FINANCE NEWSMAKERS 2014 1. Tim Cook grows the Apple pie His was one of the most important coming out events of the year. Im proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me, Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote in an editorial for Bloomberg Businessweek on October 29, 2014. But thats not the only reason the intensely private workaholic is in this list. In 2014, Apple agreed to buy back $100 billion of its shares, settled a feud with Google Inc, bought out headphone maker and streaming-music service Beats Music and Beats Electronics, and hired Angela Ahrendts as the senior vice president of retail and online stores. The company unveiled on September 9, a smart watch called Apple Watch; two larger iPhones (4.7-inch iPhone 6 and 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus) and a mobile payments service dubbed Apple Pay. The companys worldwide annual revenue in 2014 totalled $182 billion (FY ended October 2014). And Apple is rewarding their top boss for all the hard work. According to media reports, when adding in his one-time stock chunks, Tim Cooks annualized pay is $40.4 million. 2. Piyush Goyal : Power to the people There is rarely a week these days when you wont find a mention of Piyush Goyal splashed across the front pages of Indias top newspapers. Indias Minister of State with Independent Charge for Power, Coal and New & Renewable Energy is doing his best to fire up the fortunes of an ailing sector. The former investment banker has promised 24x7 electricity supply to every household in the country within five years. This in addition to ‘uninterrupted electricity through dedicated feeders’ to the countrys farmers, special attention towards eastern states and stoppage of coal imports to fuel thermal power in couple of years. The scandal-tainted coal-mining sector is in desperate need of revival and reforms. A Supreme Court ruling in August held that all the coal block allocations between 1993 and 2010 are illegal. Goyals immediate focus would be ensuring the smooth reallocation of 74 coal blocks, due in February. As many as 30 crore people continue to languish without power, even today after 67 years of independence. And Piyush Goyal holds the power to brighten up the lives of millions of his countrymen. Literally. 3. Everything fine, Mr Finance Minister? The BJP wave swept the countrys general elections in 2014, promising improvement of the countrys economy and infrastructure, ending policy paralysis and curbing corruption. The new Prime Minister Narendra Modi chose his long-time close friend and ace lawyer Arun Jaitley to walk the talk as Indias Finance Minister. Jaitleys Budget was slammed as cautious, and questions still remain over his ability to reduce the wide fiscal deficit. Another bigger challenge is bringing back black money stashed abroad and implementing the Goods and Services Tax (GST). It is a rare team where a countrys central government and central banks agree on the same matters. Curbing inflation and raising liquidity remains a top priority for both, Jaitley and RBI governor Raghuram Rajan. All eyes will now be on Dec 2, to see whether Rajan will accede to Jaitleys demand and slash interest rates in a bid to boost growth. Call it luck, but things are looking up for Indian economy. The inflation rate in India averaged 9.23% from 2012 until 2014, but hit record low of 5.52% in Oct 2014. The index for industrial output (IIP) for the month of September came in at 2.5%, against 0.4 percent in August. Foreign Direct Investment in India increased to $3577 million in Sept against $2514 million in August 2014. Meanwhile, the country has widened its doors for foreign investment in cash-starved sectors such as insurance, railways, defence and construction. A law could also raise the cap for the pension industry. This spells plenty of dollars flowing into the country. The key question now: how well can Jaitley put it to good use? 4. Bill Gates Have you met the richest man in the world? With a net worth of $82.2 billion, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates topped the Forbes magazine’s annual list of the richest people on the planet 2014. Gates has been on the top spot of the list for 15 of the last 20 rankings, according to Forbes. The rise in his earnings has knocked off Mexico’s Carlos Slim into the second spot. The world’s richest man is also well known for his generosity. In early November, Bill Gates announced that his foundation, Bill & Malinda Gates Foundation, would spend $500 million to fight malaria and other infectious diseases in the developing world. According to Forbes, he has also donated $30 billion since 2000. When Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg dared Bill Gates to complete the ice bucket challenge, a social media campaign that brought in $115 million donations to fight the disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Gates outdid everyone else with a high-tech design he created to pour a bucket of ice water on himself. And there’s more to this talented person. Bill Gates is ranked the seventh most powerful person worldwide, according to Forbes. 