The Venture Intelligence Blog

Model Standing Orders for Services Sector The Ministry of Labour and Employment, with an intent of standardizing the conditions of employment in industrial establishments employing three hundred or more workers to whom the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 (“ Occupational Safety Code ”) applies, has issued the draft Model Standing Orders for Services Sector, 2020 (“ Model Standing Orders ”). The term ‘establishment’ under the Occupational Safety Code  inter alia  includes a place where any industry, trade, business, manufacturing or occupation is carried on with ten or more workers employed.   Some of the key features/provisions of the Model Standing Orders are:   1.       Classification of Worker . For the purposes of the Model Standing Orders, the workers have been classified into different categories as below:   Permanent Worker, i.e., a worker who has been engaged in an industrial establishment and has com...

Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM) topped the Venture Intelligence League Table for Legal Advisor to M&A Transactions for the year 2020. CAM advised M&A deals worth $27.4 Billion (across 72 qualifying deals). AZB & Partners ($19.6 Billion across 50 deals) and Davis Polk & Wardwell ($10.2 Billion across 2 deals) took the second and third spots respectively. Trilegal ($9.6 Billion across 34 deals) and Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas (SAM, $7.3 Billion across 15 deals) completed the top five. AZB & Partners, Davis Polk & Wardwell, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, and J Sagar Associates (JSA) advised Reliance Industries (RIL group  telecom arm Jio Platforms'  $10.1 Billion  fundraise  from Facebook and Google . AZB, Khaitan & Co. , and CAM advised Brookfield's $3.7 Billion acquisition of Reliance Tower Infrastructure Trust . CAM, Khaitan & Co., SAM, Shearman & Sterling , Trilegal and Wadia Ghandy & Co. advised Reliance Retail Ventu...

Morgan Stanley , which advised the $10.1 Billion strategic investment by Facebook and Google into Reliance Industries' telecom arm Jio platforms (among other Private Equity investments in the company), topped the Venture Intelligence League Table for Transaction Advisor to M&A Deals for 2020. Ambit Corporate Finance - which advised 3 deals worth $4.0 Billion, including Brookfield's $3.7 Billion acquisition of Reliance Tower Infrastructure Trust -  took the second spot. JM Financial ($3.7 Billion across 5 deals), Metta Capital ($3.4 Billion across 3 deals) and ICICI Securities ($3.4 Billion across 2 deals) - all of whom (along with Citi) are advisors to the $3.4 Billion acquisition of Future Group's retail related ventures by Reliance Retail, announced in August - completed the top five. The  Venture Intelligence League Tables , the first such initiative exclusively tracking transactions involving India-based companies, are based on the value of PE and M&A tra...

In a year dominated by the mega investments in Reliance Industries (RIL) Group companies - especially Jio Platforms and Reliance Retail Ventures - AZB & Partners again topped the Venture Intelligence League Table for Legal Advisor to Private Equity Transactions for 2020. AZB advised PE deals worth $22.9 Billion (across 70 qualifying deals) during the year. Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM) ($17.5 Billion across 79 deals) and Davis Polk & Wardwell ($12.4 Billion across 14 deals) took the second and third spots respectively. Shardhul Amarchand Mangaldas (SAM) ($11.1 Billion across 31 deals) and Khaitan & Co. ($6.1 Billion across 64 deals) completed the top five. AZB, Davis Polk & Wardwell, SAM, Kirkland & Ellis ,  Simpson Thacher & Bartlett , Nishith Desai Associates , Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, Paul Weiss , Latham & Watkins , Paul Hastings and Trilegal acted as the legal advisors to Reliance Industries and the various private equity inve...

Morgan Stanley , which was the advisor to the Private Equity investment s in Reliance Retail Ventures ( $2.5 Billion ), as well as the spate of investments in Reliance Jio Platforms in 2020 ( including over $9.8 Billion from PE firms ), topped the Venture Intelligence League Table for Transaction Advisor to Private Equity Transactions , aggregating $12.4 Billion (across 14 deals) for the year. Ambit Corporate Finance stood second having advised deals worth $3.9 Billion across 8 qualifying deals. Avendus , with deals worth $1.7 Billion across 22 deals. Axis Capital ($1 Billion) and JP Morgan ($700 million) completed the top five for the pandemic impacted year. Among the larger deals in Q4 2020, Axis Capital advised  Blackstone's $1 Billion acquisition of packaging glass manufacturer Piramal Glass , while  ICICI Securities advised Providence’s  $255 million  exit from Bharti Infratel . Allegro Advisors advised the $150 million fundraise by Biocon Biologics from...

FANTASY SPORTS: AGE OF DIGITAL PLAYGROUNDS Introduction Earlier, only a handful of cricket and football fans understood and participated in fantasy sports in India. In the past decade, the subscriber base, number of fantasy gaming companies and the investor base have all increased multifold. Now, credit to Dream11 bagging the title sponsorship of renowned Indian Premier League and their funny television commercials, fantasy sports are well known and are played in almost each Indian household. More so, fantasy gaming is not limited to cricket and football anymore; there are fantasy leagues for almost all sports, be it a franchisee league or an international league/tournament. The statistics clearly indicate that fantasy leagues are here to stay.  Fantasy Sport  What is a fantasy sport? To put it simply, fantasy sport is a game which occurs over a predetermined number of rounds, in which participating users select, build and act as managers of their virtual teams prepared from a...

‘Unmanned Aerial Vehicles – ‘Drones’: Rise of the Unmanned Industry?’ Unmanned aerial vehicles also famously referred to as ‘ drones ’ took flight way back in the mid-19 th  Century, when they were exclusively used for military purposes. Their scope was predominantly limited to military operations till as recently as 2010. The technological advancements over the last 10 years or so have drastically transformed the drone industry from it being limited to military operations to it becoming a niche hobby, majorly on account of it being expensive for general public. Therefore, an influx of manufacturers accessed the demand in the market and started to produce and sell cheaper recreational drones which were easy to operate without the need for adequate training. This rising intrigue for drones was further flamed by Amazon’s announcement in 2015 to use drones for delivering products in under 30 minutes. This garnered a lot of attention among those who could use drones for commercial purp...