Cafe Coffee Day founder VG Siddhartha missing in Mangaluru: Report

International News

Cafe Coffee Day (CCD) founder and former Karnataka Chief Minister, SM Krishna's son-in-law, V G Siddhartha, is suspected to have jumped off a bridge in Mangaluru on Monday night, the Times of India reported on Tuesday.
According to the report, the news emerged after the Mangaluru City Police started a search for a person who had jumped off the kilometre-long Ullal bridge on Monday night.
The report said that one of the police officers confirmed that a person was suspected to have jumped off the Ullal bridge, which is built across the River Nethravathi, at 9pm. A search operation is now underway while his mobile phone is reported to be switched off.
According to the report, based on the statement of a person, reportedly a car driver, the person in question is suspected to be Siddhartha.
Siddhartha had been in the news earlier this year when news agency PTI had reported that IT company Mindtree found certain irregularities in disclosures made by him.
Siddhartha had sold his stake in Mindtree to L&T, and it had taken action against him according to the law.

 "On the pledge disclosure issue, there was a disclosure that he made at certain point of time of all the pledge. At that point of time, there were some irregularities in his disclosures. Our board and audit committee evaluated it and handled it as per the rule that were prevailing at that point of time," Mindtree CEO Rostow Ravanan had said back then.In this regard, the report said, while citing sources, a complaint against Siddhartha alleging insider trading during his stint at Mindtree was also filed with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) by an anonymous person....Read More

Coca-Cola in talks to pick stake in Cafe Coffee Day after pocketing Costa

Company News

The world's largest beverage company, Coca-Cola, has begun preliminary talks for a substantial stake buy in Cafe Coffee Day 10 months after it acquired UK-based Costa Coffee for $5.1 billion. The discussion with the Bengaluru-based company, promoted by VG Siddhartha, who exited information technology firm Mindtree earlier this year, is being led by the Atlanta office of the beverage major, persons in the know said.
T Krishnakumar, president and chief executive officer, Coca-Cola India and South West Asia, is currently in Atlanta and is involved in the negotiation, it is learnt. A Coca-Cola India spokesperson said the news about a possible acquisition was speculative in nature and that the company had no comment to offer at this stage. Cafe Coffee Day too declined to comment.
Coca-Cola has been looking to make inroads into the Rs 2,500-crore domestic coffee retail market in line with its global strategy of diversifying into non-carbonated drinks. While the Costa Coffee acquisition last year was intended to help the company do just that, an impediment has been the franchise agreement that Costa’s previous owner Whitbread had with billionaire-bottler Ravi Jaipuria in India.
Coca-Cola in talks to pick stake in Cafe Coffee Day after pocketing Costa
Jaipuria’s Devyani International continues to run around 50 stores of Costa Coffee in the country, unable to work out a deal with Coca-Cola for his exit out of the franchise agreement. Jaipuria was not immediately available for comments on the matter.

 For Cafe Coffee Day, an acquisition by Coca-Cola will mean much-needed funds to reduce the debt on the books of parent Coffee Day Enterprises. Cafe Coffee Day is owned by Coffee Day Global, a subsidiary of Coffee Day Enterprises.As on March 31, 2019, Coffee Day Enterprises' total debt stood at Rs 6,547 crore, two-and-a-half times its networth of Rs 2,529 crore. Its market capitalisation after Wednesday’s closing price stood at Rs 4,732 crore.

Tata Starbucks plans to improve sales, cut losses: CEO Navin Gurnaney

Companies News:

Joint venture company Tata Starbucks, which runs the Seattle-based cafe chain in India, is looking to cut losses and improve sales even as it expands its footprint in the country. Speaking to Business Standard in his first interaction since taking over as company chief executive officer (CEO) in January, Navin Gurnaney said the focus for the firm was on “unit economics” as it sought to widen operating profit. “It is all about thoughtful aggression,” Gurnaney said. “Our endeavour is to select our locations carefully where we can derive maximum mileage and sales throughput. Starbucks is positioned as the third place globally and that thinking guides us locally too,” he said.

In 2017-18 financial year (FY18), Tata Starbucks had reported its first operating profit at Rs 1.26 crore on a total revenue of Rs 345 crore. But at the bottom line level, the company remained in the red, reporting a net loss of Rs 30.5 crore (in FY18). While lower than the previous year (net loss of Rs 32.3 crore in FY17), analysts expect Tata Starbucks to break-even in the next few years as competitive intensity from the likes of Cafe Coffee Day, McCafe (from McDonald’s) and Barista apart from fast-food joints such as Domino’s, KFC and Pizza Hut (all of whom serve beverages) remains high.

Cafe Coffee Day, for the uninitiated, has over 1,700 stores, while McCafe has over 180 stores and Barista has over 200 outlets in India. In August last year, Coca-Cola globally acquired Costa Coffee in a $5.1-billion transaction, with plans to rejuvenate the brand here.


 Gurnaney said the JV company would close FY19 with a total store count of 144 in eight cities, adding nearly 30 stores in the current financial year. “We have steadily increased the number of stores we add per year. In 2017-18, we added 25 stores. The year before that (2016-17), we added 16 stores (per year) and before that (2015-16) we added 10 stores a year,” Gurnaney, who took over from Sumitro Ghosh, the erstwhile Tata Starbucks CEO, said. Ghosh returned to the US after a three-year stint with the JV company. He has picked up a role within the Starbucks organisation, Tata Starbucks said when announcing his exit in October.