Friday, 26th June ’20
Good morning. On this fourth edition of our beloved journal, The Morning Tea, we’d like to take the opportunity to thank you for reading. If you’re wondering where’s the cool time capsule and trivia from this day in history scroll down to the paragraph after the next one. If you’re still here, here’s just a few more things.
We wished there was a condensed version of the most important stuff happening across all the verticals we cared about and were tired of flitting from one publication to the next. That’s how the idea of the 5 days a week Morning Tea was born. We’d love to hear what you like about it and what you would like to see more of, less of, something new perhaps? Do send in your thoughts at team@productround.com.
Now back to history. On this day in 1906 the first grand prix, the international motor race competition involving car manufacturers from different nationalities, was held outside the city of Le Mans. The Grand Prix name, meaning “Great Prize”, referred to the prize of 45,000 French francs to the race winner. The franc was pegged to the gold at 0.290 grams per franc, which meant that the prize was worth 13 kg of gold.
Hope you derive great insights with us today and have an even greater weekend.
MARKETS
- SEBI Board makes amendments to regulations making fundraising easier for stressed cos. SEBI today passed a slew of measures which included – relaxing pricing norms for preferential share allotment, amendments to takeover norms, and prohibition of insider trading regulations.
- Rise in fuel prices can lead to slow down in recovery of Passenger Vehicles (PV), according to brokerage firm Motilal Oswal. This can especially hamper the sales of Diesel vehicles as historically, demand of Diesel vehicles have had a direct correlation with the pricing gap between Diesel and Petrol prices. This distressing situation of the PV automobile segment has been further compounded by the BS – VI related cost inflation.
- Page Industries rally despite disappointing Q4 results. Shares of Page Industries, parent company of the Jockey brand, rallied 10% despite reporting 11% & 18% drop in revenue and volumes respectively, in Q4 YOY. The Profits and EBITDA also fell by 58% & 54% respectively in the same period. Despite the setback, the company is expected to retain healthy operational revenues owing to gradual reopening of its stores across the country.
- Housing sales expected to take a huge hit in terms of units sold and new launches. Housing sales is expected to dip by 81%, whereas new launches may come down by as much as 98%, in the Apr-Jun’20 period, as per real estate consultants Anarock. In response, developers have been strengthening their digital sales capabilities, betting on technology adoption to regain sales in the future.
TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION
- SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son and Alibaba’s Jack Ma part ways by exiting each other’s boards simultaneously. It’s with SoftBank’s backing that Alibaba pioneered the creation of a marketplace connecting Chinese manufacturers to international buyers. This benefited businesses across the world by cutting costs on outsourcing and increased the quality standards of Chinese manufacturing in return.
- Google will launch a credit feature for small and medium enterprises on the Google pay platform in partnership with the top lenders. Over 3 million verified vendors are set to benefit from it in India. This is in conjunction with the consumer loan offering which is already live and the ‘nearby’ feature which allows the set up of a digital storefront on the app.
- AWS today announced the beta launch of Amazon Honeycode, a new, fully managed low-code/no-code development tool that aims to make it easy for anybody in a company to build their own applications. This is, to cater to the customers’ need for custom applications which far outstrips the capacity of developers to create them, according to AWS.
- Nokia and Ericsson have been chosen as Singapore’s main 5G network providers, telecom operators said, leaving Huawei with only a minor role as the Chinese tech giant faces growing US pressure. Huawei has been hounded by trade secrets theft allegations.
PRODUCTS & STARTUPS
- NextBillion AI, an Indian AI-based enterprise platform for hyperlocal solutions raised $7 million in Series A funding round led by Lightspeed India Partners and Falcon Edge Capital. They aim to be a leader in the AI hyperlocal solutions space. This includes AI-based areas such as mapping, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, face recognition, and content-moderation.
- Hopin, a London based startup building virtual events technology raised $40 million Series A led by IVP. Other investors include Salesforce Ventures and Slack fund. Hopin’s technology allows events to recreate the traditional in-person conference, online. They provide capabilities like expo centers, various stages, and networking capabilities much like a real event.
- Fleetsmith, a startup focussed on providing IT services from setup to manage devices, has been acquired by Apple at an undisclosed amount. Fleetsmith has raised more than $40 million to date from Tiger Global Management, Menlo Ventures, and others. They provide automated device registration, automatic OS updates and security updates.
WHAT ELSE IS COOKING
- HUL today announced that it will remove the word “fair” from its Fair and Lovely brand. HUL is the second company to take such a measure after Johnson & Johnson recently decided to discontinue their skin whiteness creams. The FMCG giant has been long criticized for reinforcing racial stereotypes, which had further increased lately, at the back of the “Black Lives Matter” movement.
- Munich based Fintech giant Wirecard files for insolvency after disclosing $2.1 bn financial hole in its accounts. This move comes after a tumultuous week for the company where their auditor EY refused to sign off on the 2019 accounts, losing 90% value in the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, and the resignation of CEO Markus Braun.
