Tag: Tata Sons

  • Maxus wins businesses worth over Rs. 300 crore

    Maxus wins businesses worth over Rs. 300 crore

    MUMBAI: Maxus, yet again retains the title of the most ‘dominant’ agency as per the latest RECMA report, a qualitative assessment for all leading media agencies in India.

    It is the fourth consecutive year that Maxus is on the top of the RECMA ratings. Along with this, the agency also won business across 23 new clients, worth upwards of Rs. 300 crores in the first half of 2014. These new clients include Tata Sons, JK Tyres, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Unitech, Paytm, Askme.com, ICC T20 World Cup 2014, Cigna TTK Health Insurance and BML Educorp.

     

    Maxus South Asia managing director Kartik Sharma said, “Over the last 12 months, Maxus has made an effort to become future ready in a digitally charged media environment. We approach planning and investments in an integrated manner with emphasis on new media concepts that brings digital media, content and data together with traditional TV, print and radio. We believe this gives us an edge in the market, helping us delight to our existing clients and bring new clients into the fold.”

     

    “Our ‘Lean into Change’ approach has given us a healthy double digit growth in 2014” Besides their expertise in core traditional media, Maxus today is a full- fledged media solutions agency with expertise across digital, mobile media, data and analytics, branded content and programming. Talent across these verticals are embedded in the network and work closely with core client teams,” added Sharma.

     

    The new approach at Maxus has resulted in several ingenious campaigns like “Power of 49” for Tata Tea, Kotak Jifi, Vodafone Fan Photo and Tata Sky’s innovation around the IPL. Maxus was the first agency to set up a digital command centre for Nestle, where the marketing and agency team to monitor data from various social feeds and take real time marketing decisions. This ensured judicious use of budgets across media with a low percentage of wastage. The approach also helped expand business with new clients across industries ranging from e-commerce, banking and insurance, sports, retail, healthcare, etc.

     

    In 2014, Maxus was part of WPP Team Red (head by MEC Global) that won the Vodafone account across several countries, retaining the account in India. The expertise of a long client relationship with Vodafone domestically brought about great insight during the pitch process.

     

    It can also be noted that this year, Maxus has also brought on board two senior leaders – Navin Khemka in New Delhi to head the North and East region and focus on new business development and Anand Chakravarthy heading Maxus, West and some of their key client relationships. Earlier in the year, Maxus won the digital agency of the year and a number of metals at the Abbys 2014 for their new media capabilities.

  • Tata Sky to make equity infusion of Rs 5 bn every year over medium term

    Tata Sky to make equity infusion of Rs 5 bn every year over medium term

    MUMBAI: Direct-to-home (DTH) television service provider Tata Sky has planned equity infusion of over Rs 5 billion every year over the medium term to meet its capital expenditure and for serving its debt.

    The additional equity will be raised from investors other than the promoters and will result in dilution of Tata Sons‘ shareholding from the current 60 per cent but is expected to be gradual.

    Tata Sons would remain the single largest shareholder in Tata Sky after the equity infusions over the next few years. Tata Sons holds 60 per cent stake in Tata Sky while News Corp. has an effective stake of 29.8 per cent.
    CRISIL, which has rated its bank facilities and debentures, believes that management control will remain with Tata Sons and Tata Sky‘s association with the Tata brand will continue even after its stake gets diluted.

    Tata Sky has Rs 17.01 billion of bank facilities and recently raised Rs 1.6 billion through a debenture issue.

    The Indian DTH industry is characterised by the presence of few dominant players, leading to intense competition. The competitive intensity is reflected in frequent launches of special offers and discounts and high marketing spends by these players, whose primary goal is to increase their market share. While the industry has witnessed healthy subscriber additions, the overall profitability remains low. CRISIL believes that Tata Sky’s operating performance will improve over the medium term. It also believes that the company’s financial risk profile will remain weak over the same period, marked by negative net worth and stretched debt protection metrics.

    Tata Sky narrowed its net loss in the year ended 31 March 2012 from a year earlier, on increasing subscriber numbers.

    Tata Sky’s net loss in 2011-12 was Rs 2.98 billion, 36 per cent less than Rs 4.7 billion a year earlier. The company‘s net loss in 2009-10 was Rs 6.26 billion on total income of Rs 11.10 billion. The company‘s net sales were up 18 per cent to Rs 15.9 billion from Rs 13.5 billion a year earlier.

    The continuing losses have resulted in piling up of accumulated losses. Tata Sky‘s accumulated losses as on 31 March 2012 would amount to Rs 43.03 billion with the addition of loss in 2011-12 to the accumulated losses of Rs 40.05 billion as on 31 March 2011.

  • Shemaroo in partnership with Croma

    Shemaroo in partnership with Croma

    MUMBAI: Home video major Shemaroo has tied up with Infiniti Retail which is a subsidiary of Tata Sons to retail DVDs and VCDs at Croma. This is Infinity’s electronics mega-store in the Mumbai suburb of Juhu.

    Croma says that it is the country’s first national, large-format, specialist retail chain for consumer electronics and durables. The first Croma mega store was recently launched in Juhu, Mumbai.

    It is spread over 20,000 sq. ft. of space has on display more than 6000 products across eight categories – Home entertainment, Small appliances, white goods, computers and peripherals, communication, music, imaging and gaming software. The store currently offers more than 180 national and international brands.

    In the first 18 months, Infiniti Retail plans to launch 30 such large-format stores across the country.

    Shemaroo VP Hiren Gada said, “It gives us great pleasure to be associated with Infiniti Retail. We firmly believe that organised retail stores like Croma will help grow the legitimate home video market in India.”

    Infiniti Retail CEO Ajit Joshi says, “We are very pleased to partner with Shemaroo Video Pvt. Ltd. for this initiative. It is our endeavor to provide customers with an excellent range of quality products and world-class service. Our association with Shemaroo, a pioneer in the business of home entertainment in India, will enable us to offer our customers with a wide variety of movie titles ranging from the classics to the latest blockbusters.”