’s Venture. With this funding round, Regrip has given exit to seed investor IIMA Ventures. “Regrip backed by Suniel Shetty, Govt of Rajasthan and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology(MeitY) secures USD 2 million funding to revolutionize tyre recycling landscape in India,” the firm said in a statement. Founded by Tushar Suhalka, Regrip is building a network of discarded tyre collection centres.
India’s small malls are becoming ghost malls as consumers shift towards online purchases and bigger shopping centres for a better experience, a consultancy report on Tuesday said, Reuters reported. Mall properties with a vacancy rate of more than 40 per cent have been termed ghost malls. While there was a 238 per cent year-on-year increase in the Gross Leasable Area (GLA) of all shopping centres in prime Indian markets last year, the number of ghost malls rose to 64 from 57 in 2022, real-estate consultancy Knight Frank India revealed. According to industry analysts, this reflected weak consumer demand and could result in job losses and economic dislocation, especially for small retailers and service providers.
The Indian government has called a meeting of e-commerce players and organisations engaged in publishing online reviews for consultation on quality control order in the works to check fake reviews, according to a notice issued by the Consumer Affairs Ministry. The consumer affairs ministry has also floated a draft of the Online Consumer Reviews (Quality Control) Order, 2024 (QCO) which proposes to accept reviews from verified purchasers and users of the product. “An organisation is required to register with BIS and declare compliance to essential requirements. In this regard, a stakeholder consultation, chaired by secretary (CA), to discuss the draft QCO has been scheduled on May 15, 2024,” the notice said.
Travel distribution firm TBO Tek on Tuesday said it has collected a little over Rs 696 crore (£67 million) from anchor investors ahead of its initial public offering (IPO). The company has allotted 7.5 million equity shares to 47 funds at Rs 920 (£8.8) apiece, aggregating the transaction size to Rs 696.5 crore, according to a circular uploaded on BSE’s website. Key investors include Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Government Pension Fund Global (Norges), ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund, Kotak Mahindra Mutual Fund, Neuberger Berman, Nomura, SBI Mutual Fund, Blackrock Global Fund, Eastspring Investments, Fidelity Funds and Goldman Sachs.
Sales of India’s fast-moving consumer goods (FMCGs) went up in January-March, with rural growth outpacing that in urban areas for the first time in five quarters, NielsenIQ, a leading market researcher, said on Tuesday. Consumer goods-makers in the world’s fifth-largest economy have been facing sluggish demand, particularly in the hinterlands, as higher prices of essentials, including milk and tomatoes, have forced people to reduce spending on non-essentials. Sales volumes for FMCGs rose 6.5 per cent in the March quarter from a year earlier, NielsenIQ added, quickening from a six per cent growth in the previous quarter. Sales in rural India rose 7.6 per cent, fuelled by the personal and home care categories, against a 5.8 per cent growth in the previous quarter. Urban sales growth slowed to 5.7 per cent from 6.9 per cent in the previous quarter, as consumer goods makers faced growing competition.
(With agencies)