- Govt. approves proposal to allow private companies into the Advanced Space technology sector, allowing them to build their own rockets. Involvement of private companies in the sector have been increasing over the years. Another private company, Elon Musk’s SpaceX, a few weeks back successfully launched their Starlink mission, carrying around 60 satellites to outer space. ISRO Chairman K Sivan said that “IN-SPACe will act as a national nodal agency for hand-holding and promoting private sector in space endeavors”.
- Cyberattacks in India surge. As per Maharashtra’s cyber police wing, there have been more than 40,000 cyberattacks by Chinese hackers on India’s IT & Banking sector. According to some security experts, the cyberattacks may have jumped by more than 500% since March. As per the police, the hackers have a database of more than 2 mn email IDs and Internet users should be beware of phishing attempts and refrain from opening attachments from unknown emails.
MORNING TEA LISTICLES
Forbes Highest Earning Celebrities – 2020 list
The total earnings of the top 100 celebrities are estimated at around $6.1 billion. Here we present the top 10 who made it big on the list.
- Kylie Jenner: Earning $590 million, she primarily made her money by selling Kylie Cosmetics to publicly traded Coty for $600 million in 2019.
- Kayne West- $170 million. Kayne made his money mostly through the deal of his sneaker brand Yeezy with Adidas
- Roger Federer: Earned $106.3 million due to his lucrative endorsement deals.
- Cristiano Ronaldo: With earnings of $105 million, Ronaldo has been a constant feature in the list for a few years.
- Lionel Messi: He earned $104 million, and is another constant figure on this list.
- Tyler Perri- $97 million. Tyler is a director, producer, writer, and actor who is known for his “Madea” franchise.
- Neymar– $95.5 million. Neymar has a 5-year contract with PSG through June 2022 worth $350 million.
- Howard Stern: Earning $90 million, this highest-paid radio host has an 8 figure deal with Sirius XM.
- LeBron James: With earnings of $88.2 million, LeBron joined LA Lakers for a 4 year $153 million dollars contract in 2018.
- Dwayne Johnson: He earned $87.5 million owing to his upcoming movies, “Black Adam” and “Red Notice”.
BOOKS & MOVIES
Recommended Book: Zero to One by Blake Masters and Peter Thiel – another shining star from the PayPal mafia, Thiel condenses his learnings from a pretty successful career yet, to give you a slightly unpopular perspective on business. He has strong views about scaling and competition that would leave you pondering for a while.
Recommended Movie: The Founder – based on the formative years of McDonald’s, it shows the tribulations of turning a successful fast food restaurant into the global chain as we know it today. Although fictionalized to some degree, it’s a stark reminder of the trials of ownership and the true cost of ambition.
Check out: Corporate flights stalker. This tool helps you stalk corporate flights and predict an imminent merger or acquisition based on the departure and arrival points of executive private jets.
YOU SHOULD KNOW
- GDPR or General Data Protection Regulation is a regulation aimed at enforcing data protection and privacy reforms in the European Union (EU). It applies to all member states and impacts all organizations doing business with the EU. At the core of it, it ensures that data is legally collected, managed and stored safely, and the company at all times respects the data rights of the customer.
- Impact of #BlackLivesMatter – It has become more than just a protest, it’s a movement – a revolutionary phase in how people, politics and organizations respond to equality. From an African-American community centric movement, it has transformed into a broader transracial coalition, especially among young adults with a broader concern towards racial injustice. What started as a huge protest after the killing of George Floyd last month by Minneapolis Police, may well go on to have potentially landmark consequences in the business world and would force organizations to have more emphasis on equality in the workplace.
- Dress the part – even virtually. Now that we are getting familiar with the whole online interviews thing, we should adopt it, as it might just be here to stay (even after the lockdown ends). To really make a great impression during online interviews, there are some things you should keep in mind. As opposed to a virtual background or a wall, It’s preferred to show your room as the background, but avoid having that pile of laundry in the frame. Business casuals still counts for the best attire (wear formals only if you want to be seen as an expert) and neutral colors are still the best option (wear bright only if you want portray yourself as a creative individual)
MORNING TEA CHALLENGES
- Some Good News: Take out time for a friend you haven’t connected with, in a while. Start a conversation with a forwarded joke or some good old memory. In times like COVID, we have this opportunity to connect with our old pals and spread around good news. It may end up in a much-needed refresher for you. Or you might end up getting connected with more people. Either way would be a happier day.
- High Intensity Interval Training(HIIT) has been gaining a lot of attention with the youth who are always short on time but high on energy. HIIT ensures that you burn a larger number of calories in limited time. Today, let’s challenge ourselves to a 5 minute HIIT workout. We can bet that this short workout would give a great start to your day and you would be proud of yourself
Written by Akansh Bhatt, Piyush Vijayan and Shashank Dobhal.
