The government is looking to streamline the GeM portal to make it easier for small and medium companies to list on. Quess Corp acquired a majority stake in Vedang Cellular Services and formed a JV with Trimax IT Infrastructure. 1,200 employees of RCom will likely be left without jobs when the company shuts down its wireless business next month. A $5 billion deal was made for a consortium led by GIP to buy Equis Energy, a renewable energy company with over 11,000 MW of capacity across 7 countries including 544 MW in India. The Aditya Birla Group hired Deep Thomas, a former Tata executive, as its chief data and analytics officer.

1. Weekly News
23/10/2017 – 28/10/2017

2. Government takes stock of GeM to
polish the rough edges
The government e-marketplace (GeM) portal, the year-old
initiative to take the purchase process online, needs to be
further streamlined. The main issue is that the government may
be trying to apply procurement rules for hardware to software
services.
Small and medium companies are finding it tough to list on the
portal due to lack of experience. The current structure also
requires companies to rely on rate contracts that may be a few
years old and seeks further discounts on those prices.

3. Quess Corp buys Vedang Cellular
Business services provider Quess Corp on Wednesday
announced the acquisition of a majority stake in Mumbai-based
Vedang Cellular Services and a joint venture with another
Mumbai-based firm, Trimax IT Infrastructure and Services, to
implement a smart city project in Ahmedabad to create city-
wide IT Infrastructure.

4. Going may get tough for 1,200 RCom
employees in job market
With Reliance Communications set to shut the bulk of its
wireless business in a little over a month from now, some 1,200
employees will likely be left stranded without jobs.
The company informed its workforce on Tuesday that November
30 will be their last date of employment, putting them in a spot
because there aren’t too many alternatives available in the job
market.

5. GIP-led consortium buys Equis Energy
for $5 billion
A consortium led by US fund Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP)
has agreed to buy Singapore-headquartered renewable energy
company Equis Energy for a record $5 billion including debt.
Equis Energy has 11,135 mw of green energy capacity—
including commissioned, under construction and under-
development projects—across seven countries. The company
has commissioned solar and wind projects of about 1,100 mw in
the Asia Pacific region, of which 544 mw are in India.

6. Aditya Birla Group hires former Tata
exec as chief data officer
Aditya Birla Group has hired Deep Thomas, a former Tata Group executive, as
its chief data and analytics officer to create a group-wide customer database
that would underpin the diversified conglomerate’s products and sales
strategy.
Thomas is the second top-deck hire at the Aditya Birla Group in the past one
month. PepsiCo India’s chairman D Shivakumar will soon join the Group as
head of strategy and business development to replace Saurabh Agrawal, who
left the group to join the Tatas as chief financial officer earlier this year.

7. PE funds, domestic pharma
companies eye Orchid Pharma under
IBC
Two months after a National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT)
issued an order initiating corporate insolvency proceedings
against debt-ridden Orchid Pharma, numerous potential suitors,
including top private equity players and domestic peers are
eyeing the Chennai based company as part of a resolution plan
under the provisions of the insolvency and bankruptcy code.

8. HDFC Bank gets green nod for Rs 194-
cr Mohali project
Private sector lender HDFC BankBSE -0.52 % has been given
green signal for setting up of a call centre cum residential
training centre in Mohali district, Punjab at a cost of Rs 194
crore

9. Digital innovation in recruitments to
be new normal: Report
Organisations worldwide are increasingly going in for recruiting
automation and adoption of chatbots, and live digital interviews
will gain further momentum in next few years,
According to a global survey by KellyOCG, about 55 per cent of
respondents comprising 522 companies across the globe
(including India), believe that digital innovation for recruitments
is going to be the new normal.
"While employers are grappling with talent shortage, there are
more passive job seekers than ever before. This situation is
driving organisations to adopt digital processes,"

10. India poised for 8% GDP growth: ET
Awards Panel
Indian economy is on the threshold of expanding at 8% per
annum at the least for many years as it enters the promising
phase of recovering from the teething troubles of the new tax
regime and demonetisation at a time when macroeconomic
indicators are among the best in the world
The country will see a spurt in domestic and foreign investment
along with creation of millions of jobs if the government makes
it easier for entrepreneurs to do business and bankers get well-
structured, sound projects to appraise.

11. ITC’s YC Deveshwar gets Lifetime
Achievement award at ET Awards for
Corporate Excellence
ITC’s YC Deveshwar won Lifetime Achievement award for
corporate excellence for his contribution spanning nearly five
decades, building a business empire with life and passion.
Between 1996, the year when Yogesh Chander Deveshwar
became chairman of ITC, and March 2017, ITC’s annual sales
have expanded over 11-fold to Rs 55,002 crore (revenue Rs
38,979 crore), while shareholder returns grew at a compound
annual rate of 23.6%.

12. Govt looks to expand scope of
consolidation in PSUs
For years, public sector companies would just sit on cash
without any solid investment plans. That has changed over the
last couple of years when they are being prodded to invest or
transfer the surplus. And, now financial planning is moving to
the next stage where consolidation is being recommended for
state-run companies across sectors.
While the process has already started for oil, construction and
consulting companies, power, defence and other sectors could
be the next focus areas as the department of investment and
public asset management (DIPAM) goes about making central
government-owned firms more financially nimble.

13. The rationale is simple: There are multiple entities in the PSU
space and economies of scale are not playing out in the market.
So, instead of having 18 consulting firms ranging from Engineers
India to Projects & Development India (PDIL) to Telecom
Consultants India (TCIL), the idea is to create an agency that can
provide advisory services like the Big Four consulting firms. “The
focus is departmental, not commercial,” .

14. Nasscom Product Council opens a
DeepTech Club
Nasscom Product Council (NPC), the IT lobby’s platform for
software product companies to showcase products and connect
with peers, will focus on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine
learning (ML) in the upcoming conclave to be held in Bengaluru.
It also launched a DeepTech Club to nurture startups with
mentors and investors.

15. Big jump likely in ranking for India in
ease of doing business
India expects a big jump in the World Bank’s ease of doing
business ranking that will be released soon. Ranked at 130 in
the last reckoning, the government has set itself a target of
breaking into the top 50.
“The successful implementation of the insolvency code and the
goods and services tax (GST) has given a big boost to India’s
business environment,”.

16. MCA calls meeting to examine ‘Grey
Areas’ in Companies Act
After several directors went to courts against their debarment by the
government, the ministry of corporate affairs has called an urgent meeting to
discuss if there are “grey areas” in the Companies Act that need to be
addressed.
The ministry in September cancelled registration of over 200,000 defaulting
companies and, by extension, it had also debarred over 300,000 directors of
companies. The amended Companies Act that came into effect in 2014 has
provision for deregistering companies that fail to file returns.
Moreover, Section 164 of the Act provides that any person who is or has
been a director in a company which has not filed financial statements or
annual returns for any continuous period of three financial years shall not be
eligible for reappointment as a director in that company or appointed in
other company for a period of five years from the date on which the said
company fails to do so.