Carnival Films, Cinepolis to buy SRS cinemas

Mexican Film exhibitor Cinepolis and Kochi based Carnival Films Pvt. Ltd are in separate talks to buy SRS Ltd to buy its Cinema exhibition business. This gives the signal of further consolidation in the movie exhibition industry. Process was initiated sometime back and the valuation discovery process is on now.

The transaction, if concluded, will add to a rush of acquisitions seen in the multiplex business. In 2014, four such deals valued at over Rs. 1,410cr have been closed. Both Cinepolis and Carnival have bought assets in India this year. A fortnight ago, Carnival Cinemas, backed by Kochi-based commodity trader Advantage Overseas Pvt Ltd, acquired Big Cinemas, the multiplex business of Anil Ambani Reliance MediaWorks Ltd for close to Rs. 700cr. In July, Carnival Cinemas acquired Housing Development and Infrastructure Ltd exhibition business, Broadway Cinemas, for an undisclosed amount.

Carnival now has 300 screens. In December, Cinepolis has acquired Zee group owned Fun Cinemas for Rs. 470cr. Cinepolis has seventeen properties spread across Bengaluru, Pune, Mumbai, Jaipur, Bhopal, Surat, Mangalore, Hubli, Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Hyderabad, Ludhiana, Patna, Vadodara, Vijaywada, and Pune. The deal with SRS cinemas will help both contenders increase their presence in smaller cities in Northern India.

SRS has 17 properties with 48 screens spread across 11 cities that include Ghaziabad, Gurgaon, Shimla, Lucknow, Gorakhpur, Faridabad, Bhiwadi, Ludhiana, Patiala, Bareli, and Agra. Apart from the cinemas business, SRS has exposure in the retail food and Beverages, jewellery, real estate, and healthcare segments. PVR Ltd is the largest exhibitor with 454 screens spread across 102 properties. PVR is in talks to acquire Chennai based SPI Cinemas. The second position has been held by Inox Ltd, which shows movies with its 358 screens. It added 50 screens after acquiring Satyam Cineplexes. 

Mahindra Group to buy BabyOye

Mahindra Partners, the emerging business arm of the diversified conglomerate Mahindra Group is in talks to acquire online portal BabyOye. The acquisition is likely to be made through Mahindra Retail. Mahindra already runs a chain of baby-care stores i.e. Mom & Me.

BabyOye is a four-year-old portal founded by Nadkarni and his wife and is backed by Accel Partners, Helion Venture Partners, and Tiger Global Management. The three investors have infused Rs 90 Crore into the venture. The portal selling diapers, kid’s apparel, toys, and maternity care products had clocked a GMV of Rs 5 Crore last month and expect to hit annual revenues of Rs 250 Crore by 2015.

In terms of hybrid presence, another player FirstCry leads BabyOye; it has tied up with 500 brands and is currently offering over 70,000 products. It has 50 branded franchise stores across 45 cities and expects to grow this network to 100 stores. This year it raised $15 Million in series C round funding. First cry’s investors include Vertex Venture Management, IDG Ventures India, and Saif Partners.

The recent deals in this space were, online baby products store Hopscotch had acquired school supplier e-tailer SkoolShop. Kids wear manufacturer Indian clothing league had raised Rs 50 crore in first round of funding from ASK Pravi PE Opportunities Fund. FirstCry, an online portal for baby products was raising $15 Million from Singaporean sovereign fund Vertex venture holding.

The domestic baby and children care products market, which includes apparel, footwear, toys, and baby cosmetics, is growing in sync with the retail industry growth, and is estimated to grow at a CAGR of around 17% during 2012-2017% to $26.2 Billion from $11.8 Billion in 2012. Market size for baby, kids, and maternity products is estimated at INR 40,000 Crore annually growing at 15-20% a year.

