More like Snap-no-deal 💁♀️
Foxconn plant shut, Venture Deals, and Nike's kickass quarter.
Market summary: 📊
India finished in the green on Tuesday but the mood continues to be pessimistic. US turned around sharply as well, with tech favored as Omicron runs wild.
US:
S&P 500 - up 1.78%
Nasdaq - up 2.29%
India:
Nifty 50 - up 0.94%
Sensex - up 0.89%
What’s brewing hot? ☕
1️⃣ Problems at Apple — and India strikes. Apple-supplier Foxconn’s production facility in South India, set up under much pomp to make Apple’s iPhone 12 models, is hit by an old school “hartal” aka strike. Workers aren’t gonna show up for 7 days straight, shutting production, over complaints that some food poisoning incidents have been ignored by management. Entire thing is blowing into a political mess. Not great for that atma-nirbhar agenda.
2️⃣ Dorsey stirs row — Jack Dorsey, relieved from one of his jobs of running a multi-billion dollar company, is using his free time to take shots at the Web3 fan-bois on Twitter — calling the tech a bluff, hyped up by VCs with incentives on line. Elon couldn’t pass up the opportunity and joined the forum. Fyi, Dorsey is betting on Bitcoin as the future of payments (1 coin, 1 currency, 1 system), while Musk vouches for a couple absolute shitcoins depending upon the day of the week. Pick your fighter.
We’re ready, says Snapdeal 📄
What’s poppin’ — Snapdeal officially dropped its docs by SEBI last night for its IPO — disclosing plans of raising $165 million from the markets in an early next year bid.
We’d written about the bid a while ago, but the new DRHP reveals more details on the business. Revenues are worse than imagined — down 44% YoY last year due to COVID, to a basic ₹421 crores, with losses towering over ₹125 crores.
Only bright spot is the platform's extensive digital reach — with 40 million monthly active mobile app users, and some 14 million transacting users annually. Also, 95% of transactions on average are below ₹1,000 rupee volumes, indicating a unique focus on low-ticket consumers. If that's speaks to ya… here’s a link to the DRHP.
Verdict — leaving too much to the almighty.
While we’re on limping businesses, ☝️
Rumors are Axis Bank is all set to beat Kotak and IndusInd to win Citi Bank’s India retail operations — in a deal valued at about $2 billion.
Citi decided to quit India to cut back losses and streamline its global operations, and is now tasked to place its 2.5 million odd retail customers (many white-collar, high $$ rollers), some 4,000 employees, and 35+ retail branches nationwide with another banking operation within the country.
Tiger’s hunt continues 🐯
Latest catch, B2B seafood platform Captain Fresh — with Tiger pumping $40 million into the business, alongside Prosus Ventures — at a $200 million valuation.
Captain Fresh’s marketplace connects small retailers (shops, supermarkets, mongers) of fish with large scale harvesters — adding some consistency, flexibility, and oomph of technology to the demand-supply equation, in an otherwise extremely fragmented market. 🐟
Ops run in 20 cities currently, with revenues topping $50 million. Fresh funds raised will be used for hiring and expansion.
While we’re here, ☝️
Jumbotail, a B2B food and grocery wholesaling platform, raised $85 million for its Series C from Artal Asia and Ajax Capital.
Jumbotail basically runs an Amazon for your neighborhood kirana-uncle, that supplies him with all his products from atta to biscuits and tea powder, replacing the legacy distributors. There’s a whole bunch of integrated payments and lending products too.
Shoes sellin’ jusssst fine, says Nike ✔️
It’s holiday season baby… new kicks for the man, running shoes for dad, or self gifts, it's all helping Nike recover from a mid-year production slump and bring home cracker of a quarter!
Quick look at the numbers for the last 3 months:
Revenue of $11.4 billion, up a tiny 1% YoY
Profits of $1.3 billion, up 7% YoY
Digital sales grew 12% YoY
Small worries — China, a key market, has become was a mood spoiler though. Revenues dropped some 20% YoY, mostly due to persistent lockdowns, but also due to the US-China love-hate affair weighing a bit on consumer demand.
Otherwise, after a painful year laced with supply glitches, almost 80% of Nike factories in Vietnam are now up again, right in time for a holiday quarter.
Big picture — any numbers that help the markets get an early read on holiday season consumption, are helpful.
What else are we Snackin’ 🍿
👑 Winners win - Reliance added 30.9 lakh active subscribers in October, beating Airtel and laggard VI for the fourth consecutive month.
⚡ More power - Renew Power, one of India’s largest renewables energy plays, added a 300MW solar project in Rajasthan, taking its total operating assets to 7.4 GW.
👎 Another battle - Omicron is taking the US down. Cases are quickly climbing to Delta-wave top levels. Biden deployed the military and promised 500 million free COVID tests. Another holiday season washed out.
Hit that 💚 if you liked today’s issue.
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