5. Vishal Sikka On June 12, 2014, Dr Vishal Sikka was appointed as the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of India’s second largest IT services exporter. He took over his role as CEO and MD of Infosys from S D Shibulal on August 1, 2014. In a bid to turn the company around in the IT services industry, Infosys has for the first time chosen an outsider over one of its seven founders to head the company. Vishal Sikka was, until recently before joining Infosys, a member of the Executive Board of SAP AG, leading all products and driving innovation globally. At SAP, he was responsible for all products, from traditional and cloud-based applications to technology and platform products including HANA, analytics, mobile and middleware. Educated at Stanford University, Sikka has worked closely with leaders of global companies in building breakthrough business solutions. 6. Kris Gopalakrishnan Around 33 years ago, Senapathy Gopalakrishnan, popularly known as Kris Gopalakrishnan, was among the group of seven who founded Infosys, India’s major IT services company headquartered in Bengaluru. Gopalakrishnan stepped down as Executive Vice-Chairman on June 14, 2014. However, he continued on the Infosys board till October 10, 2014 as non-Executive Vice-Chairman. In 2007, after the resignation of Nandan Nilekani, Gopalakrishnan was made the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director. He was then appointed as Executive Vice-Chairman in 2013. For the love of science, Gopalakrishnan gave away Rs 225 crore to the Indian Institute of Science to develop a centre for brain research. Gopalakrishnan has been appointed the President of Confederation of Indian Industry for 2013-14. He succeeds industrialist and philanthropist Adi Godrej. 7. Christophe de Margerie Under mysterious circumstances in Moscow, Christophe de Margerie, CEO of Total, France’s largest oil company, was killed in a plane crash. Despite many conspiracy theories, it is believed that his death was caused when his jet collided with a snow removal plough at Moscow’s Vnukovo international airport. A few hours before his death, De Margerie had met the Russian prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, at his country residence outside Moscow to discuss foreign investment in Russia, according to the Vedomosti newspaper. He was one of the most recognizable figures among the world’s top oil executives who defended Russia and its energy policies staunchly amid the conflict in Ukraine. De Margerie joined Total Group after graduating from Ecole Superieure de Commerce in Paris. He became chief executive officer of the company in February 2007. 8. Karl Slym Karl Slym was the Managing Director of Tata Motors from October 2012 to January 2014, before he jumped to his death in Bangkok’s Shangri-La Hotel. Reports suggest that the 51-year-old top executive who was in Bangkok for a meeting may have committed suicide. A hotel staff identified the English businessman on the fourth floor balcony, where he died from the impact of the fall, according to the police. Slym had taken the plunge from his room on the 22nd floor. Before joining Tata Motors, Slym was the executive vice-president of SGMW Motors, China, a General Motors joint venture. Prior to that, during 2007-11, he was president, managing director and board member of General Motors in India. 9. Satya Nadella Satya Nadella joined Microsoft 22 years ago. In February 2014 he was appointed as the company’s chief executive officer. This India-born leader is a successor of Steve Ballmer, who headed the company for 14 years before he retired. According to Business Insider, the 46-year-old CEO was granted a starter kit of stock valued at about $65 million, which wont begin to vest until 2019 as part of his promotion. Plus, he got another one-time stock grant worth $13.5 million in August 2013 to keep him around during the CEO search process. It vests over seven years. The Institutional Shareholder Services calculates his base salary $918,917 for a role he assumed in February and a cash bonus of $3.6 million. Previously, Nadella was executive vice president of Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise group, responsible for building and running the company’s computing platforms, developer tools and cloud services. Prior to joining Microsoft, Nadella worked with Sun Microsystems, as a member of its technology staff. He holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering in electronics and communication from Manipal Institute of Technology, Karnataka. After moving to the US, Nadella earned an MS in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. 10. Narayana Murthy After co-founding Infosys 33 years ago and running the company for 21 years as CEO, Narayana Murthy bid farewell to Infosys in June 2014. Murthy, who first retired as CEO in August 2011 returned to the outsourcing major as Executive Chairman and Additional Director in June 2013 when the company fell behind its peers. However, he stepped down as Executive Chairman On June 14, 2014. Narayana Murthy started his career at IIM Ahmedabad as chief systems programmer. There he worked on Indias first time-sharing computer system and designed and implemented a BASIC interpreter for Electronics Corporation of India Limited. At Infosys Murthy articulated, designed and implemented the Global Delivery Model for IT services outsourcing from India. 