Brexit Blues Hit Tata Steel, Ratan Tata Is Top Angel Investor And Other India News

Sale or Not? We can’t say we didn’t see this coming. One of the first questions that came up in India after the Brexit upset last month was what would happen to Tata Steel’s UK sale? Turns out the company has indeed put the sale on hold while it tries to figure out (along with the rest of us), what the ramifications of the Brexit vote are. Tata Steel announced its plans to exit the UK steel business, which was hit badly by the steel slump globally, thanks to Chinese exports, which was dragging its global steel business down.
At stake in the UK are more than 13,000 jobs (plus another 9,000 related jobs), which will be in jeopardy, should Tata decide to shut down its UK business. Liberty Steel, which was hailed as a white knight by the UK government, will only bid for two of the units, and not the all-critical Port Talbot plant. Meanwhile, UK’s industry secretary will attend Tata Steel’s board meet today to ensure that it doesn’t decide to leave UK. Tata Steel’s investors are not amused by this twist - the stock lost 5 percent yesterday.

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Food: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in Africa and yesterday signed an agreement with Mozambique to import pulses from the African nation. This is good news for consumers, as Mozambique grows the two pulses most consumed by Indians, but questions about why India can’t increase local productions instead have, predictably, arisen.

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Who’s the King? Ratan Tata has emerged as the top angel investor in 2016 with no less than 14 deals to his name, according to this report by VCCircle. Last year, Tata invested in 18 companies, putting him on track to beat his previous record this year. Interestingly, Flipkart and Snapdeal founders, who were on the list last year, seems to have slipped off. Here’s last year’s list too.

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Bidding game: GE Capital, the partner of banking giant State Bank of India in its credit card venture, wants to exit. SBI is now looking for a new partner who can buy GE’s stake and it looks like some big names are interested. Warburg Pincus, General Atlantic, Credit Saison and the Carlyle group are some of the names on the grapevine. India’s third-biggest credit card company is bring valued at $750 million to $1 billion.

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Another Brexit fallout: The UK has also started bilateral trade talks with India, as it starts working on individual agreements after the Brexit vote. The US, Japan, China and South Korea are next on the list. Here are some details of the discussions

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End Note: Remember the $4 smartphone that kicked up a controversy? Well, its maker Ringing Bells launched the phone at an event yesterday and will now also sell LED TVs for 10,000 rupees, or $150.

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Cover Image: A glimpse of Eid celebrations in India.

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