Unicorn 3 already 🦄
Vedanta wants BPCL, Nazara went shopping, and Andrew screwed.
Market summary: 📊
India finished in the green for yet another session, in what has been a great week so far. US markets continued its downward spiral after a mid-week break.
US:
S&P 500 - down 1.42%
Nasdaq - down 3.12%
India:
Nifty 50 - up 0.25%
Sensex - up 0.14%
Friday shot of espresso ☕
📈 Bankers get fat bonuses — record IPOs and deal activity in India for 2021 helped India’s investment banking industry make more than ₹2,200 crore in fee income! Fees collected specifically from share sales jumped more than 3x for the year. FYI, a total of $16.6 billion was raised through the IPO markets in 2021, across 120 deals — a massive jump from the $3.6 billion raised in 2020.
💸 TikTok pays bills — top influencers are making more money on social platforms than execs of some of the most desired and elite corporations. The D'Amelio sisters for example, who aren’t even 18 yet, made a combined $27 million on TikTok alone last year. Forbes says the top 7 grossing creators, all under 25, made $55 million or more for the year on the Tok. Still day 0 in the creator business.
Vedanta wants to buy BPCL 💰
What’s poppin’ — Vedanta Group, the largest mineral mining operation is the country, made a $12 billion buyout offer for GOI’s petroleum company, BPCL.
GOI had been looking to sell off BPCL for a while now. Folks within the government expected India’s private energy players to enthusiastically team up and make an exciting bid, but… COVID’s impact on the energy game spoilt most plans.
Besides, a looming shift to renewable energy was starting to make potential suitors a bit squeamish.
Anyway, Vedanta is one of the most credible bids on the table — but its offer isn’t too generous, about the same as BPCL current market cap.
Ball is in GOI’s court now. All riding on how eager the government is to get that cash and help fix budget gaps in its annual spending plans.
Worth mentioning — GOI owns 53% of BPCL, and this divestment would be the biggest privatization move for the state to date.
Edtek is back for 2022💸
LEAD School, a curriculum design service, picked up a $100 million Series E check from Westbridge and GSV — 2xing valuation to $1.1 billion. That’s unicorn No.3 for the year! 🚀
LEAD equips schools with the technology needed for daily operations, while also improving learning outcomes. It’s software makes digital instruction possible, helps teachers design better curriculum, and even helps with procurement of books and other material.
Most schools LEAD works with focus on low-income students. COVID’s push for remote learning helped the business grow to 5,000+ institutions across 500 Indian cities, putting it on path to top $80 million+ in annual revenue this year!
Meanwhile, in mobile gaming 🎮
Turnip, which is making gaming social, raised a $12.5 million Series A from GreenOaks, Elevation, and others.
Turnip is basically like Twitch or YouTube Gaming, but it allows game streamers to build communities, get tipped, charge fees, and other things — allowing people to monetize their gameplay more effectively. Barely a year since launch, 5 million users have joined the platform from 58 countries.
Nazara made a quick merch bet 👕
What’s poppin’ — gaming-tech company Nazara will buy a sports and merch retailer called Planet Superheroes, for about ₹5 crores, clubbing it with its eSports business Nodwin Gaming.
Planet Superheroes sells licensed merch from content-heavy brands like Disney, Warner Bros., Star Wars, etc. — through some 30 stores it runs nationwide, mostly across major malls
Nazara will now use these locations to start selling merch based on its own IP, along with other popular games like PUBG, CounterStrike and Asphalt.
Complementing its extensive online reach with an offline store-network where fans of eSports can hang, shop, and buy products can actually be a smart move. Stock moved a nice 3% when the deal was announced.
Closing out — Billions coming for Gujarat 👕
What’s poppin’ — Reliance has laid out a plan to invest as much as $80 billion in Western Gujarat, as the gazillion-pound energy empire makes a sharp turn towards renewables.
About $66 billion of the investment, deployed over 10-15 years, will go to build a mega renewable energy power-plant, capable of churning 100GW in energy when ready. That’s massive. Reliance has already begun scouting land for the project.
Sizable chunk of the money will go to set up manufacturing units for solar modules and fuel cells, with the rest spent on upgrading existing facilities.
Worth calling out — this investment tops the $10 billion Mota-bhai had early allocated for a green-pivot barely 6 months ago.
What else are we Snackin’ 🍿
📹 History made - Baby Shark Dance, a South Korean song for children became the first video to get over 10 billion views on YouTube. Time to forget Gangnam.
😷 Damn it - India recorded over 247K COVID cases yesterday, taking the total active case count to over a million. Stay inside!
😑 Just Andrew - Prince Andrew is stripped of his royal titles and duties, as he defends his sexual abuse case in court, now as a private citizen.
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30 offline stores in apparently good real estate locations, and deal size is <5Cr???? Is there a story there?