Marketing orion- Group B7- Source - Financial express 30/1/13

ING exits Life Insurance business in India

24^th Jan, Financial Express

The Netherlands based ING said on Wednesday it will exit ING Vysya Life Insurance by selling its 26% stake to domestic partner Exide industries which will also buy another 24% from two other promoters. Exide industries at present hold 50% in ING Vysya Life Insurance, remaining 24% is held by two other promoters Hemendra Kothari Group and Enam Group. Exide proposes to pay about 550 crore rupees, thereby valuing the ING Vysya at1, 100 crore rupees. Exide industries said in a statement ING’s exit from the Indian life insurance joint venture is part of the previously announced divestment of ING’s Asian insurance and investment management business. The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2013. Exide further said that it will look for new foreign partner for its life insurance company. “Post such acquisition Exide has in principal decided to identify and induct a new international player in the life insurance genre to infuse fresh equity to IVL for the company’s expansion plans.” It said.

Starbucks reaches Delhi

25^th Jan, Financial Express

Tata starbucks announced the opening of first stores at terminal 3 of New Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport. With this launch starbucks enter into a new market segment and expands the number of stores, reaching more customers. Starbucks also plans to extend its presence into travel segment by launching stores at the Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai by the end of the march. This store will be open for 24 hours from 5am to 9pm.

FMCG companies repackage to meet new norms

 28^th Jan, Financial Express

Britannia, ITC, Parle & PepsiCo’s change in packaging to also see revision in prices. In compliance with the government’s new guidelines for standard pack sizes, major FMCG like Parle Products, ITC Foods and Britannia Industries are changing their packaging strategy, which will also see a revision in prices of some products.

Parle, the maker of Parle-G biscuits, has revamped the packaging strategy for its entire portfolio of biscuits with price revisions for its premium brands such as Hide & Seek. While ITC Foods has made the required changes for its biscuit packs, Britannia has made a slew of changes in its product pack configurations across the portfolio of biscuits, breads, rusks and dairy products.  Similarly, PepsiCo India has also complied with the new standard pack size regulations while Kolkata-based Duncan Tea has recently revamped the packaging of its 50-g packs of tea.

As per the government’s new law, FMCG companies cannot sell 19 product categories in current unconventional, arbitrary pack sizes like 65, 73, 85, 92, 175, 425 (grams/milliliter). Instead, all such products will have to be sold in standard pack sizes like 25, 50, 100 and multiples of 100 units (g/ml). It is mandatory for FMCG firms to follow the standard pack sizes from November 2012.

Toyota reclaims numero Uno spot from GM

29^th Jan, Financial Express

Toyota Motor Corp regained the crown as the world's top selling automaker in 2012, posting record-high sales and beating rivals General Motors and Volkswagen.

Toyota said on Monday it sold 9.75 million vehicles group-wide around the world last year, a record for the 75-year-old Japanese automaker and up 22.6% from a year ago.

The result was in line with the company's December forecast, and put it back in the No. 1 spot, which it lost in 2011 when it was hit by a wave of negative publicity after a recall crisis in the US, and a disrupted supply chain following an earthquake in Japan and floods in Thailand. Toyota held the global sales crown from 2008 through 2010, but fell to third place in 2011 behind GM and Volkswagen.

GM sold 9.28 million vehicles in 2012, up 2.9% from a year ago, while Volkswagen sold 9.07 million vehicles, up 11.2 %. Toyota aims to sell 9.91 million vehicles group-wide globally in 2013, up 1.6% from 2012.

The Toyota group also includes sales at Daihatsu Motor Co and Hino Motors. Toyota-only sales hit a record-high 8.72 million vehicles, up 22.8% on a year ago. Toyota's domestic rival Nissan said on Monday it sold a record 4.94 million vehicles globally in 2012, while Honda Motor Co sold 3.82 million vehicles, up 19%.

Tata Hitachi mulls indigenization to up margins, cut imports.

 30^th Jan, Financial Express

The article talks about how Tata Hitachi is facing negative EBIDTA margins due to increasing competition from its Chinese competitors. It talks about how Chinese competitors are offering prices which are 25% less than Tata Hitachi. Some of those companies have also started manufacturing in India. The company's MD Ranveer Sinha said that at present, their EBIDTA margins were running negative. They are contemplating to indigenise some of their components to improve these margins and bring down the imports.

At present Tata Hitachi is 40:60 joint ventures between Tata and Hitachi. Mr Sinha also explains that the EBIDTA is not positive because half of their components are imported and there is a very steep decline in the exchange rate of the Indian rupee recently, due to which they have faced this situation. The company also doesn't want to pass on their decline and retrieve it from their customers but are trying to manufacture the components with the help of Japanese manufacturers to bring down the overall cost and to save on transportation and duty.

Their current market share is at 37% and they hope to increase it to 42% in the next 3 years by launching new models, but this seems to be difficult due to the slowdown of the economy.