| Trouble viewing this email? View in web browser |  | | Tuesday, 03 May 2022 | | | Company Outsider | | A weekly newsletter that keeps track of the business of companies | |  | | By Sundeep Khanna | | | | Question of the Week The coming auction of the media rights to the Indian Premier League is expected to fetch the BCCI upwards of Rs 50,000 crore over the next five years. In 2009, the IPL signed a nine-year broadcast deal with Sony. What was the amount then? | | |  | Here's a great value proposition A digital subscription to Mint plus WSJ can be yours at just ₹292 per month. Check out the convenient and affordable plans we have for you here. | | Good Morning Prefer audio? Now you can listen to your favourite newsletter. | | The News in Summary The world's largest cement maker, Holcim, put its twin listed entities in India, Ambuja Cement and ACC, on sale. Potential buyers include market leader UltraTech Cement, JSW and Adani groups. Meanwhile, Wipro chief executive Thierry Delaporte continued his aggressive inorganic growth strategy with a $540 million acquisition of SAP consulting firm Rizing Intermediate Holdings, while Reliance Industries was said to be considering a bid for UK's largest drugstore chain Boots even as it ceded 40% stake in its media company Viacom 18 to Bodhi Tree a venture of James Murdoch and Uday Shankar, former chairman and CEO of Star India. And the long-awaited Life Insurance Corp. of India IPO will finally hit the market this week, albeit at a much-reduced valuation. | | | | World's Largest Cement Maker Holcim to Exit India Swiss cement maker Holcim Group will soon take a decision on the potential buyer for its Indian cement businesses, Ambuja Cements, where it owns a 63.19% stake and ACC in which Ambuja Cements holds a 50.05% stake. Industry heavyweight UltraTech Cement, which dominates the market with a consolidated capacity of 119.95 million tonnes per annum (mtpa), along with others like Adani Group and JSW Group, are in the fray for the prized assets, which could be worth $10 billion. Holcim's decision to exit the country comes at a time when both Ambuja Cements and ACC have been losing market share due to capacity constraints, while bigger competitors like Ultratech and Shree Cement Ltd have been aggressively expanding their footprint across regions. It is also part of the MNC's global strategy to reduce its carbon footprint by 2025 by reducing its cement business to around 35% of revenue in 2025 from 55% in 2021. Holcim has already offloaded its stake in cement businesses in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Brazil. Its exit and the subsequent consolidation in the sector will give Indian companies, hit hard by rising coal and pet coke costs, better pricing power. | | |  | | | | Wipro Continues its Acquisition Spree Ever since the new combination of Rishad Premji as chairman and Thierry Delaporte as chief executive has taken charge at Wipro Ltd, the company has shrugged off its earlier lethargy to emerge as the pacesetter in terms of growth and aggressive strategic steps. Its decision to acquire global SAP consulting firm Rizing Intermediate Holdings, Inc. for $540 million in an effort to bolster its SAP cloud practice is just the latest in a series of such moves to grab a bigger share of IT spending in growth sectors like oil and gas, utilities, manufacturing, and consumer industries. US-based Rizing has more than 1300 employees in 16 countries across North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. It is currently owned by private equity firm One Equity Partners. The acquisition announcement came just days ahead of its fourth-quarter earnings announcement, with the IT major posting a 4% increase in net profit for the March quarter while revenue grew 29.4% annually. Margins, though, were down, reflecting the effects of rising costs. | | |  | | | | | | | | Ever since he took over at Wipro, the company's CEO Thierry Delaporte has been making big, bold bets. For an insight into his mind, here's a 2019 interview with him when he was still with Capgemini: | | | | Smaller, Slimmer LIC IPO to Hit Market After many twists and turns, the much-awaited IPO of insurance behemoth Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) is finally here, with the government deciding on selling a 3.5% stake in the corporation at a reduced valuation. The percentage sale is well below the 5% regulatory minimum stipulated by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) and also lower than the minimum of 