Mukesh Ambani sold dreams to tech giants for $27 bn. Now he has to deliver

 

Mukesh Ambani spent a lot of 2020 persuading Facebook Inc., Google and a grip of Wall Street heavyweights to become tied up with his vision for one of the world's most yearning corporate changes.

Presently flush with $27 billion in new capital, Asia's most extravagant man is feeling the squeeze to convey.

The 63-year-old Indian big shot is centered around a small bunch of needs as he attempts to turn Reliance Industries Ltd. from an old-economy aggregate into an innovation and online business titan, as per ongoing public explanations and individuals acquainted with the organization's arrangements.

These incorporate creating items for the foreseen turn out one year from now of a nearby 5G organization; consolidating Facebook's WhatsApp installments administration into Reliance's computerized stage; and coordinating the organization's web based business contributions with an organization of actual mother and-pop shops the nation over. Ambani is likewise pushing forward with plans to sell a stake in Reliance's oil and petrochemical units, an arrangement he had initially trusted would pay off past commitments and account his cutting edge turn recently.

Speculators are keeping a close eye on Ambani as he redesigns his realm - with a market estimation of $179 billion - in a pandemic, swimming into profoundly serious ventures and taking on opponents from Amazon.com Inc. to Walmart Inc. Dependence shares rose as much as 55% this year to a record-breaking high in September, however they've since pared gains as partners search for more proof that Ambani can execute.

Nandan Nilekani, prime supporter and director of Infosys Ltd., models for a photo in Bengaluru, India, on Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2019. Infosys, the Indian programming producer that is fighting informant claims about its accounts, looked to guarantee speculators on Nov. 6 that the allegations have had little effect on the organization's capacity to win contracts.

"The jury is out," said Nandan Nilekani, who helped to establish Infosys Ltd. in 1981 and now fills in as administrator of the Bangalore-based programming administrations supplier esteemed at about $72 billion. "There's a great deal of work to be finished."

Venture capital firm Jungle Ventures raises $240 million for third fund

Technology
Jungle Ventures, one of Southeast Asia’s largest early-stage venture capital firms, closed its third fund, Jungle Ventures III by raising a total of $240 million. It includes $40 million raised in separately managed account commitments, for investments in innovative technology and digital-driven consumer businesses across Southeast Asia.
Investors range from endowments, funds of funds, and development financial institutions to strategic family offices and leading technology players. These include DEG, Germany’s development finance institution, IFC, a member of the World Bank Group and Bualuang Ventures, a corporate venture capital fund of Bangkok Bank. Dutch development bank FMO, Cisco Investments and Singapore’s Temasek are other investors in the fund.
“We continue to be focused on Southeast Asia and India. We take concentrated bets and are carefully looking for market-leading companies in India which have an opportunity to scale their business into Southeast Asia and globally,” said Jungle Ventures co-founder and managing partner Anurag Srivastava. “Seven of our early-stage investments from our second fund, Jungle Ventures II, have grown to over $2 billion in portfolio valuation, up more than 10-fold over the last 4 years. This is noteworthy because we make only 10 to 15 key investments in each fund and no single company is responsible for delivering a disproportionate share of this growth,” added Srivastava.

Jungle mainly invests in three verticals which include consumer brands for the digitally native, digital platforms for transforming small and medium enterprises and global technology companies born in Asia. Some of Jungle's notable investments in India include Livspace, Moglix, PaySense, Engineer.Ai, Tookitaki and Klinify.Jungle raised more than double the amount of its previous fund, Jungle Ventures II (2016), with nearly 60 per cent of committed capital coming from outside Asia...READ MORE

Budget 2019 to boost investments without any comprise in fiscal goals: FM

International News

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman Friday said the big picture presented in the Budget is backed with a plan to increase investment without compromising on the fiscal consolidation roadmap.
Replying after a general discussion on the Union Budget 2019-20 in the Rajya Sabha, the minister said, "Comprehensive steps" have been envisaged for the next 10 years.
Sitharaman said the mid-term target of the government is to make India a $5 trillion economy.
The target of putting India in the $5 trillion club is not "without a plan", she said and listed out measures proposed in the Budget.
To boost investment, she said FDI norms would be further liberalised, extension of lower corporate tax to companies with Rs 400 crore turnover, incentives for boosting use of electric vehicles in the country.
She further said the government has expressed intention to invest Rs 100 trillion in the infrastructure sector over the next five years.
Also, the Budget reflects firm commitment to boost investment in the country.
In the Budget presented by Sitharaman in the Lok Sabha on July 5, the government said it aims to mop up Rs 16.49 trillion in net taxes during 2019-20, up 11.13 per cent over previous year.

 She maintained that every projection of revenue and expense in Budget 2019-20 is realistic and has been adequately provided for.

China purchases could undercut Donald Trump's larger trade goal

International News

At the heart of President Trump’s negotiations with China is a troubling contradiction: The United States wants to use the trade talks to encourage the country to adopt a more market-oriented economy. But a key element of a prospective deal may end up reinforcing the economic power of the Chinese state.

Negotiators are still working out deal terms, but any agreement seems certain to involve China’s promise to purchase hundreds of billions of dollars of American goods. For Mr. Trump, this is an essential element that will help reduce the United States’ record trade deficit with China and bolster farmers and other constituencies hurt by his trade war.

But those purchases will be ordered by the Chinese state, and most will be carried out by state-controlled Chinese businesses, further cementing Beijing’s role in managing its economy and potentially making United States industries even more beholden to the Chinese.

“It seems like those types of really simplistic purchasing commitment type of arrangements would actually reinforce state ownership rather than discourage it,” said Rufus Yerxa, the head of the National Foreign Trade Council, which represents the United States’ largest exporters.

After months of talks, the two sides are inching closer to an agreement. Robert Lighthizer, Mr. Trump’s top trade negotiator, and Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, discussed the remaining sticking points with their Chinese counterparts on Thursday evening and Friday in Beijing. Mr. Mnuchin, in a tweet on Friday, said the talks had been “constructive.”


 Both sides are trying to iron out an agreement by this week, to coincide with a visit to Washington by Liu He, the Chinese special envoy charged with negotiating the deal...Read More

Mark Zuckerberg's call to regulate Facebook, explained

International News

Facebook has faced months of scrutiny for a litany of ills, from spreading misinformation to not properly protecting its users’ data to allowing foreign meddling in elections.
Many at the Silicon Valley company now expect lawmakers and regulators to act to contain it — so the social network is trying to set its own terms for what any regulations should look like.
That helps explain why Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, wrote an opinion piece for The Washington Post on Saturday laying out a case for how he believes his company should be treated.

In his post, Mr. Zuckerberg discussed four policy areas — harmful content, election integrity, privacy and data portability — which he said the government should focus attention on.
Here’s an annotated analysis of Mr. Zuckerberg’s post and what he is seeking to do with each area.

Harmful content

First, harmful content. Facebook gives everyone a way to use their voice, and that creates real benefits — from sharing experiences to growing movements. As part of this, we have a responsibility to keep people safe on our services. That means deciding what counts as terrorist propaganda, hate speech and more. We continually review our policies with experts, but at our scale we'll always make mistakes and decisions that people disagree with.


 So-called harmful content across Facebook is an enormous category, spanning abuse and bullying to the recent live-streamed shootings at two mosques in New Zealand...Read More