Snapdeal to buy Unicommerce

Unicommerce eSolutions Pvt. Ltd is an e-commerce management software and fulfillment solution provider is in talks to buy with Snapdeal for a potential acquisition. New Delhi based Unicommerce, which currently provides its software to companies such as Myntra, Snapdeal, Jabong, Groupon, and Healthkart, has received investment from Nexus Venture Partners and Snapdeal founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal.

Three Indian Institute of Technology founded Unicommerce in 2012, Delhi graduates Ankit Pruthi, Karun Singla, and Vibhu Garg. The company offers a pay per use Web Based solution that helps small merchants and e-commerce companies manage orders from the time they are placed until products are delivered. The company flagship product, Uniware, updates and automates every aspect of online commerce beginning from when a customer places an order until the purchase is received.

It also helps companies manage everything from vendors to inventory, and from warehouse to shipments and returns. Unicommerce was also in talks with Tiger Global for a potential investment. After the deal, Unicommerce is expected to operate as a separate company. As per experts, companies would be apprehensive about sharing their data with Unicommerce if it becomes a part of Snapdeal.

For Snapdeal, 2014 has been active year with respect to acquisitions. The company this month announced acquisition of gifting recommendation technology platform Wishpicker.com for an undisclosed amount. The company has so far acquired five companies including Doozton, a social product discovery technology platform; Grabbon.com, eSportsBuy.com, and Shopo.in. However, if Snapdeal inks the deal, it will be its largest acquisition until date.

Zomato Acquires Italy Cibando

Restaurant Search Portal Zomato, which raised $60 Million in November and got start up of the year award, has acquired Cibando, one of the Italy’s largest restaurant search services. The company is rapidly expanding its presence outside India. Gurgaon based Zomato Media Pvt Ltd said it will invest $6 Million in Italy over the next two years to grow the team and the business in the country.

Cibando, founded by Guk Kim in 2010, is an online and mobile restaurant search service based in Italy that offers about 7,000 professionally generated reviews and 150,000 photographs taken by food photographers. About 82,000 restaurants are listed on Cibando. The new combined entity will grow to 30-40 people in the next three months and over time the Italy operation is expected to grow to 150-200 people across the top six cities.

With the acquisition of Cibando, Zomato fifth buy this year, the company has a presence in 20 countries. It acquired MenuMania in New Zealand, Lunchtime in Czech Republic, Obedovat in Slovakia, and Gastronauci in Poland this year. It further aims to widen its international presence by entering 15 more countries in 2015. The company has so far steered clear of the US, a market dominated by larger competitors such as Yelp, GrubHub, and Open Table.

Zomato competes with Yelp in markets such as the UK, Canada, New Zealand, and Chile. In 2015, it can enter into US too. The company is currently valued at $660 Million. It currently employs over 900 people n around 100 cities across 20 countries. The company gets about 35 Million visits per month across its website and mobile applications. It gets more than half of its traffic from its mobile application. Zomato provides detailed restaurant information such as menus, contact details, pictures, geo-coded maps and user reviews on over 310,000 restaurants.

Philips acquired Volcano Corp

Volcano Corporation is the global leader in Intravascular imaging for coronary and peripheral applications, and physiology. The company has also offers a suite of peripheral therapeutics devices. The company broad range of technologies makes imaging and therapy simpler, more informative, and less invasive and offers physicians and their patients around the world with industry-leading tools that aid diagnosis and guide and provide therapy.

Dutch diversified company Philips has acquired Volcano Corp. for $1.2 Billion including debt, which is its largest healthcare acquisition in seven years and a bid to cash in on an aging population’s need for more complex treatments. Volcano makes equipment that allows doctors treating heart disease too see inside patient’s views and measure blood flows. This would lead to synergies in research and development and in sales. The deal is expected to add to Philip’s earnings per share by 2017.

Philips, until recently a diversified conglomerate that made everything from televisions to light bulbs to X ray machines, is spinning off its historic lighting division to focus on its higher margin healthcare business. Philips expects to see growth in the portion of healthcare spending allocated to technology, now only 5 percent of budgets, far behind staff and pharmaceutical costs.

