GCPL acquires ‘Soft and Gentle’ brand in UK from Colgate
Godrej
Consumer Products Ltd (GCPL), the maker of Cinthol soaps and Hit insecticides,
said on Monday that its UK unit Keyline Brands Ltd had acquired the Soft and
Gentle brand from Colgate-Palmolive Co. for an undisclosed sum. The sales of
Soft and gentle amounted to £21 million in 2011. GCPL would have paid approximately
50% of the sales value for the purchase, analysts said. ‘Soft and Gentle’ is
the UK’s fourth largest women’s deodorant brand by market share. “The
acquisition of Soft and Gentle by Keyline Brands will add profitable scale to
our UK business,” said Anand Rangaswamy, Keyline Brands managing director.
The
GCPL chairman Adi Godrej said “We expect this acquisition to be accretive in
year one”. The acquisition is a departure from the company’s so called 3x3
strategy focused on increasing presence in three regions—Asia, Africa and South
America—through three core categories: home care, personal wash and hair care,
analysts said. All their past acquisitions were according to the 3x3 strategy
including Cosmetica Nacional, a Chilean hair colour company, the panAfrican
Darling Group, the Megasari Group, a maker of household products in Indonesia,
and Issue Group and Argencos, two leading hair colorant companies in Argentina.
GCPL has been aggressive in making acquisitions. In 2010, the company made some
eight acquisitions—and pursued the strategy of inorganic growth in the
following two years as well.
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India needs more, not less Kingfishers
The
flamboyant owner of kingfisher airlines “Vijay Mallya” applied every rule of
the cost-control manual, exerted unusual influence with lending agencies to get
cheap and frequent loans and hasn’t paid his staff for months but at the end
the airlines loses its right to fly. There is a deep disturbing fact attached to
it is the sight of one more private airline in India being confined to the
hangars. It’s a trend that began with the six private airlines—Damania Airways,
Skyline NEPC, Modiluft, East West, Gujarat Airways and Span Air—that started
operations post 1992 following the first round of deregulation of the sector.
All perished in the first five years of that brave new world but ultimately
faced the same chapter.
National
carrier Air India Ltd hasn’t made a profit in five years and is surviving
mainly on government handouts, a situation that could well continue. The danger
of Kingfisher Airlines’ departure is that we may revert to the dark days of
government-controlled flying which attributed the long waits at the airport,
persistent delays and horrendous airline service are too horrifying to
contemplate returning to now. At this point, of the various airlines operating
in India, only Indigo is profitable. =================================================================
Nissan to recall 500,000 Micra cars in Japan
Tokyo:
Nissan Motor Co. Ltd, Japan’s second largest auto maker, intends to recall Micra
hatchbacks in Japan to fix an external rear combination light that may not work
properly.No accidents or injuries have been reported due to the fault, a Nissan
spokesman said, who declined to disclose an estimate for the cost of the
recall.The problem only occurs in cars sold in Japan. The faulty vehicles were
built in Nissan’s Oppama factory, south of Tokyo, between February 2002 and
February 2009 and its Sunderland plant in northeast England between June 2007
and December 2007.Recalls exceeding several hundred thousand vehicles have
become more frequent at major automakers since they use common components
across multiple models to save design and production costs.Last month, Toyota Motor
Corp. announced a recall of 2.77 million vehicles worldwide for steering and
water pump problems, its third global recall of over one million vehicles for
the year.
Nissan
shares were down 0.5% in late afternoon trade, not much different than before
the release, and below an 0.6% rise in the benchmark Nikkei 225. Renault India
reports 32-fold rise in December sales. The company sold a total of 35,052
units in 2012 compared with 1,401 units in 2011
New
Delhi: Boosted by its new models, Renault India on Tuesday reported over
32-fold jump in sales in December last year at 5,924 units. In the same month
previous year, the company had only two products—sedan Fluence and sports
utility vehicle Koleos—in the Indian market and had sold 185 units. At present
the company sells five models, including compact car Pulse, SUV Duster and
sedan Scala. In December 2012, the Duster accounted for 4,485 units, Scala 820
units, Pulse 515 units, Fluence 68 units and Koleos 36 units, Renault India said
in a statement. For the entire 2012, the company sold a total of 35,052 units
compared with 1,401 units in 2011, a jump of over 25-fold.
Commenting on the sales performance, Renault India managing
director Marc Nassif said: “It is very satisfying for all of us at Renault to
close the year with sales of over 35,000 units and delivering what we promised
in the beginning of the year to our prospective customers.” The company is
confident of 2013 too and hopes to keep the momentum going, he added.“...the market
continues to remain sluggish with high inflation, fuel price hike and high
interest rates. If the market dynamics improve, the automotive industry is sure
to get a boost in the coming year,” Nassif said.
Amazon most satisfying website to shop: survey
The
survey says Amazon has held the highest score in each of the eight years due to
the variety of merchandise.
Amazon.com Inc. remained the best website for
shopping online while JC Penney Co. Inc. suffered the largest drop in
customer satisfaction of any major online retailer this holiday season,
according to a survey released. Amazon has held the highest score in each of the eight years of
the index, due in part to the wide variety of merchandise it offers and a site
that is easy to use.
Rival
Target Corp.’s website scored 79, up from 76 last year, when it had some
struggles after taking over control of the site from Amazon.
“It works for some kinds of consumers, it’s
not going to work for every kind of consumer,” said Freed. “Their models today
are going to work and they’re going to have a chance to be successful, but at
the end of the day it’s not the right answer for everybody.” ForeSee’s 2012
report was based on more than 24,000 surveys collected from visitors to
websites of the 100 largest online retailers from Thanksgiving to Christmas, up
from 40 retail sites in prior years.