11. Subrata Roy Supreme Court of India ordered the arrest of Sahara chief Subrata Roy in February 2014 when he failed to appear at a contempt hearing over his firm’s failure to repay investors who were sold outlawed bonds. After concluding that Sahara Group had flouted capital market rules in order to skirt regulatory scrutiny, in 2011, SEBI ordered the company to repay its investors, along with 15 percent annual interest. Roy has been in custody of the New Delhi Tihar jail on condition of depositing Rs 10, 000 crore with market regulator SEBI. The group has been struggling to raise the money to secure bail for its chief after the court rejected Sahara’s proposal to pay the money instalments. Business tycoon, Roy, has been negotiating the sale of his hotels, Grosvenor House in London and the Plaza in New York since August to raise money for his bail. 12. Mukesh Ambani He’s the richest man in India. He ranks among the most powerful people in the world. Petrochemicals, oil and gas are the source of his wealth. Meet Mukesh Ambani, the man who topped Forbes’ list of Indian rich with a net worth of $22.7 billion. Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries is India’s largest business conglomerate. He initiated Reliance Industries Limited’s backward integration journey from textiles into polyester fibres when he joined the company in 1981. In May 2014 Reliance paid $655 million for media outfit Network18. Reliance Retail’s Reliance Fresh has entered India’s crowded e-commerce market without any marketing. As a start, the online store has started taking online orders of household items, groceries and fresh produce in Mumbai. Following the induction of Nita Ambani, his wife, on the board of Reliance Industries in June, Mukesh Ambani recently appointed his children Isha and Akash on the board of Reliance Jio Infocomm and Reliance Retail Ventures, the telecom and retail units of Ambani’s Reliance Industries to ensure that the next generation will be in control of the family empire. 13. Vijay Mallya India’s flamboyant tycoon, Vijay Mallya was declared a willful defaulter by banks since the grounding of Kingfisher Airlines in October 2012. He is no longer the largest shareholder of United Breweries Ltd. In July 2014 Diageo Plc. bought an additional 26 percent of United Spirits shares from public shareholders. The company had faced embarrassments after having bought 25 percent stake in United Spirits in July 2013. From December 1, 2014, India’s stock exchanges will suspend trading of shares of grounded Kingfisher Airlines for failing to comply with rules on reporting financial results for two consecutive quarters. Indian banks are preparing to seize the liquor baron’s Bali-style mansion, Kingfisher Villa, one of Vijay Mallya’s prized properties in Goa, as he has failed to repay debts. 14. Janet Yellen Janet Yellen was sworn in to be Chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in February 2014. She is the first woman to hold this position. Previously, she was President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco; Chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President Bill Clinton; and Professor Emerita at the University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business. Janet Yellen was elected as the second most powerful woman in the world by Forbes. She’s the highest-ranking American on the list. Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen and her colleagues were preparing the markets for their first rate hike in over six years, according to MarketWatch. 15. The Bansals From Flipkart and Myntra to Snapdeal and Lenskart, the Bansals are all geared up to rule the nation’s online industry. Did you know that India’s major e-tailing sector is led by the Bansals? Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal are founders of India’s biggest e-commerce player, Flipkart. They both gained online market experience while they worked at Amazon before setting up Flipkart in 2007. Despite the failure of the company’s ‘Big Billion Day’ sale, Bengaluru-based entrepreneurs have managed to generate more than Rs 6, 000 crore through sales. Myntra was co-founded by Mukesh Bansal, a former IITian who along with his friends established a space for fashion and lifestyle in India’s e-commerce sector. In May 2014, Myntra and Flipkart merged giving Amazon a stiff competition in India’s booming online market. In February 2010, Rohit Bansal, an alumnus of IIT Delhi co-founded Snapdeal, an online marketplace. In a bid to invest in India’s e-commerce industry, Japanese firm Softbank has invested over Rs 3, 500 crore in Delhi-based Snapdeal. Peyush Bansal founded Eyewear company Lenskart in November 2010. Headquartered in New Delhi, this firm is known for its prescription eyeglasses, contact lenses and sunglasses in India’s online market. To strengthen its offline presence, it has seven offline franchise stores under the brand name LensKart in Chandigarh, Pune, Agartala, Delhi and Goa.
Posted on: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 09:24:20 +0000