Top 10 business headlines: Jet crisis, RCom tax waiver, policy rates & more

From Jet Airways emergency funding to RCom getting tax waiver from France after Rafale deal, Business Standard brings you top 10 stories that made news on Saturday

Jet Airways likely to get Rs 1000-crore emergency fund on Monday

The lenders’ consortium, led by State Bank of India, is actively considering a proposal to infuse Rs 1,000 crore into Jet Airways immediately to keep it afloat, despite a lack of consensus among banks on emergency funding. The money is expected to be disbursed after the Jet management submits an operational plan on how it intends to use the money till May 7.

Clearly trying to fast-track the resolution process after the intervention of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), lenders have asked the airline management to give a plan by Monday (April 15), outlining the operational requirements. Read more

RCom arm got huge tax waiver from France after Rafale deal: Report

The French authorities waived taxes amounting to over Rs 1,000 crore (Euro 143.7 million) for a French-registered company of the Anil Ambani group within six months of the announcement by India to buy 36 Rafale jets in 2015, French newspaper Le Monde said.

It claimed that “between February and October 2015, while the French were negotiating the Rafale contract with India, Anil Ambani got a tax waiver of Euro 143.7 million from the French state”. Read more 

Rate change in multiples of 25 bps not sacrosanct: RBI governor

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das has asked central banks across the world to think “out of the box” and suggested, for example, that changing policy rates by 25 basis points (bps) or multiples thereof is “not sacrosanct and just a convention”. He said monetary policy could be well served by calibrating the size of the policy rate to the dynamics of the situation, and the size of the change itself could convey the stance of policy. Read more 

Hotstar reaches 300 million monthly active users, four years after launch

Uday Shankar, president of The Walt Disney Company Asia-Pacific, and chairman of Star and Disney India, introduced Hotstar to Disney’s investors at the Investor Day conference held in Burbank recently.

Shankar revealed that the video streaming platform, which was launched four years ago, almost coinciding with the 2015 ICC World Cup, has reached peak engagement of 300 million monthly active users, according to latest data. Read more 

Telecom dept likely to strike down Railways' free spectrum demand

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is likely to strike down the Indian Railways’ demand for airwaves worth Rs 65,000 crore in the 700 megahertz (MHz) band. The DoT is against giving a premium spectrum to Railways for free as it would lose out on the revenue from the auction of those airwaves, said sources familiar with the development. Read more 

TPG Capital seeks smooth landing amid turbulence in Jet Airways

TPG Capital has been an aggressive player in the aviation sector, frequently partnering with airlines and bidding for opportunities. However, it has had a mixed record on its investments and operations in airlines globally.

Hence, though it does not come as a surprise that the US private equity (PE) fund has submitted an expression of interest (EoI) to buy Jet Airways, the question is whether it will make the cut or not.

Its tryst in the Indian aviation sector is not new. Read more 

Aggregate MSME lending grew at 19.3% in the past five years: CIBIL report

Aggregate micro small and medium enterprise (MSME) lending, for both entities and individuals, has grown at 19.3 per cent in the past five years, according to a report by Transunion CIBIL and Small Industries Development Bank of India (Sidbi). Read more

Delays in construction cast a shadow over Essel's STP project in Varanasi

The Essel group’s Clean Ganga project in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency Varanasi is caught in a logjam owing to delays in construction.

India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra) says there is uncertainty over timely completion of the project due to the upcoming monsoon season. Also, higher reliance on the sponsor to fund the shortfall is adding to the uncertainty, it added. Read more

Unsecured lending categories grew at 31.3% in 2018, says CIBIL report

Unsecured lending categories like credit card loans, personal loans and consumer durable loans grew at 31.3 per cent in the fourth quarter of calendar year 2018 (Q4CY18), while secured lending — loan against property, auto loans and home loans — experienced a moderation in growth in the same period, according to a TransUnion CIBIL report on credit trends. Read more

Goafest 2019: Viacom18 most creative company in surprise Abby results

For the first time in the history of the Creative Abby Awards, a company and not an agency was declared the most creative, as big networks kept off the Goafest this year.

Viacom18 won the title of ‘Creative Company of the Year’ on the back of its work for MTV, its youth and music channel, taking home a total of seven metals on Saturday. Metals is industry parlance for awards. Read more