Branded jewellers focus on smaller towns to spur growth
Consumers
opt for organized jewellery chains due to trendy gold and diamond designs,
quality assurance certificates
Jewellery
retailers such as Gitanjali, PC Jewellers and Tanishq have opened stores in Dehradun, which has a population of
1.7 million, about one-tenth that of Delhi. Nath is among customers outside
India’s biggest cities with the aspirations and the money that are encouraging
branded jewellery retailers to tap growing demand in towns and cities such as
Dehradun.
Consumers
in tier 1 cities (population base: 100,000-1 million) and tier 2 cities
(50,000-100,000) are opting for organized jewellery chains for several reasons:
trendy gold and diamond designs, quality assurance certificates and celebrity
brand ambassadors who make the products aspirational.
“Although
there is no trust deficit with the traditional jeweller in small towns,
consumers are demanding quality,” Raizada said.
Tara
has six stores in Mumbai and another 24 in 18 cities. According to Raizada, the
move into smaller towns makes sense for branded retailers as the metros have a
lot of competition, while the non-metros are “less organized from a retail
point of view”.
Utility vehicles likely to gain more traction in car market
The
Indian automobile market, which until recently was driven by small cars, is
seeing a shift in buyers’ preferences. Higher petrol prices and the launch of
affordable utility vehicles. most of which are diesel-run, has dented demand
for small cars. The share of passenger cars as a percentage of overall
passenger vehicle sales has declined from 61% in the fiscal ended March 2010 to
51% in the quarter ended September 2012, according to Siam. The share of diesel
vehicles as a proportion of overall passenger vehicle sales jumped to 43-45% in
fiscal 2012 from 25% in fiscal 2009, said the research arm of rating
agency Care Ltd. Tarandeep Ghai, principal (auto sector) at Boston Consulting Group, said the average car buyer is
shelling out 15-20% more than what he or she had been until three years ago. A
change in the product mix at the automakers, which in turn has been prompted by
the price gap between diesel and petrol, and the absence of an entry-level car,
has fuelled demand for bigger compact cars and utility vehicles.
Analysts
expect utility vehicles to continue outpacing their passenger car rivals even
as high borrowing costs and slower economic growth hurt auto sales in the year
ahead. With the overall economic scenario showing no signs of improvement,
sales would remain muted. Maruti has sold 60,000 units of Ertiga since its
launch in April, an average of 7,000 units per month, 65% of which were
diesel-run. Aggressive pricing has been one of the key factors propelling the
utility vehicle segment, according to Care Research. Automakers have been able to bring
down the price either by using the new generation of highly efficient lower
power engines or through sharing of platforms with existing car models.
Deficient public transport systems in satellite towns and cities also
contributed to growing sales of utility vehicles, said Kumar Kandaswamy
=================================================================
LG seeks ban on Samsung tablet sales in South Korea
South
Korea’s LG display said on Friday it had asked a Seoul court to ban the
domestic sale of Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet computer, citing alleged
patent infringements. The company, in the injunction filed on Wednesday, accused
Samsung Electronics of infringing three of its patents on the liquid crystal
display (LCD) panels used on the Galaxy Note.
“Through
this action, LG Display seeks to completely stop the sale, manufacture and
importation of the infringing Samsung product,” LG Display said in a press
release.
LG
Display also said it would request compensation amounting to 1.0 billion won
per day in the event of continued non-compliance.
LG
said that five of Samsung’s products, including its global hit Galaxy S-series
smartphones and tablet computer Galaxy Tab, infringed its patents.
Samsung
is no stranger to patent battles. The company and its arch rival Apple have
filed lawsuits against each other in around a dozen countries for alleged
patent violations over competing products, in particular the iPhone and Galaxy
S smartphones, as well as tablet computers.
Samsung,
the world’s top mobile and smartphone maker, was ordered by a US jury in August
to pay Apple $1.05 billion in damages for illegally copying iPhone and iPad features
for its flagship Galaxy S phones.
Samsung
has appealed the ruling. Since then, two separate rulings by courts in Japan
and The Netherlands have dismissed Apple’s claims of patent infringement.
Edible oil firms spread wings in FMCG sector
Edible
oil companies who were initially only in the commodity market have decided to
enter
or are rather entering the FMCG market on a very fast phase. Example Ahmedabad-
based
Adani Wilmar recently took a decision to extend its franchise into the branded
pulses
category,
while Mumbai headquartered Ruchi Soya Industries will stretch its Nutrela brand
into
the margarine segment. Madhya Pradesh-based Sanwaria Agro Oils is emerging as
an
FMCG
player with a range of products such as salt, soya nuggets and is considering
even
ready-to-eat
pasta in the future and many more mentioned in this article
There
are various reasons as to why Edible oil companies are increasingly trying to
diversify
from
the commodity business and become more aggressive players in the fast moving
consumer
goods (FMCG) category:-
1.
Better margins
2.
The stringent Food Safety Act (which covers loose to packaged items) is also
prompting
these commodity players to become full-fledged FMCG companies in the
future.
3.
Considering that these players already reach out to 10 lakh outlets with the
edible
oils,
they have the distribution and delivery mechanisms in place.
4.
Even the Food Safety Act is moving us towards creating brands out of
commodities.
5.
They want to de-risk their business from edible oil as the Government is not
protecting
their interest of domestic oil manufacturers and is allowing imports at
almost
zero per cent duties.
6.
They want to broad-base their revenues today, and become an FMCG company
focussing
on health conscious products.
7.
In fact, most of these companies are also trying to ride on the ‘health’ wave.
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