Weekly News Roundup at 10:00 am on 14th April, 2024

Let’s begin. If you are keen to know how much a CEO earns, well their average compensation stands at Rs 13.8 crore and it is 40% more than how much they earned before Covid. This is according to the Deloitte India Executive Performance and Rewards Survey. Not just that, every second CEO had a target compensation of more than Rs 10 crore in 2024 Vs every third CEO in 2020. Meanwhile, the median compensation for CEOs stood at Rs 9.3 crore. CEOs who were also promoters or members of the promoter family are paid Rs 16.7 crore on average. Additionally, about three of every four CEOs in India now earn more than Rs 5 crore.
Even though Indian tech startups have laid off over 2,000 employees in the first quarter of the current calendar year, according to data from layoffs.fyi, it’s more than 60% lower than the layoffs announced during the same period last year, when venture capital was starting to dry up in a “funding winter”. In the first quarter of 2023, 43 companies had laid off more than 5,358 employees, the data showed, not including some companies where the number of employees impacted by the layoffs were not specified. Troubled edtech firm Byju’s was responsible for the largest chunk of layoffs last year during Q1, when it had fired 1,500 employees across design, engineering and production teams. On the other hand Swiggy had laid off 380 employees.
Meanwhile, The Centre’s transfer of assorted subsidies and sops to the beneficiaries through the Direct Benefit Transfer saw a 21% decline on year to Rs 5.66 trillion in FY24 due to lower outgo on fertiliser and food on falling commodity prices and discontinuation of extra free grains scheme. On major subsidies through DBT—cash and in-kind – fertiliser continued to top the chart with Rs 1.78 trillion, down 25% on the year as input costs and global prices of fertiliser moderated after rising to record levels in FY23. Fertiliser DBT had reached a record Rs 2.37 trillion in FY23 as the government chose to bear the rise in cost to insulate farmers.
Moving on. Birla Pivot, Aditya Birla Group’s B2B e-commerce platform for building materials, this week announced that it has hit a milestone of achieving Rs 1,000 crore revenue in its first year of operations. Birla Pivot offers a range of products, encompassing more than 35 product categories and over 18,000 SKUs sourced from 150+ Indian and international brands. These categories include essential construction materials like cement, steel, plywood, sanitaryware, tiles, among others. Additionally, in response to the increasing demand for superior yet cost-effective products, the company has introduced its private label for plywood and tiles. It has delivered to over 200 cities across 25 states. The B2B e-commerce platform was launched in August 2023 by the Chairman of Aditya Birla Group, Kumar Mangalam Birla.
On to market. The Securities and Exchange Board of India has given its approval for the Rs 5,000-crore initial public offering of Aadhar Housing Finance. The proposed IPO will combine a fresh issue of shares of up to Rs 1,000 crore and an offer for sale of Rs 4,000 crore. The retail-focused housing finance company focusses on the low-income housing segment with a loan ticket size of less than Rs 15 lakh. The average ticket size as on September 30, 2023, was Rs 9 lakh with an average loan-to-value of 58.1%.
Next up, technology. Truecaller has finally launched a web-based client of its popular caller ID mobile application. The client, simply called Truecaller for Web, works in a similar fashion to WhatsApp for web allowing users to link their mobile to a PC and access features of the app including real-time caller ID on their desktop. Truecaller says the web client will be initially available to users in India before a gradual rollout to other markets. The reasoning is that India is its biggest market with roughly about 259 million users. The feature will be available only to Android users at the time of writing. Also, only one session per user will be allowed and Truecaller will automatically sign you out after 30-days if you are inactive.
Lastly, the auto sector. TVS has successfully concluded the first-ever racing championship for its TVS Apache customers. In a strategic move to connect with consumers in 20 key cities, TVS Racing launched a comprehensive platform that brought racing aficionados together through a unique experiential. Organised across the lengths and breadths of the country, the TVS ARE GP Cup gives TVS Apache customers a platform to get their race machines on the track to their true habitat, experience the thrill of racing in a safe environment and compete for India’s Ultimate Racing Championship title. The championship selection process conducted selection rounds under 4 selection categories – 160cc-180cc, 200cc and 310cc. This championship finale allowed 48 customers to ride the TVS OMC race-spec variant.