5% stake sale it had initially planned. At the upper end of the price band of Rs 902- Rs 949 that it has set, the government expects to raise about Rs 21,000 crore in what would be India's largest such sale. The IPO will be open for subscription to the public from 4 May till 9 May, with allotment to anchor investors on 2 May. Ahead of the sale, though, a hole in its books still needs to be accounted for. The insurance major is sitting on a mark-to-market loss of Rs 6,028 crore in its income statement, its final IPO documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Board of India showed. | | |  | | | | Viacom 18 Adds Muscle Ahead of IPL Auction Months after James Murdoch, founder and chief executive officer of Lupa Systems and Uday Shankar, former chairman and CEO of Star India, formed a new venture, Bodhi Tree, the company announced a partnership with Reliance Industries Ltd and Viacom18 to bid for among other things, the lucrative broadcast rights for the Indian Premier League. Bodhi Tree, which is backed by a $1.5 billion commitment from the Qatar Investment Authority, will lead an investment of Rs 13,500 crore for a 40% stake in Viacom18, while Reliance Projects & Property Management Services Ltd, a unit of RIL, will bring in Rs 1,645 crore. In addition, the JioCinema OTT app will be transferred to Viacom18. Bids for IPL's highly-prized satellite television and digital streaming rights for the next five seasons will open on 12 June, with experts expecting a fierce fight between the likes of Sony, Disney Star and Viacom 18. In 2018, the last time these rights were auctioned for the IPL, Uday Shankar, then Star India chairman had successfully bagged the consolidated media rights for Rs 16,347 crore for five years. | | | | Reliance Considers a Bid for Boots  Reliance Industries Ltd and US buyout firm Apollo Global Management are planning a joint bid for the UK-based business of pharmacy chain Walgreens Boots Alliance. Walgreens, the second-largest US pharmacy chain, had put its Boots business up for sale following a decision in January to focus on primary healthcare in the domestic market. The sale is likely to value the UK's largest drugstore chain at between $6 billion and $7.5 billion, though initial suitors Bain Capital and CVC Capital Partners dropped out of the bidding process on financing concerns, leaving the owners of UK supermarket group Asda and private equity group TDR Capital in the fray. Reliance's interest in the company could be preliminary in nature, and there is no guarantee it will make a final bid. In September, the company was said to be evaluating a multi-billion dollar non-binding offer to acquire a controlling stake in T-Mobile Netherlands BV. Eventually, though, it stayed away from the bidding, and Deutsche Telekom and Tele2 sold T-Mobile Netherlands to a consortium of Apax and Warburg Pincus. | | | | Last Word  Is too much being read into billionaire Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter? Judging by the reactions on Twitter, it is either the deliverance day for free media or its very nadir. Most likely, Twitter will continue to muddle through, gaining popularity without figuring out ways to monetize it. Musk has pledged to adopt a more hands-off approach to speech on Twitter, opening up the possibility that former US president Donald Trump who was kicked off the platform for his role in the January 2021 incidents in the US capital, may be allowed to return. Musk subsequently suggested there would have to be limits to the freedom: "I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law". What's more, the maverick founder will also have to be careful about the likely impact his latest diversion might have on the rest of his business. His flagship company, Tesla, lost $126 billion in value days after the announcement on concerns over how Musk would fund his $21 billion equity contribution to the $44 billion deal. | | | | Answer to the Question In 2009, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) signed a nine-year deal with Sony Entertainment Television over the broadcast of the Indian Premier League till 2017 for Rs 8,200 crore. | | | Do you have any questions? Send in your queries to sundeepkkhanna@gmail.com Were you forwarded this email? Did you stumble upon it online? Sign up here. | Please share your feedback with us What do you think about this newsletter? | | Written by Sundeep Khanna. Edited by Saikat Chatterjee. Produced by Samiksha Khanna. 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