Category: Excerpts

The impairments and write downs at Tata Sons were due to legacy issues, largely relating to TTSL.

There were also other investments of questionable nature such as Nagarjuna refineries (Rs. 400 Cr.) and SASOL JV.

One investment in Piaggio Aero, a company in the aerospace sector with a friend of Mr. Tata, was especially distressing. Tata Sons decided to exit the company at a commercial loss of Rs 1,150 Cr. This was after the efforts of Mr. Bharat Vasani and Mr. Farokh Subedar who managed to recover Rs. 1,500 Cr., overcoming the objections of Mr. Ratan Tata who in contrast favoured increasing investments in that company.

Today, the company is, for all practical purposes, nearly bankrupt. 

–from ET

In his Alternate Universe, Ratan Tata wants Regulators/Stock Exchanges should question/take clarifications from individuals and not listed companies:

Here, we are only referring to the shocking statement of Cyrus Mistry of five or six major Tata companies having to take ‘potential write-downs of $18 billion’ in future in their assets/investments and the following points/queries need to be raised –

a) Has Mr Mistry, the Chairman, informed the Boards of these companies at any time in the past specifically of the above mentioned potential write-downs? If so, when was this done and why was itnot made public as this is clearly a major item of information – apart from disclosing only the write-offs required to be  made to date. Surely he could not have ‘discovered’ such a large potential liability only a day  or two after he was replaced as the  Chairman of Tata Sons. Therefore, he must have been aware of this potential large provision much earlier but did not disclose it. It presumably relates to possible future provisions to be made (with no firm basis) but only his own expectation, i.e. a forward-looking statement which is normally not permissible due to its uncertainty. It also suggests that  he had no intention of or given up any attempt to revive the value of these companies. It is unfortunate that  the  BSE/NSE have  asked the   companies to explain this statement and not Mr Mistry as the author of this statement.

b) On the same point, it has been widely reported that  this statement of potential write-downs of this magnitude has been largely responsible for the loss in the total market value of these five or six companies of an amount of over Rs 25,000 crore and all the shareholders would naturally be unhappy at this loss in their own value for no fault of theirs but mainly due to this shocking and sudden statement on the part of the Chairman of these companies which may or may not have been shared with the Board and certainly not publicly disclosed earlier. Here again, it is unfortunate that the shareholders and regulatory authorities would put the onus on the companies and not  Mr Mistry as the author of the statement for being responsible for this large loss in market value.

-from Full Statement of Tata Sons

Source: Bloomberg

Shares of software and heavy equipment provider Wisesoft Co. Ltd. moved more than 6 percent higher on Wednesday morning. The local name of the company sounds like “Trump Wins Big” to Chinese speakers. It’s fitting that as a man who accumulated wealth through licensing deals en route to the presidency is now helping others profit off the association with his own.

Meanwhile, at Yunnan Xiyi Industrial Co. Ltd., an auto-parts manufacturer whose name sounds like “Aunt Hillary,” shares tumbled by 10 percent.

The Reserve Bank of India has dismissed as “figments of imagination” rumours that a new series of Rs 2,000 will come with a GPS-chip that will help government track illegal money transactions.

“Such a technology does not exist at the moment in the world, then how can we introduce such a feature?” RBI spokesperson Aplana Killawala told News18.

Reports of a chip-enabled series of new currency notes had surfaced immediately after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on Tuesday that the government was scrapping the existing denominations of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes.-from News18

Paytm Payments Bank is going to have a million points from where cash can be withdrawn. The entire banking system—all the bank branches and ATMs cumulatively—currently offers only a third of that. Sharma’s bank will basically turn any merchant and corner store into a cash withdrawal point called ‘Paytm ka ATM’.

How does the authentication work?

It will be a combination of several things. It will utilize the Aadhaar backbone, which means the devices with merchants could be equipped with fingerprint or iris scanners, or both.

Paytm Payments Bank is going to authenticate transactions using voice as a unique biometric signature. In effect, this means you can walk into any establishment that is a ‘Paytm ka ATM’ and ask for money. And when it asks for authentication, the customer will get a call on their phone, and they just have to say a pre-set pass phrase, like “My name is Meena.”

“Your voice is as unique a signature as iris or fingerprints,” says Sharma, adding that the technology works even if you have a cough or cold. It works in any language.

A bank where authentication is as easy as speaking to a teller, with one million touch points. What it can do to universalize banking and expand the reach of the formal economy is tremendous.-from HP