Volcano makes catheters that can slide into veins to make ultrasound scans of the interiors of blood vessels, allowing doctors to treat without putting patients under the knife. Philips is a leading maker of the X-ray machines that map patient’s bodies as surgeons insert the catheters. The deal is Philips largest since the $5.1 Billion acquisition of sleep arena treatment company Respironics in 2007.

Big Cinemas sold to Carnival

Big cinemas is a division of Reliance MediaWorks Ltd and a member of Reliance ADA Group is a theatre chain with over 515 screens in India, US, Malaysia, and the Netherlands. As of July 2014, the company has 280 screens in India. The company accounts for 10% t0 15% of box office contributions of large movies.

On Monday, December 15, 2014, Anil Ambani led Reliance Group has sold its multiplex business to South India based Carnival Group in the largest ever deal in this space. The transaction will reduce Reliance Capital overall debt by Rs 700cr and is part of Reliance Capital’s strategy to exit minority investments. The deal will make Carnival the third largest multiplex operator with nationwide presence and over 300 screens.

The firms did not disclose the exact value of the deal. The deal stuck between Carnival Cinemas and Reliance MediaWorks, will exclude IMAX Wadala and some other properties worth Rs 200cr. Reliance capital is the parent firm of Reliance MediaWorks, which operates one of the largest cinema chains, under the brand ‘BIG CINEMAS’ with over 250 screens in India.

Carnival group is targeting to achieve 1000 screens by the year 2017. The transaction between the two will be completed within the current financial year. Reliance capital will retain an option to acquire a stake in pre-IPO stage at an appropriate discount whenever carnival goes a listing. Reliance capital had recently announced its plans to focus on core business and is in the process of encashing its minority investments. The company is in talks with 2-3 international investors to sell its 16 percent stake in leading travel portal Yatra.com for an estimated 500cr. 

Snapdeal acquires Wishpicker.com

After raising USD 627 Million from Japan Softbank online marketplace Snapdeal.com, owned by Jasper InfoTech Pvt. Ltd. has acquired gifting recommendation technology platform Wishpicker.com for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition of Wishpicker comes seven months after Snapdeal acquired Doozton, a social product discovery technology platform. Wishpicker is Snapdeal fifth acquisition. The company had earlier acquired Grabbon.com, esportsbuy.com, and shopo.in.

Wishpicker offers gifting options based on different parameters like relationship with recipient, their age, and personality. The current acquisition enables Snapdeal to enter into the personalized gift segment. Wishpicker brings with it an edge to the premier market place. Snapdeal, an intelligent recommendation user experience is helping users to discover the unique gift ideas from across the internet. Users can also find gift suggestions based on a person’s social media activities like Facebook “likes” and other interests listed on social media.

With over 30 million members and more than 50,000 sellers, Snapdeal.com delivers products to 5,000 cities and towns in India. Snapdeal has received funding from several global marquee investors like Softbank, Blackrock, Temasek, eBay, Premji Invest, Intel Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Ratan Tata, Nexus Venture Partners, and Kalaari Capital.

Snapdeal currently claims to offer more than five million products across 500 plus categories on its platform. The firm aims to expand its merchant base to one million in the next three years. Online retail is valued at $3.1 Billion and is estimated to grow to $22 Billion in five years. Snapdeal has now become one of the fastest growing and among the top three online marketplaces in India.  

Companies Social Media Strategies

With increase in use of Social Media Platforms, Companies are shifting their focus towards Social Media and engaging with their customers and employees. In PepsiCo, the company launched a responsiveness survey through which all teams are related on responsiveness every two months and the feedback is related to organization verbatim. Under this, the CEO shares his observations experiences, thoughts with employees in a weekly letter.

To get real time opinions from the ground, Vodafone has its own People Survey Engagement Index and Management Index. Through ‘My Voice’, the company collects feedback from new joiners on recruitment, compensation, performance management, training, and engagement. “Employees make suggestions to the cross-functional senior management team in the forum captioned ‘Voice of Customer’. The company also runs the website Idea Space to encourage employees to share suggestions and ideas. A survey tool called ‘Qualtrix’ helps in gathering internal employee voices for short-term initiatives.

