TMS Ep269: Tata group consolidation, festival sales, markets, NASA

Tata group is India’s largest conglomerate. The $128 billion revenue group has 29 listed companies, over 60 unlisted and hundreds of subsidiaries spread across 10 verticals. It employs close to a million people. Just imagine how difficult managing such a group would be. That is why its chairman N Chandrasekaran wants consolidation. He has already engineered consolidation in five verticals. And recently Tata Steel announced to merge seven of its subsidiaries with itself. The aim is to make bigger and more efficient companies. 

Tata’s super app Tata Neu too is all set for a revamp. And by Diwali, Titan will also come on-board. Meanwhile, nip is in the air and festival season is drawing close. And it is raining offers. Both the online and offline sellers are offering heavy discounts in hope of making up for the loss of previous years. So what does it mean for buyers and sellers? 

But investors are not cheering. The sharp reversal in the interest rate regime by global central banks, coupled with multi-year high inflation, has eroded returns from equities, government securities, gold, and cryptocurrencies this year. As the geo-political situation remains tense, where should an investor, with a surplus investable amount, put their money? Our next report takes a deep dive.

About 11 million kilometers away from our earthly worries an asteroid which was cruising gently in the edge of space was suddenly hit by a NASA spacecraft early Tuesday morning. But wait. It wasn’t an accident, but a planned mission by the American space agency -- which called it the world’s first planetary defense technology demonstration. This episode of the podcast has more on it.