A Chinese Group Wants To Put $100 Mln Into Housing.Com: Your Top India Headlines

Hello folks! The posts last week were a bit erratic as I was travelling. But I’m back now, so let’s get to the main headlines of the day without further delay.

A Chinese conglomerate wants to invest $100 mln in Housing.com. Fosun International, the investment arm of China’s Fosun Group, met with Rahul Yadav, CEO of Housing.com for the investment. Housing is in talks with developers to sell predesigned homes through its website, and is looking to raise money to fund this plan. Fosun, which has interests in pharma and mining among others, was reported to be considering acquiring real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield in March. (It was acquired by DTZ a few weeks ago). After e-commerce and radio taxis, the action is shifting to real estate, although there are quite a few challenges ahead.

The numbers are getting bleaker for Indian outsourcing companies. The latest was a report by Everest group, a consulting firm, that shows that order values and duration are getting smaller – not a single IT outsourcing order worth $1 billion has been awarded this year. In 2013, there were five such orders. Of course, Indian outsourcers have read the writing on the wall and are pushing towards more innovation and developing expertise in new technologies such as cloud and mobile.

 To know more about the challenges facing IT services companies, read two excellent posts by LinkedIn Influencer Ravi Venkatesan here and here.

 IT outsourcers have a new challenge on their hands. The US visa department is investigating Indian IT companies for possible violation of H1B visa rules. US media reports that two companies – TCS and Infosys -- were under scrutiny for violating rules under contracts with South California Edison may have been the trigger for this investigation. While early reports suggested that only Infosys and TCS were under the scanner, the probe has now widened to include more such deals, and Cognizant’s agreement with Walt Disney Co may be one of them. This is a worrisome development that has even the Nasscom concerned.

Closer home, the news on rains may not be as bad as feared. After alarming predictions of 90 percent rains this year, on the back of a drought last year, the first few days of rainfall show that it is actually been 11 percent higher than normal. While it is still early days – barely two weeks into a four month season -- the positive beginning has eased worries of inflation and farmer distress. Interesting to note, Skymet, a small private weather forecaster had challenged the met department’s forecast, and it appears they may be right after all.

There’s some more good news on the economy front. Tax collections for the first two months have been higher than expected and the government feels confident enough to front-load its spending – spending most of its planned amount in the beginning of the year. That’s good news for the markets, especially with three rate cuts and a likely good monsoon to add icing to the cake.

If you live in India, you will know who Baba Ramdev is. If you don’t, you should still read about this yoga guru who built a consumer products empire and wants to take on the multinationals.

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