Over the past one year, through gaining feedback with employees from a mix of informal coffee corner sessions and frequent leadership meets, Philips has revamped some of its policies, like launching their own internal retail portal of discounted Philips products for staff. The company has also tried to engage employees in groups through discussions on important business plans before notifying them on emails.

An internal radio channel called InfyRadio serves a twin purpose of keeping employees informed about activities within the organization and ensures they are motivated. Tools like ‘My Voice’ provide executives with a simple online platform to log enquiries or grievances within built tracking and escalation for monitoring and follow up. ‘YES Connect’ provides YES bankers a platform to bond with colleagues and share best practices. Organizations who listen to their employees and are transparent, create trustworthy relationships that breed loyalty.

Google smart spoon Liftware

Google is always known for technology and innovation. After Smart lens, glasses, Google is throwing its money, brainpower, and technology at the humble spoon. However, these spoons are a bit more than basic utensil. Using hundreds of algorithms, they allow people with essential tremors and Parkinson disease to eat without spilling. The technology senses how a hand is shaking and makes instant adjustments to stay balanced. In clinical trials, the Liftware spoons reduced shaking of the spoon bowl by an average of 76%.

There are other adaptive devices, which have been developed to help people with tremors. These are rocker knives, weighted utensils, and pen grips. This device is helpful for patients who couldn’t eat independently and now they can. It does not cure the disease but it is a very positive change. Google got into the no-shake utensils business in September, acquiring a small, National of Institutes of Health Funded startup called Lift Labs for an undisclosed sum.

The company is also developing a smart contact lens that measures glucose levels in tears for diabetics and is researching how nanoparticles in blood might help detect diseases. They can also add sensors to the spoons to help medical researchers and providers better understand, measure, and alleviate tremors.

The Liftware spoons come with a rechargeable battery so it is always ready for meal times. Compact and portable, it is also to take along, making it possible for people with essential tremors of Parkinson to eat out in restaurants. Now, only Liftware is available but Lift Labs has said that other attachments will be coming soon to facilitate eating even more. So far 140 Liftware devices have been shared with people with economic hardships through various foundations. To make this project possible, Lift Labs has teamed up with the Tremor Action Network, the National Parkinson Foundation, and the International Essential Tremor Foundation. The device costs $295 each.

Hero Moto to set up plants in Brazil and Argentina

Hero MotoCorp ltd. formerly Hero Honda, is an Indian Motorcycle and scooter manufacturing based in New Delhi, India. The company is the largest two-wheeler manufacturer in the world. It has a market share of 46% in India. Recently, the company plans to set up manufacturing units in Brazil and Argentina. It is also opening its plant in Colombia to help widen its reach in the region.

Plant in Colombia will be a good hub for supply to other markets in Central and Latin America. Company will manufacture in Brazil. Argentina wants Hero MotoCorp to manufacture within the country. Company will enter Brazil market along with the Rio Olympics 2016. Hero MotoCorp launched six of its best selling bikes here as part of its target to clock 1.2 Billion unit sales from global business by 2020.

The two wheelers rolled out include the 100 cc bikes- Splendor iSmart, Eco Deluxe and Passion Pro, the 125 cc Glamour, the 150 cc Hunk, and the 225 cc Karizma ZMR. The bikes will be sold in 120 outlets spread across the country. This year, the company formed a wholly-owned subsidiary in Colombia and commenced construction of a state of the art manufacturing plant in the country.

In the first phase, the company is planning to manufacture 75,000 to 80,000 units and in the next phase, the company is planning to manufacture 150,000 units. The Delhi headquartered Hero MotoCorp will be the first Indian two-wheeler company to have a manufacturing plant in Latin America. The plant in Colombia is expected to go on stream by middle of 2015. By 2020, the company aims to be in over 50 countries with 20 plus assembly facilities globally.